Dr. Kay Tye: The Biology of Social Interactions and Emotions

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford School of

Medicine my guest today is Dr K Tai Dr K

Tai is a professor of neuroscience at

the sulk Institute for biological

studies she did her training at MIT and

at Stanford and is currently an

investigator with the Howard Hughes

Medical Institute which is a highly

curated group of individuals who are

incentivized to do highrisk high reward

work and Pioneer new areas of biological

study throughout her career Dr Kai has

made fundamental breakthroughs into our

understanding of the brain including

demonstrating that a brain area called

the amydala which most people associate

with fear and threat detection is

actually involved in reinforcement of

behaviors and experiences that are

positive and involve reward her current

work focuses on various aspects of

social interaction including what

happens when we feel lonely or isolated

indeed today K Tai will tell us about

her discovery of so-called loneliness

neurons neurons that give us that sense

that we are not being fulfilled from our

social interactions she also describes a

phenomenon she discovered called social

homeostasis which is our sense that we

are experiencing enough not enough or

just enough social interaction

irrespective of whether or not we are an

introvert or an extrovert we also talk

about social hierarchies and social rank

how people and animals tear out into

so-called alphas and betas subordinates

and dominants Etc in all sorts of social

interactions I think everyone will find

that discussion especially interesting

and we talk about the role of social

media and online interactions and why

despite extensive interaction with many

many individuals those social media and

online interactions can often leave us

feeling deprived in specific ways we

talk about the neurochemical the neural

circuit and some of the hormonal aspects

of social interactions it's a discussion

that by the end will have you thinking

far more deeply about what is a social

interaction and why certain social

interactions leave us feeling so good

others feeling sort of meh and why other

social interactions or lack of social

interactions can often leave us feeling

quite depleted even depressed it's a

conversation Central to mental illness

and the understanding of things like

like depression and anxiety PTSD and

isolation and it's a conversation

Central to mental health and in order to

build healthy social interactions before

we begin I'd like to emphasize that this

podcast is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford it is however

part of my desire and effort to bring

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huberman and now for my conversation

with Dr K Tai Dr K Tai welcome Andy

huberman what a treat folks are going to

hear you call me Andy and wonder if my

name is Andy I always know who I'm

speaking to according to whether or not

they call me Andrew which is my family

and people that I know after a certain

period of my life Drew which are people

that know me through my very brief and

non- illustrious career in boxing

and Andy which are people that met me as

I was coming up through science uh let's

just put it this way there was another

Andrew we did a coin flip and I lost so

Andy is fine Andrew is fine whatever

makes you comfortable what's important

today is not how anyone refers to me but

rather the discussion about your work

which is spectacular I've known you a

long time and I've been following your

career and it's just been amazing and

wonderful to see the contributions

you've made to science and also to the

culture of science so we're going to

talk about both of those things to kick

things off let's talk about a brain

structure that most people I think have

heard of but that is badly misunderstood

and that's the amydala most people hear

amydala and they think oh fear that's

what the amydala is all about but you

know

and I'm hoping you'll educate us on the

fact that that the amydala is actually

far more complex than that and far more

interesting than that so when you hear

the word amydala where does your mind go

I agree that a lot of the the bandwidth

on the amydala has been occupied by fear

studies but we've known actually for

really long time that the amydala is

important for all sorts of emotional

processing since clu and beuty

performed lesions on on monkeys and

found that monkeys would then have flat

affective responses to all sorts of

different stimuli poop food inanimate

object whatever it was just nothing no

emotion no emotional response no

motivational significance however you

want to phrase it to things that usually

would make you either you know disgusted

or excited or neutral and so um I think

that that knowledge about the amydala

was there from the beginning it's not

something I came up with um but then

it's interesting it's almost a it's a

meta statement or meta observation about

how scientific research progresses

sometimes you make a lot of progress in

one particular vein because it's easy to

press forward there but it's important

to also think about all the other parts

and filling in the space in between to

make sure you haven't missed anything so

the narrative about the amigdala became

about fear and and I think also just

when we think about

survival when you are an animal in the

natural world especially if you're a

prey animal which is the majority you

know that's a lot of animals um then you

need to prioritize escaping a predator

it's immediate threat on your survival

versus rewards set mating drinking water

getting food these things can be done

later escaping this Predator is

Paramount and so there should be some

natural a symmetry in how we process

emotion at Baseline and so that's

something that we've looked into a lot

as well but um I think the the big

picture discovery that um my team has

contributed to our understanding of the

amigdala is that it represents a fork in

the road uh for processing emotional

veence and thinking about all these old

psychological theories about how do you

emotionally evaluate the world around

you what's what's the what's the chain

of events is there chain of events

what's happening in a certain order um

versus what's happening in parallel for

example one model is you know there's

all this information that comes in and

then we have to filter out what's

important um what's going to be

something I need to pay attention to

versus what do I need to ignore if I'm

driving I need to pay attention to the

road this this light this pedestrian

just started walking versus you know

what it feels like for my sock to be

touching my foot not super relevant

right now or the my butt against the

seat not nothing I need to pay attention

to I need to focus on you know the

dynamic information then you have to

select you know the Second Step would be

selecting whether it's good or bad and

what you want to do with it and so that

process I think the selection of whether

you're um assigning it a positive or

negative veilance happens in the amydala

so glad you brought up this word

veilance I think it's a word that some

scientists but most of the general

public are probably not familiar with so

let's um talk about veilance um and then

I want to go back to the amydala and um

kind of explore some of its diversity of

function a little bit more so when I

hear the word veilance I think goodness

versus Badness yeah of something is that

basically basically it's been used in a

lot of different fields I think of that

you know negative and positive numbers

or or um but it's an analogy that we

take to just mean yeah net positive net

net negative and it's it's a intentional

departure from the word value um value

becomes very scalar everything's on you

know it can be in the same direction

with different magnitudes is often how

we think about value it it could be

representing both valances but um often

it's a small reward and a big reward or

small punishment and big punishment is

how experimentally we parse um value and

so veillance is just asking about um how

your brain responds to things that are

good or bad what are neurons that might

respond similarly to things that are

good and bad you know those might be

importance neurons rather than um

positive or negative veilance neurons so

yeah I I think it's a it's just a term

that that signifies that next step so

when we walk into say a novel

environment um do you think that our

amygdalas are active and really trying

to figure out whether or not an

environment a set of people or a person

is safe and really just check that box

first in order to be able to do other

things is you know is this business of

um determining veilance and the role of

the amydala in that kind of the first

gate that we have to walk through

anytime we're in a new environment for

instance you showed up here today and

you mentioned you know I think I locked

my car and um and I said you'll be fine

in this neighborhood either way and then

you walked in and presumably you were

taking in the new environment meeting

some new people um we had a little

discussion about caffeine uh a little

discussion about alcohol and presumably

because you and I know one another you

felt safe I would hope so but presumably

the amydala is always performing this

role even if we have some prior

knowledge about something just figuring

out am I safe here where are the exits

where are the entrances uh who's here

what's their story um do you think all

of that is is operating and do you think

it's always conscious or is it largely

unconscious to us

okay so there's a few different

questions there um first I want to

address the the question about novelty

and then I want to come back to this the

other issue of conscious but um the way

that amydala works is its job is is to

assign meaning to anything that could

have motivational significance and so if

it's a brand new thing we're paying

attention we're seeing if if it if it

mattered did it matter and so I think

anything that's novel even if we don't

know what it means a loud sound you've

never heard before um even if it

signifies nothing of motivational

significance the first few times that

you're presented with it you'll get an

amigdalar response so you see this in

the lab play the tone for the first time

and then there's a response that rapidly

decays when the tone doesn't end up

predicting anything that the the animal

can can detect or human is this also

true in this is true in humans um if

you're the type of person that puts your

phone on do not disturb versus has it on

vibrate and you know sometimes it's

always vibrating and it's just it

vibrates all the time whereas I put my

phone on do not disturb and so when

someone else's phone rings it's very

startling to me but they they don't even

notice because their phone that's just

the sound their phone makes it makes it

all the time so I think it has to do

with how many times you're presented

with it and it's it's a startle response

so the first few times that you are

presented with a stimulus uh the amydala

will respond and then it decays very

quickly and then only if that stimulus

predicts something important or

something rewarding or or punishing then

uh will will begin to respond again so

it's it's like you're giving everything

novel

a chance to to tell you in one trial in

single trial learning um if something's

going to happen and

so um I think a fire alarm is a great

example you know fire alarm goes off

you're

you're instantly you know you're looking

around is there anything happening even

even just people rushing out you know

there's there's this the Salient thing

that you're going to respond to and you

know if you have a lot of fire drills

then you might respond differently after

a while so I think that's the

habituation component you mentioned that

the amigdala will respond to a novel

stimulus

um and if it predicts something

interesting then other things happen

we'll talk about those um if not the

amydala stops responding and you said

something really important which is that

the amydala will respond to something

that is predicting reward or punishment

and I think most people don't realize

that in fact I think a lot of early

career neurobiologists don't realize

that that the amydala is not just

involved in fear and Punishment um so

when we talk about the amydala

presumably we're talking about the

amydala complex a bunch of other things

so is it true that there are neurons in

the amydala complex that predict reward

and others that predict fear and

Punishment yeah so um as a graduate

student I worked on a part of the

amydala called the basolateral amydala

it's still a complex Within the broader

amydala

um this brain region is cortical like in

that it's mostly glutamatergic neurons

with some gab argic neurons mixed in but

without the same structure that the

cortex has um and I studied the the

amigdala in the context of reward I

found essentially that when you induce

plasticity you get a synaptic

strengthening when you uh when animals

learn things amigdala neurons fire in

response to cues that predict rewards

and this was you coming into the context

of a field that had shown that this

happens with fear and so this became I I

remember my the very first time I gave

um a SC a presentation at a scientific

conference I was a junior graduate

student I was given a 10-minute talk at

the you know inaugural amigdala Gordon

research conference many famous

professors were

speaking and there were two talks about

the amigdala and reward and I was one of

them and the response to the talk was

just how is this possible how can how

can the amydala how can how can you get

the same readout for reward and fear and

really it came to be there's two two

possibilities I there's more

possibilities but the main two

possibilities are number one that the

amydala wasn't specific for fear at all

it just responds to anything important

if it's important it responds period the

other possibility is that the amydala is

sending has different neurons that

respond to positive and negative

predictive stimuli and sends this

information to different Downstream

targets to respond differently obviously

I respond differently to a reward I walk

towards it I I consume it a punishment

I'm avoiding it and so clearly the

behaviors are diametrically opposed and

so to me it seemed very possible at

least that that there was a Divergence

point and maybe this could be it and so

we just did some very simple experiments

when I first started my lab to trace the

projection targets of amydala neurons

and record and so everything's all mixed

up together so it's not obvious that

they would that that this would be a

fork in the road but when you look at

them you do see that there are

projections that come from the amigdala

that are predominantly encoding either

reward or fear and there's many

different projections and um you know

this is just the beginning but this was

a time when it

a novel concept to even think that

neurons from one region could have

completely different functions going to

different Downstream targets which now

seems totally obvious um and it there's

hundreds and hundreds of papers showing

it now but at the time it was difficult

to get this work published because

that's just not how people thought

about information moving through the

brain I guess well I think um first of

all such important work and so wonderful

to be uh uh early in the the phase of

recasting how the brain works which is

what you did um I think most people in

the general public still think amydala

fear and uh clearly it's able to Signal

reward and Punishment as you discovered

and are now pointing out um I'm curious

does the amydala have a direct line to

some of the organs of the body that can

change our bodily activation state heart

rate breathing rate um muscle tension

because I think most of us experience

fear and reward as both in our head in

our brains but also of the body great

question great question so um I'll tell

you the clues that lead me to my current

working model which may you know is not

necessarily the final word but I would

say that I think the amydala complex as

we're discussing it these 13 subnuclei

that reside you know in the temporal

lobe

they are important for assigning

importance but they're not important for

producing the actual autonomic arousal

that we associate with Panic or fear the

reason I say this is there's a famous

case study patient SM who have has

bilateral damage to her amyd and um in

you know no responses to emotional faces

no responses to fearful stimuli um but

if you

if capable of having the Panic response

due to low to to Suffocation associated

with it with Suffocation and so there's

still the ability to produce that panic

and arousal response um it's just not

the cognitive evaluation of it I think

that's what we think the amydala is

doing is assigning that it it does

receive information from the rest of the

body um there are for example gin

receptors in the amydala things that can

sense hunger and um we've done

some some work looking at this kind of

inspired by I'm not sure if this you're

familiar with this study um it's a

controversial study Dan zigger 2011 but

where the Supreme Court judges they they

looked at Supreme Court Judge rulings on

on parole decisions um across the day

relative to meal breaks and you can see

right after it's like it's like

breakfast you know 90% everybody's

getting for everybody's getting out yeah

and then it just drops till 10% then

there's lunch then we're back to 80% and

then it just precipitously drops to

single digits again so the judges are

changing the leniency of their rulings

depending on how wellfed they are you

know there there are counterarguments to

this but that is strongly what the data

suggests you know it is not a controlled

study it is just a striking correlation

um but it's the it's it's not a

completely novel concept the hangry

phenomenon I'm sure I don't know

everybody's different I certainly

experience it um but we we think that

when you are getting strong signals from

the body for example you know I think I

think the amdal is going to be able to

detect a lot of different homeostatic

inputs even though we haven't we don't

have evidence for that yet but for

specifically energy balance when you're

hungry um your amydala can detect it

perhaps through grin receptors or other

other you know mechanisms um and then

what we see is that in that food deprive

after one day of food dep deprivation

for mice

um you can see this shift in the balance

between the positive veilance um

encoding projection neurons and the

negative veence en coding projection

neurons and a at

Baseline fear trumps all the negative

projection neurons you know can silence

the reward projection ones which makes

sense if I need to run away from this

Predator you know I can't I can't worry

about eating this food right now but if

I'm in a near starvation like state

which for my they have very high

metabolism so one day without food is a

really big deal um they only last a few

days so um at this point they are

kicking into survival mode where

actually getting food becomes the the

greater need and you'll see animals you

know hunting in ways they normally

wouldn't hunt when when they're really

desperate and so this mode of of food

deprivation shifts things so that the

reward um pathway actually has stronger

power to to influence and silence the uh

fear pathway than before wow the brain

is so smart it really is it can take

what we normally think of as a priority

list fear and staying safe is more

important than food reward and then if

food and acquiring food is critical to

survival it can invert all that is what

you're saying exactly amazing and it

happens you know in a day it seems

reversible so that's something that

we're looking at right now and thinking

about um um how specific is this this to

food is this true for lots of different

things what about exercise other other

stressors that are you know potentially

more positive the amydala is able to

detect a lot of different signals from

the environment and we're not sure how

all of that gets in there um so I think

one of the the detection of the

environment has been you know really

well worked out in terms of our basic

sensory modalities but think about the

things that really affect your emotions

day-to- day at least for me as a human

in this Society the things that affect

my emotions mostly today are almost

entirely social interactions very subtle

ones ones that don't seem to threaten my

life or safety you know very small

subtle um social interactions are are

what you know have the greatest bearing

I think on um my emotional evaluation

and my emotional bandwidth and what is

that how do we detect that how do we

assemble this information apply all the

Nuance you know put on the onion layers

of social programming to come out with

whatever you know I interpret this

gesture to mean it's it's pretty

incredible and so that's kind of where

uh my research program has has been

sliding such a interesting area let's

drill into it a bit um and to put it in

context maybe um we talk about social

media um so on social media um whether

or not it's Instagram or X those are

seem to be the two major platforms I'm

not on Tik Tok

um people say stuff sometimes they say

positive things sometimes they see say

negative things sometimes they say

things that are sort of neutral um so it

seems to me that nowadays if one is on

these social media platforms that we are

um we've sort of crowdsourced

this phenomenon of social interaction in

a way that we hadn't before because I I

grew up prior to the Advent of social

media and I could bring my physical body

into certain environments and not others

even at high school I could hang out we

had an area called the Batcave where you

know skateboarders and some other at

that time Misfits hung out with the quad

where the cool kids hung out um Etc you

could you could pick your Niche okay

social media is not like that you can

pick followers they can pick you Etc but

I think since most people have social

media nowadays seems or on there in some

ways that we've placed ourselves in the

center of an arena which we have a ton

of incoming input we all most of us have

amigdalas two of them amydala you

pointed out one on each side of the

brain and presumably we're on these

platforms to receive positive feedback

and avoid negative feedback

however there does seem to be a cohort

of people who seem to like the friction

of com combat or kind of let's just call

it high friction interactions or

moderate friction interactions they like

to argue they like to parse ideas it's

not all bad necessarily um so have you

ever looked at social media in your in

your own mind looked at social media

through the lens of of amydala filtering

or through the lens of of neural circuit

filtering and kind of wondered um what's

going on there that someone with without

your in-depth knowledge of these brain

circuitries would not think to uh look

at that landscape through or maybe we

could just do that now as a as as a kind

of play experiment I like that um so I a

lot of people ask me about social media

from the context of is this of is this

social contact meaningful is this

positive does this count does this help

you not feel lonely um and of course I

don't know the answer we haven't done

that particular study yet and I don't I

don't know of that specific study having

been performed but my prediction um is

that it's not going to do much because I

I believe that a key component of what I

would consider social contact heavily

depends on having some interbrain

synchron some interaction in in that is

synchronous and I think with social

media sometimes there can be an engaging

dialogue that plays out in near real

time but generally speaking it's

asynchronous you're looking at things

that are happened that you're not a part

of you're excluded from all these things

they happened in Australia yesterday and

I'm on there saying cool love it and

then the person's already asleep yes

exactly that's by asynchronous

asynchronous like that we're not

experiencing things at the same time

it's not a shared experience you know

that in in terms of that having that

Bond necessarily and so I've never

actually been asked about how the

amydala processes social media um I

guess I think what happens is you know

the amydala is just responding to

stimuli sending up bottom up signals you

know it's a caricature of of um bottom

up and top down processing let's give an

example that I'm I'm walking down the

street and all of a sudden I hear like a

really ferocious dog barking at me all

going crazy and then I get super scared

and then I realize okay there's a fence

so the amydala detect you know heard the

dog barking hey there's a dog barking

and you know I'm freaking out then my

prefrontal cortex realizes there the F

it looks very sturdy this fence looks

stable and then I'm relaxing and I'm

resuming my walking normally you know I

think that's sort of the dance that our

brain is doing when we have top down and

bottom up uh information then we're

trying to stay focused so for me I think

when I'm on social media there's so many

stimuli that that are evoking responses

and um to be completely transparent and

I know this is not something that

everybody else does or can do is

necessarily what's best for them but I

work very hard to control input from the

top down um in terms of I really really

limit the amount I I basically don't

check email or go on social media I

would say I'm on social media or email

less than one hour per week basically

perek per week oh I have to say to that

is congratulations we'll talk about

social media again in a second but as a

fellow Professor email once a week I've

heard of people scheduling their times

for email responses but once a week that

is awesome I have have people who help

me get through it and filter out what's

important but otherwise I just whenever

I do my own email I say yes to all these

things then I make all these plans and

then I'm and then I'm have too many

trips and I'm responding fra fragmented

fragmented and it's just you know

overcommit and I think um I know my

limits sometimes it's difficult ult for

me to be in my amydala mode responding

to stimuli and yet letting my prefrontal

cortex do its thing so I've set some

very heavy prefrontal cortically

selected limits of the input I put in so

that my brain can function and be clear

I can't be creative I can't have

epiphanies if there's all this clutter

of like writing this person back and

blah blah blah blah blah tweet tweet

it's just you know trash out wipe

squeegee squeegee the brain down so that

we can actually grow something beautiful

and new

well and I want to re-emphasize what I

said in my introduction which is that I

mean you are oh so productive and when I

say productive I don't just mean

productive like plug-and chug you you

the work you've done is incredibly

creative you transformed our

understanding of what this famous

structure the amydala actually does I

mean you've made so many important

discoveries as a consequence of

presumably other things but including

wiping away all this incoming clutter as

you said controlling the top- down

inputs I have to ask just from a

practical standpoint during that one

hour a week are you reading every email

that came in or are you just being very

selective about which emails so you're

not opening most emails no I don't open

most emails amazing no I just I search

for the ones that my assistant

identifies as the one I need to open

there's like a list of things that i'

would be interested in and then we'll go

through the list and then you know

sometimes it requires me to go and find

the email and respond to my myself

because it that is and then I would do

that for 10 you know 10 10 minutes a day

or something do you recommend get out of

there as soon as I can love it um do you

pass on this advice to the people that

you train I think it depends on what

resources and what's your what's the

what's your job right now right so I

think um as a traine I definitely did my

as a assistant professor I did my own

emails but at a certain point um I was

just never getting to the bottom and

then it would just stress me out make me

feel overwhelmed and what is my job my

job is to number

one be a

stable core of a sustainable research

program and um that just requires me

having a lot of mental health and

well-being and um and and

clear-mindedness and I need to be able

to come up with creative ideas I need to

be able to Sprint when there's a

deadline and I I just can't exhaust my

system with

unnecessary I would call them

quadrant four in the time management

quadrant if you're familiar with this

you know uh important urgent certain

things are urgent but not important some

things are Urgent some things are

neither important nor urgent that's most

emails are are like if you read time

management literature and you have the

luxury to have someone else help you or

something that's like so well trained to

be really good at cap chaptering things

that are important and you know

sometimes I miss emails but emails are

not the way my traines would reach me

they would reach me in a different way

um and then emails are for everyone else

that I didn't give my number to you know

I feel so honored to have have your

contact I'd like to take a brief moment

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huberman I think this is wonderful

advice for people to hear um we have a

future guest on this podcast named Cal

Newport he wrote the book deep work and

he has another book called A World

Without email he's a computer science

professor at Georgetown where he talks

extensively about the tremendous career

but also relationship and life value of

doing essentially what you're describing

although I do think Kay that you

represent kind of the extreme of what

I've um become aware of in terms of

people that can limit the amount of time

on uh social media platforms and email

anyway I just want to say um

congratulations I just want to say that

again and I think it even if people

don't reduce to one hour per week I

think that making some effort toward

reducing the amount of incoming as you

said controlling the top- down inputs to

the amydala but also to the rest of the

brain involved in Creative processing

Etc is so key and we actually do have

agency it's just it's it's tough um

sometimes to build up that discipline so

you're doing a tremendous service by

sharing that somebody as successful as

you does this presumably is successful

in part because you do this could we by

extension say that many people since

billions of people are on social media

are likely um triggering the activation

of their amygdala clouding out other

more potentially productive activation

of their neural circuits by S just

making themselves freely available to

the to the uh thoughts and words and

impulses of others I mean to me it seems

the answer would be yes but I'd like to

know what you think I mean I think um

and there's something to be said there's

definitely been moments where I've I've

you know gone a deep into social media

and spent more time in a certain burst

right that is isolated and I think that

there's a lot to be learned from social

media so to actually to bring it back to

one point you mentioned earlier um on

social media sometimes people Pro just

want accolades and sometimes there's a

lot of of friction one of the reasons I

stay on social media even though I'm

making this big effort to sort of

declutter my Consciousness is because of

that feedback especially when you know

for someone like you I imagine this has

got to be super true and even for me at

a certain point in my career it just

felt like people don't want to tell me

bad news to my face as much anymore

everybody's so positive all the time and

you know what they what are they really

thinking and social media allows you the

protection of anonymity to say what you

really think without um consequence

essentially and so on the oneand the

consequence-free

um nature of being able to just say

things can be very dangerous but at the

same time for me I really value just

being able to receive it I I'm you know

I'm a big girl I can filter out what I

want when I get the all the inputs but

if I don't receive the inputs sometimes

it's hard to learn from the feedback I'm

not getting so even sometimes feedback

is given in a not very nice way I can

still create a model for someone else

that has this perspective that I can

take with me and that can be another

perspective I can honor easily in the

future because I have this theory of

mind for someone some someone would get

upset about that uh you know that's

something that could be harmful to

people who are think you know have this

theory of mind so I think it's super

valuable from that perspective and

that's why I continue to use

it great yeah I I really applaud that as

well I I always read my teaching evals

because they're Anonymous and yes I do

wonder you know what grade the different

uh people who gave different evals you

know got I don't know that information I

sometimes wonder do they attend the

class or they just angry they didn't do

well on the exam but that really

represents the small fraction of

feedback that I'm um that I wonder about

most of it um that's valuable to me is

the hey you know liked the course but

these parts really sucked Professor

huberman or this part was completely

unclear or completely hated the way you

blank blank and blanked because that

feedback is something I can really work

with to improve so I think um course EV

vals are are similar to what you're

describing I think there's value there

if I were to just look at the the

positive feedback and then ignore the

negative feedback and write those people

off then I don't think I could improve

as a teacher actually I always encourage

comments and feedback and suggestions in

the YouTube comments for this podcast

for that reason and I do read the

comments I go through and I read and um

a few of them sting um but you know the

positive feedback is great too sometimes

it's more of this please y or less of

that please I think there there's

information in that um so I think it

sounds like you've been doing all of

these things naturally I so so actually

then uh since I've had my research group

my my lab um we do an anonymous lab

survey every it's supposed to be about

every 18 months and then it's a whole

long process of going through it and

it's just evolved it's I think it's the

fourth or fifth time we've done it and

so it's now I think it's like 70

questions it's so many question we got

maybe we should we should trim it down

but it it ends up being hundreds of

pages of of text you know short answer

sometimes long answer feedback from

anonymously from people in my lab my lab

is pretty big so it's it's you know I'm

not even trying to really guess who is

saying it it's just feedback and it

takes me months to go through with it

and and get all the feedback and it is

so useful I mean in a class the the the

amount of contact that you have is it's

it's restricted to this very specific

time and space whereas when you're

mentoring someone over the course of

years there's a lot of different

there's a lot of different points of of

content and interaction and you know

you're in the lab all 40 hours a week or

whatever and you know going trip meeting

here there's just a lot of different

different ways to improve and ways we've

never you know I haven't had any

training in how to be a really great

mentor and so I'm getting that training

now I'm making my own course and my

mentees are my teachers and um I really

am grateful for the the tutelage that

they provide for free in this anonym

must lab survey sometimes it makes me

cry but sometimes it makes me feel

really good about something that I'm

doing that's working and in any case it

makes me feel that I have ground truth I

guess I still don't know but when people

say things that sting um it makes me

feel like they're saying what they

really think and they're not holding

back it doesn't you know and um bad news

feels like reality and so that is very

something about that is rewarding

um just to feel like I have reality

rather than I'm getting something else

you know that the model doesn't quite

fit it's very unsatisfying with the

model doesn't quite fit so I love the

word ground truth there's something so

beautiful to that and I I resonate with

um what you're

saying let's go back to social

interaction something that your lab is

doing um lots of work on nowadays and

maybe we could shift to the sorts of

social interaction that most of us are

familiar with with the um sitting across

the table having a coffee with somebody

the taking a walk with somebody maybe a

phone call yeah um maybe a tough

conversation um maybe a playful you know

um you know unscripted conversation um

maybe a meal at a holiday dinner you

know there's a huge range there what

what do we know about the value of

social

interaction at the level of sort of core

biological needs like at the level of

neural circuits and maybe even hormones

I mean you know most people have heard

of oxytocin they think the love hormone

but it's there's so much more there for

people to understand and know about you

know how important is this thing that we

call social interaction and how bad do

things get when we're not getting the

right kinds of social interaction you

know I think this is this is a great

question and I'm glad that it's become

something that has been recognized at a

more global a national scale just the

importance of of having social support

in our lives for heal for our well-being

um but social isolation or even just

perceived loneliness has immense Health

consequences for all social species so

um shortened

lifespan

increased mood

disorders um increased actually

morbidity and mortality for disease like

cancer or heart disease that you know um

might not be what we would normally

think and so I think understanding how

each of those processes is happening

those mechanisms are far from being

worked out but the the correlational

evidence is undeniable we're now taking

this into the lab really for the first

time and so something so simple as

social isolation how can we don't know

way more about it and um I'm someone who

stumbled into the field field of social

isolation by accident prior to the

pandemic and so I'll just say you know

the whole story on why there's such a

gaping hole in our knowledge as a

neuroscience Community about social

isolation really comes from Harry haro's

work this original work of maternal

separation that was undeniably cruel it

it caused irreparable damage to these

baby monkeys and they never recovered

and sorry to interrupt apologize I'm

striving to not interrupt in my life but

I but so that people are on on board um

could you just briefly describe the

harlo experiments yes so they're very

famous experiments where they separated

uh baby monkeys from their moms and then

had either a wire sort of thing holding

a bottle so okay what what do you miss

most about the mom is it the wire is it

the food or is it the the the comfort

and then they had

so they had a wire thing with with a

milk bottle versus you know blankets and

cuddly soft things and and the the baby

monkeys would go to the cuddly soft

thing but you know a blanket is not a

replacement for a mother nobody's saying

that it is and and through these

experiments there was extended maternal

separation and it's it it was deemed

cruel um there was permanent irreparable

damage when you when you rehouse these

monkeys they never resocialized normally

they had lots of different mental and

physical health problems um and I think

in humans we know that so you know

solitary confinement is considered

torture um you know social isolation is

a difficult thing to study in in a lot

of

conditions and we stumbled onto it by

complete accident through working with a

postto a former postdoc in my lab

Jullian Matthews who was a graduate

student um doing an experiment on on it

was just trying to figure out if these

dopamine neurons um would also respond

to cocaine the way VTA these sorry these

vental tegmental area dopamine earons

were known to respond to cocaine wanted

to see if these other dopamin respond to

cocaine so sort of a incremental study

so when you do these cocaine studies you

you inject the animal with cocaine or

saline and they leave the naive animal

in the cage and then you take brain

slices record from the neurons and look

at the synaptic strengths and so you

know the expected outcome sort of was

that these dopamine NS would would be

similar to other dopamine nands that

showed in you know long- lasting

potentiation after a single dose of

cocaine but what happened instead was

that yes there was potentiation in the

cocaine animals there's also

potentiation in the saline animals

relative to the naive group and this was

a huge puzzle what was this and it

turned out through many many different

experiments um that it's actually

because when you inject animals with

cocaine you're separating them from the

group they I act all crazy and this is

what the way people did the experiment

so you inject them with saline you

separate them the naive animals just

stay there so with their other their

other litter mates I see so the control

group The saling control group is

actually a social isolation condition so

by accident this control group that

didn't make sense was how we stumbled

onto so then we tried is it novel cage

it's not the novel cage it's the it's

the social isolation and so um that is

how we became a lab that studied social

isolation it was complete accident we

weren't sure what what we were looking

at and then um we man we found these

neurons and we manipulate these neurons

and they

produced um something very different

than other dopamine neurons which

normally if you stimulate dopamine

neurons these ventral tental area

mid-brain dopam like 90% of the time

when you you hear people talk about

dopamine they mean these ones and

they're the ones where you press a lever

stimulate the nerves we'll press a lever

thousands of times you know and they

love to be stimulated yes and if if

you're a human and you do cocaine you

you most people love cocaine they they

want they're very pro-social when

they're on cocaine and so that's what

dopamine neurons were thought to be

doing but these other dopamine neurons

in the dorsal rap that I will also say

is in the brain stem near to an aqueduct

where you could detect signals from the

body um but these other dopamine neurons

in the raap they when you stimulate them

animals don't like it they will not work

for reward they actually will move away

from a space that's where they're being

stimulated you know condition place and

real-time Place aversion I don't like

the feeling of these neurons being

activated please stop it and yet they

would be pro-social and so for a long

time this was super confusing we

couldn't understand it and then just

because at the same time we had a um a

hunger study going on in the lab we just

thought about it like I can eat food

because it's delicious and I I want to

eat this yummy treat or I can eat

because I'm super hungry I feel shaky

I'm just to eat this nasty fiber bar out

of my backpack CU I'm so desperate and I

need like I need my my blood sugar is

dangerously low you know and so there's

two reasons that you can eat and one of

them is uncomfortable hunger is not

comfortable you don't it's not a good

feeling to be hungry and so we thought

about this and that's kind of how we

circularly came around to thinking I

think we've discovered the loneliness

neurons essentially and so what is

loneliness and loneliness is this

unpleasant need state of wanting social

contact that would have this

pro-social effect as well and so um

that's basically the very serendipitous

loop-de-loop way that I came to be um uh

studying how loneliness is represented

in the brain amazing before we talk a

bit more about these loneliness neurons

and some of their inputs and outputs in

the brain

um how has the discovery of these

neurons um perhaps changed the way that

you organize your day and week and life

right um if at all um for instance are

you more aware of how much time you

spend alone versus with others are you

um more careful or Discerning about who

you spend your time with um you know I I

asked this um because you know there's

so many examples for me in the

Neuroscience literature where you know I

learned something new about how the

brain works and I think oh yeah you know

it makes a lot of sense why my sleep

isn't great you know it turns out that

light exposure to the eyes at particular

times of day really sets the whole body

and brain into particular rhythms that

you know explain why I was a little

depressed when I was in graduate school

staying up all night doing experiments

and I'd sleep much of the day and feel

like I was getting eight nine hours I

don't get eight to nine hours now but um

you know and when I wake up early for me

personally there's a bit of an

anti-depressant effect as long as I

slept the night before seasonal effect

disorder is real right so you know I

think as new information comes online um

at least for me it's it's changed the

way that I organize my life to to s in

subtle or or in not so subtle ways so

the idea that there are neurons in the

brain that encode loneliness the absence

of social contact does that have you

thinking you know after a few days of

managing the lab uh with which as you

point out you have a very large lab lots

of social interaction but it's work

context social interaction does that um

has that led you to think hey you know

we should go out to dinner as a lab or I

should spend time with somebody who's

not in science um or I should spend time

by myself because I've had too much

social interaction I'm not asking for

strict protocols here I'm just wondering

if you're willing to get um like play in

the sandbox of this with me a bit um how

this information perhaps has shaped some

of your choices you personally and and

be very clear I'm not asking you to

dictate what other people do um has it

changed your social life so it's really

interesting that you ask this question

and now that you you know now that

you're asking it this way

um I I mean of course when I learn new

things I I I um take them and Implement

them into my life but to be honest in in

the cycle of of of you know learning and

studying and being curious and I

actually think where I reside more is

when something's going on with me my

research program you know research is

research it becomes what the re it

dictates what the research program

evolves into and so for ex for example

so I've just had started studying

loneliness um a few years before the

pandemic hit and then the pandemic hit

and it was just a step function like

change I went from I'm never alone

unless you call being in an Uber Alone

um or being on a plane and and and just

you know constantly people in my office

even when I'm going to the bathroom

someone's waiting for me outside like

you know I'm not it's like I'm hurrying

in the bathroom I'm never alone there's

like four people in my bed kicking me in

the face I'm just you know there's just

so much Social contact and then boom you

know there would

be a day I wouldn't see another like you

know just the a not zero but just

extremely sudden drop of social contact

when there's no more work and you know

it was just that that period of time

and it was it was very depressing it was

just this huge I felt like I was in

freef fall and it made me you know at

first it was really disruptive and I was

worried about myself you know and then

at some point I adjusted to it and then

I got used to working from home I got

started a garden like I got all this you

know I got you know I just started a

different life pattern that involved a

lot of alone time and you know something

an alone time personal life AG grew

where there wasn't any space for

anything to grow before and then I

became comfortable with it and so then I

started thinking about that that's

really where the idea of social

homeostasis was born this idea that okay

why is it with acute social isolation

humans monkeys mice you know you acutely

isolate the individual from the social

group you reintroduce them to the social

group rebound of pro-social interaction

oh so happy to see you there's like all

these affiliative interactions a Hu a

burst of affiliative interactions

whereas with chronic social isolation in

humans monkeys mice even

flies you reintroduced into the social

group and you get territorial Behavior

aggression avoidance antisocial behavior

um or just you know sort of a very

different negative veillance response to

the exposure to the group and so this

maybe people brushed it off for a long

time is just oh it's confusing this

literature is inconsistent or maybe

there's one model that makes it all make

sense that is social home homeostasis

where you know you're used to getting

this at a certain point and so my

affector system gets activated I I

detect that I'm alone it's I want more

the deficits detected then my affector

systems gets activated this and then I

start spinning all the systems that try

to get me back into contact I'm calling

my friends I'm texting my friend I'm I'm

if I'm a mouse I'm making ultrasonic

vocalizations I'm exploring outside of

the burrow and then you know if my

friends don't call me back they're like

sorry we don't want to see anyone till

end of covid bye whatever it is you know

you it's it's not working my correction

efforts are failing or maybe a certain

amount of time we don't know then I give

up I stop I stop calling I stop going

out I just make a different life you

know you the the the they don't you

don't leave the burrow whatever it is

and there's in in animal and humans at

least behaviorally there's a near step

function like drop off of attempts to

you know you can see sort of dat oh then

they just give up on dating after this

one you know whatever happens there's

some some straw that breaks the camels

back and then this person doesn't want

to date anymore or doesn't want to go

out anymore whatever and and what is

that so that adaptation then you're at a

new Baseline you're You're Expecting now

your new normal I'm I'm expecting to

have a gardening day at home alone not

see anyone and then and then a bunch of

people come over feels like a surplus so

my previous Optimum you know

reintroduction to the social

group is now feeling like a surplus an

overload overstimulated and that's I

think something that a lot of people

experience this Whiplash of going into

the pandemic and coming out of it

different people to different levels it

depends on how much you you know

isolated while you were in the pandemic

but I think thinking about um your

social set point as being flexible and

dynamic Was A New Concept to me and then

in my mind the question is what is the

part of this process that is causing all

these harmful Health consequences like

shorten lifespan mood disorders Etc is

it the initial detection that I'm

missing something and affect your system

activation because if that was the case

maybe I want to Band-Aid that you know

maybe I want to get get a pet get a get

a get a zoom buddy I don't know what you

know you would have different

prescriptions and advice to give people

that were the case versus you would give

almost opposite advice if the thing

that's causing it is the the set point

adaptation then you want to you want to

save it off versus if you wanted to

accelerate getting into the set point

which is better you know is it the

adaptation or is it you know kind of

trying to fix it and so in one case you

would want to ease off the the having

the set point happen the set point

transition happen in the other case rip

it off like a Band-Aid cold turkey Just

Adjust and then you'll be fine you know

then you won't worry about it then you

won't be lonely anymore cuz you'll just

be comfortable being alone you know

people talk about cognitive flexibility

um and I think it's it's sort of like

that but it's social flexibility I want

to be able to be alone I also want to be

able to be in a large group and be

comfortable and so I think what I've

done if anything to change my lifestyle

um to accommodate these new insights

I've had is is to

consciously create Dynamic social

experience

lots of social experiences yes but also

protecting alone time which I never did

before I just I just just gave it all

away and you know I realized that having

that just made my social homeostatic

system feel more elastic and flexible

and resilient and less like a crisis if

something you know I'm I'm very

comfortable being alone I'm super

comfortable with my own skin now and it

requires investing in that relationship

I like how you framed uh earlier I think

we were not not recording yet but the

relationship with yourself as being a

very important relationship and um when

I think about brain States you know we

don't know this yet but my working model

would be that different individuals we

represent their identities and whenever

they're present it creates a unique

Ensemble of that combination of people

being present and being alone is also a

unique state that cannot be achieved I

have the brain state of being alone I

cannot achieve it if anyone else is

around

and that's just what you know that's

kind of the working model I have I think

what you're saying is uh essential for

people to hear because um it makes sense

that loneliness would hurt um it makes

sense that some people are more

extroverted which I think is defined as

getting energy from social interactions

and resetting energy through social

interactions as opposed to introverted

which by the way folks introverts like

myself do enjoy social interaction it's

just that we reset through more um Solo

or one-on-one time than we do in larger

groups that's my understanding of the

introversion extroversion literature we

can revisit that but this notion of

social homeostasis is I think so key uh

important enough that I think we

probably want

to redefine it um as many times or

restate it rather as many times as it's

necessary because I believe what you're

describing is the same thing that one

would experience with food if we eat a

lot we're consuming I know 3500 calories

a day and then um suddenly we only have

access to 1,800 calories a day there's

it feels like a deficit because indeed

it is whereas after some period of time

at 1,800 calories a day 2200 calories a

day feels like relative abundance

relative abundance

um when the pandemic hit I certainly um

was unhappy about the State of Affairs

in the world of course um but I recall

feeling like oh my goodness I finally

don't have to commute 90 minutes in each

direction to Stanford because I lived in

the East Bay at that time um I felt like

I had time to do things I hadn't done in

a long time and thanks to zoom I was

able to get certain things done not

others then after about six to eight

months when I realized this is going to

carry on for a while I remember feeling

quite lonely and making some efforts to

repair that I I

think social media not to harp on social

media um could do either one of two

things and I don't know which in the

context of uh social

homeostasis either going on Instagram

and seeing a lot of familiar faces and

comments and accounts could make me feel

like I'm getting some social interaction

such that then when I close that app and

move to my work at my desk or something

uh which these days is mostly done um

solo um that I would feel like I had

social interaction or perhaps it's the

equivalent of um

calories that um then makes me feel more

isolated when I'm not in the app

perhaps I find it to be distinctly

different than like the experience I had

last night of going to dinner with

someone I know quite well sitting down

and having a open-ended conversation and

deciding to close out the night only

when we realized you know we got to get

up tomorrow for work so went our

separate ways um there's something that

felt very s ating about it so I wonder

in this context of social homeostasis

whether or not the analogy of social

interaction to caloric intake if we

could is there another dimension to it

where it's not just the total number of

calories or the total amount of social

interaction but the quality of social

interaction the type of social

interaction that actually feels like

nourishment as opposed to just calories

I love where you're going with this and

and so um when we wrote this review the

first time we know we're we're conceptu

this idea of of how your social set

point can change based on if if you're

acutely isolated or or chronically

isolated and

um the Y AIS is the quality quantity of

detected social contact which is so

fuzzy and you know there's it's it's

again one of the most challenging

frontiers of this field because how even

if we measure every single component

that the brain can detect of the social

the social contact so much of it is

about expectation you know like if I

think I got a gesture if if I get a nod

from the president I'm like oh my god

did the president just nod at me that's

so exciting versus if I get a nod from

my partner I'm like oh my God are they

mad at me what's going on why why did I

just get a nod right it totally matters

the gesture you need the identity

there's many

different cognitive systems that need to

all plug in to this wheel um

to make it spin so I think that uh that

is one of the the I I think that's going

to keep us busy for a

while but in terms of your question

about social media and when you switch

from you know getting social media

feedback and then doing work um I think

I think it really depends I mean social

media is such a large category you can

have many different types of responses

generally I think the bounds so you know

when you say social media versus real

life interaction where you're with

someone maybe you're touching maybe

you're not touching but even if you're

having conversation um you have

interbrain synchrony you are um having a

lot of interbrain syn you're in the same

place if but you can have interbrain

synchrony even on the phone right just a

voice call is actually a lot more

interbrain synchrony than than messages

I think I think text messages can bring

a lot of anxiety and there's been a lot

of commentary about that um and same

thing with with with social media I

think the the thing about social media

that is perhaps um the

most harmful or NE negative I think in

terms of I when I'm thinking about

social nourishment if I you know sort of

making that term up on the Fly here but

um it's it's almost a withdrawal when

social media is posted it's not to you

it's to everyone and you could be one of

the people that receives this message

but it's not even what to you I'm not

not even talking to you and I'm doing

something that's without you otherwise

you'd be in this picture and not reading

on social media listening to whatever so

it's like by almost exclusively you're

you're posting about activities that

you're being excluded from and someone's

not even really talking to you unless

they're D you know direct messaging you

but then I I kind of consider that a

different category if it's like a

onetoone communication social media to

me is is a blast right it's not it's

just you know catching up with someone

on social media I I don't really see the

Merit of it because is I'll just catch

up with them when I catch up with them

and their kids will just be like way

older but you know I don't know I'll

actually really catch up with them then

just see pictures of you know I don't

know I I feel mixed about it because

it's not a real connection and it

doesn't for me Sate my social appetite

to catch up with to to look at someone

else's profile on on social media um

that doesn't actually do anything for

the the connection I I don't know but I

seriously doubt tons of oxytocin is

released when I you know follow

someone's feed about their vacation so I

don't know I would I think that it

definitely matters the quality and

social media is is different than real

life interactions for many reasons I'd

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that's insid

tracker.com huberman I really appreciate

your willingness to uh explore in this

uh in this context I

think your mention of the fact that um

real life interaction involves

interbrain synchrony could be by text

scaling up from that by phone um

FaceTime or something akin to that video

video chat um on social media there is

comments back and forth um although

that's timec consuming and it's

difficult because there's anonymity

people are in different places different

time zones if you don't know someone

it's different context um so I'm really

thanks to what you're describing I'm

really starting to think about social

media as so different than in-person

social interactions or by phone or video

chat social interactions and how those

would differentially impact social

homeostasis and it's leading me at least

to conclude that at least for me that

most social media interactions would

create more

hunger as opposed to a um sting of of

the need for social interaction it's um

I have to be careful with the analogies

here but since I can do this I I was

almost going to make analogy between um

porn pornography

uhhuh inperson sexual intimacy I suppose

there's something in between where

people could talk by phone but we don't

want to explore this in any kind of

salacious way and then um sexual

intimacy with with uh with emotion with

positive emotion right those there's a

scaling Factor there and I'm not P I'm

not putting um judgment or veilance I'm

I'm certainly not that's not my place as

a good friend of mine says I'm not a cop

you know I'm not telling people what to

do they can't do but it's so interesting

to think about these um these circuits

within us that create these what you and

I in our field call repetitive the

desire for or aversive the desire to

move away from type responses and how so

much of our life aside from you because

you're regulating your social media and

your uh and your email intake but so

much of Life Now is offering us the

opportunity to um tickle these circuits

or even hit them hard with a

sledgehammer but we're not thinking

about these homeostatic mechanisms of

whether or not they're creating more

hunger for or more satisfaction from

yeah and I I I cannot emphasize enough

how critical this is and I think that's

because you know I'm somebody who does

spend a fair amount of time on social

media a lot of my my work exists on

social media YouTube Etc and I would

hope that the work that we're putting

into the world with this podcast is

creating a a satiation of the desire for

information rather than a Hunger for

More I do hope that but I recognize that

educational material on social media

represents the the a tiny tiny fraction

of what's there so social homeostasis I

think is a term that if people haven't

already stamped into their mind they

should be stamping into their mind and

and Dr K Tai deserves credit for that I

don't uh I will say that so you don't

have to

um I've heard you say before you wrote

in a review something akin to social

contact is either positive or negative

when it's deficient or in excess which

is I think what you're describing is is

social homeostasis is that right when we

talked about the quality and quantity um

there's just in terms of contact just

amount of contact there's such a thing

as just the right amount there's some

thing is too little there's such a thing

as too much there's overcrowding right

it doesn't matter who it it can be your

family it could just sometimes it's like

a lot maybe your family depends depend

you know the famous ROM dos quote no

think you're enlightened go spend a

weekend with your

parents no no disrespect Mom and Dad I

know right um but

um I think with quality it matters so

much like I was sort of saying before

you know the same gesture from the

president or my partner it's going to

feel very different to me whether that

was a slight or uh you know it's just

it's relative to what is appropriate for

our rank for our prior history

relationships for you know the the

environmental context and so I think

with social media in general and I agree

social media is great for a lot of

things I mean I and I I I think that

having a podcast like this that is

accessible to the public makes research

more sustainable so I have a lot of

things to say about science

communication that I'm very you know

grateful for but in terms of social

media think about the mutual investment

when you are interacting with someone on

soci social media what are they

investing in this connection so if I put

out a post about my vacation that is

public I'm investing

00000000000000 one% of my bandwidth to

make contact with you you know what I

mean and so it's it it scales up from

them if if you're making a voice call

with someone you're giving them at least

most of your attention for the time that

you're on the call that's a lot right

whereas you know so so just thinking

about the investment is another

component there's the real time

component and then there's the the

investment component who is it coming

from it matters if you're anonymous I

really I cannot tell what this means you

know a compliment from an or or a hate

hate comment or a love comment from

Anonymous

person I don't know what to do with this

you like I just literally don't know how

to you know it doesn't really doesn't

really do anything for me because I

don't know how to interpret it it's

almost you know uninterpretable without

this other dimension that my brain is

has evolved to look for I think so

that's you know

speculation but I think social media is

is operating in a way that that is not

ethological and not designed to make us

feel better it's just designed to make

us want to use it and I think a lot of

this comes down to things that are

relative you know there's the famous um

there's the famous observations if of a

m monkey sees Another Monkey get a

cucumber it's happy with the Cucumber

but if a monkey sees the other monkey

get great grape monkey wants grape you

know you want you want to keep up with

the Joneses you want what if you see

someone else having something suddenly

it feels like a loss that you don't have

it that you didn't even think that of

this thing that you needed right and so

I think social media is exposing you to

a lot of things that you don't you know

that it's it's like this this parameter

space you didn't have there's all these

things you didn't know you were missing

that you didn't need to miss out on and

so we have this whole project now we

have two projects one that's looking at

social isolation and following what

happens with social isolation across the

time course to try to understand is it

the amount of time or is it the amount

of effort that you put into correcting

that deficit um that that makes you

leads you to the giving up you know kind

of state change and another project that

um is about the quality of social

contact specifically social exclusion so

a different kind of deficit you're with

your other animals but there's this this

you know it's four animals that have um

are cagemates and um three animals are

on one side able to drink a chocolate

milkshake and the other animals ex

excluded and this one excluded animal

will go up against the the divider and

and you know look look frantic and you

know ex exhibit lots of behaviors that

we would associate in humans with fear

of missing out trying to reunite with

the group trying to get the attention of

the group trying to get over there a lot

of attending looks

frantic and studying what we think is

actually going on and so I think that I

think coming up with paradigms to try to

probe social isolation and we don't even

know what behaviors animals exhibit when

they're lonely this is this is a

challenging field because there's no

number of lever presses you know there's

no there's no script to follow and

there's no trial structure and so for a

neuroscientist NE neur scientists were

trained to be rigorous about our

statistics because of the stochastic

nature of neural neural activity and you

know how do we process things without a

trial structure how do we be

statistically rigorous when the animal

is just free floating deciding whatever

it wants to do and so that is kind of

The Crucible that my lab is is working

through right now to establish pipelines

and techniques and ways to

quantify social behavor avors and peel

off all the

layers I love where your lab is headed

which just means we're going to have to

have you back on here again at some

point in the future to get the answers

to those questions that you're now

addressing I've long thought that we

really know how we feel about somebody

when something good happens to them or

for them and I never quite understood

this at the level of mechanisms how

could I it's not more my lab studies but

you know I think that there's a natural

sort of empathy if one is a healthy uh

empathic person to seeing a member of

our own species and hopefully uh also to

observing the members of other species

um you know experiencing some discomfort

we don't like that nor should we so

another human is in emotional pain right

um you know the whale or the Cry of loss

is like one that just I think for any

person who's empathically attuned is

just like uh or an animal you hear an

animal in pain like goodness I mean I'm

not here to diagnose sociopathy but if

if that doesn't evoke a at least some

sort of response of like oh gosh like

what I wouldn't do to remove that pain

that their pain is your pain empathy um

that seems like a very reflexive circuit

or at least I would hope so um but when

somebody experiences something positive

I think it's normal and healthy to to

have a um a graded set of responses if

it's somebody that we really love um we

may not even know them we think yeah

like you're you just reflexively happy

for them um somebody that we dislike I

think there's a more natural tendency to

be like oh you know right you know as as

opposed to if that person were in pain I

would like to think that even if one

didn't like them that you would think

like oh that that sucks I'm really sorry

to hear that um so I feel like there's

some asymmetry in these empathic

interactions they're both empathy one

has negative veilance pain the other one

has positive veilance another member of

our species or other species receiving

reward and we can Delight in that I mean

I I'm almost embarrassed to admit how

many freret and Otter and raccoon

accounts I follow because I love seeing

them eat I love seeing the little hands

of the raccoons there's some great

raccoon accounts by the way um and I

Delight in it I like Delight in it I

want to see the raccoons win I don't

know why I just I love animals and so I

suppose that's why um so do you think

that there that we are asymmetrically

wired for this empathic Attunement um

can we observe that in other animals I

realize this might not be squarely in

the Wheelhouse of what your lab is

focusing on but I think it it relates

enough to the topics that we're covering

today that just you know if you'd like

to speculate um uh on what might be

going on there yeah I I I can definitely

speculate something that we think about

a lot but again you know I there's some

there's some level of this which is

semantics um I think of empathy as being

defined as being able to understand

another animal's emotion and also taking

it on so I think um something that's a

little bit different than emotional

contagion right I see a panic I'm going

a group with P it's not the same thing

as uh as as empathy um empathy is often

used in in sort of certain contexts like

feeling sorry for someone and it's maybe

different if for feeling happy for

someone and this is something I was just

talking about with one of my graduate

students the other day why is there is

is there an

asymmetry in in empathy for positive and

negative or is it just what we've

studied it's easier to study this so

there's a number of you know we don't

know the answer but I guess another

conceptual framework to put out there

I'm not saying it's correct it's I think

just a a good tool for debate but um

it's not so much that there's good

people and bad people and that good

people are empathic and bad people

aren't uh so you it's not quite so

simple I I guess the way I think about

it is whether you view this other social

agent as having

aligned goals or agendas as you or are

they adversarial so if they're if

they're in in your alliance whatever

that means broadly defined versus

adversarial you would have a different

feeling and you know it's it's you see

this I guess I was just I was just

watching this okay this is just sort of

oversharing but this is a podcast not a

a primary research Journal so I can just

say things right so I I watch some trash

TV sometimes and you know these reality

competition shows where it's like then

you vote the two best friends into

elimination and they have to they have

to eliminate each other mildly sadistic

but you know then they're best friends

and they like like they you know and

then it's basically mutually exclusive

either you can care about your friend

and feel bad not wanting to send them

home

or you you kick it you just you know you

it's game time and you you you

and so you can see different individuals

wrestling with these two brain States

and and how to like what to do but they

are essentially you know my my my

speculation is that viewing someone as a

competitor and they're an adversary they

are standing in the way of me getting

what I want you empathy goes down it's

like inversely correlated to empathy if

you are viewed as a competitor so things

that would contribute to you creating a

model where an in a social agent it is

an adversary as opposed to an a

potential ally is really what it's going

to come down to to the degree that you

feel empathy you know like you the

second someone you realize someone's out

to get you no empathy no and no more

empathy for this person who I just

realized is out to get me or something

like that or you know uh in the case of

being isolated for a long period of time

you've learned to exist on your own now

maybe everyone's your competitor or

adversary you know and none of you guys

are really helping me do my day like I

don't really need you guys for anything

so so I'm eating this food or whatever

you know I think it just becomes

different um when you're part of an

ecosystem and you realize that you know

there's consequences and there's there's

EV every action that you take you know

every Act of altruism will be recognized

and there you know there's there's

there's a there's some score being kept

in your when you're part of a society

and um and then when you're when you're

not there's none there's there's none of

that and so I think the degree to which

you're integrated in society um it's

almost like the extracellular Matrix you

know this is a really this is an out

there analogy but you know when you

think about synapses being made um

connections between people there's also

all the support material that

facilitates certain patterns and certain

connections from happening or not

happening and and I think um that's it's

it's stuff that we haven't Quantified

yet but it doesn't you know I think

those things should be studied years ago

I worked with at risk kids and and a

fair number of them had just arrived um

from a region of the world that had

undergone dramatic

sociopolitical um Evolution um and

change and it was remarkable because we

would put out a tray of food to eat and

then the the format was everyone would

serve themselves and then um you could

uh go get more food if if you if

everyone

finished um and a couple of these kids

that had come from these very deprived

environments um would just take a more

than their their share it was clear that

by taking that other kids weren't going

to get any and um and I remember telling

them listen we all have to eat more or

less equal parts and then we can there

is more we can get more and um I'll

never forget this kid's response he just

turned to me and he said you can't hit

us and I said that's true I can't hit

you and he and he said so I'm just going

to take as much as I want and this took

several weeks actually to to work out

right um CU of course I would never hit

him and um but everyone's his adversary

everyone's his adversary and it was

remarkable to see the evolution of these

kids across that it was about three and

a half weeks um at which point they

actually became

incredibly um good at sharing um but it

it took a lot of work it was almost as

if even though they knew more tra of

food could arrive yeah not Limitless but

there was there was an abundance of food

yeah in the moment they they were

solving for that short Horizon moment

yeah and it and here we're talking about

human beings capable of speech and

expression of emotion Etc and he

understood the fundamental rule which

was I couldn't hit him therefore he

could basically do what he wanted

without that

consequence and which the main

consequence he faced apparently exactly

and um and I remember you know it was it

was so striking I'll never forget that

and the evolution to a different more um

altruistic state was wonderful

especially because of what I think what

it did for him but but I'll never forget

thinking this is a human being who's

essentially functioning like an

animal like an animal I mean I had a

Bulldog Mastiff and he was kind to other

dogs but if there

were unattended to toys at the dog park

he was going to pick them up and he put

him right in front of himself and his

this was down San Diego and he sit with

them right in front of him and I'm like

Costello you're not going to play with

all those toys but if another dog came

and and he wouldn't he would just sit in

front of them but another dog would come

and try and take one of those toys and

he would he had these giant mitts and he

would just boom Stam it out and drag it

back and so it seems that there are

these very primitive circuits about uh

resource allocation and protection of

resources that in the absence of

understanding that there's a much bigger

landscape like Costello eventually

figured out like tug's a fun game

although most dogs couldn't play tug

with him there were a few that could he

was a 90b bulldog he was just a neck

like this but you know to see this in a

human being was just so striking I just

as you're describing this it's like this

adversary versus um neutral versus uh

friend it is just so striking and it's

got to be you know that that the brain

as complex as it is I've often wondered

and our colleague Marcus Meister once

said that you know C cirs in the brain

um Can broadly be divided into these

sorts of circuits into yum yuck and me

right Which is far too simplistic right

but who am I to argue with the great

Marcus Meister um and I'm not going to

but it's sort of interesting we sort of

Bin our responses into yes okay let

let's cooperate or yes let's cooperate

you're summarizing veence yeah or or no

way no chance like mine yeah versus like

me me and um you know as complex as I'd

like to think the brain is and we are I

mean maybe when it comes down to

behaviors and how we interpret input and

our

decision-making um maybe it's really all

about feelings of safety and feelings of

um relatedness yeah I think it's also

about the IR experiential statistics

that you have been exposed to so this

this boy who says you I'm going to take

all this food because you can't hit me I

mean we don't don't know but the the

picture that grows out of my imagination

is this boy had a lot of experiences of

people hitting them a lot of experiences

of not enough

food and not a lot of experiences of

strangers being nice to them you know

like not a lot of people that you could

trust that's the that's the experiential

statistics that would fit this

model someone like like you who's coming

in being like Oh no there's more I'm

going to give you guys more food for

free you know I'm going to give you even

more food for it's you know it the

experiential statistics are you come

from a world of abundance where people

are gener you know generosity being

you've learned being generous can make

you have a lifelong friend and all these

amazing opportunities that make your

quality of life that food is you're

never going to think about food again

it's about the relationships because

that's your experiential statistics and

so I think this is such a profound

concept about about neuroscience and the

Brain about our social structures and

how they form what makes a structure

egalitarian or

despotic right like how how can we as

individuals take a structure that is is

one format let's say despotic hierarchy

and evolve it into something that's more

egalitarian and um what are what are the

the the levers and what are the

parameter spaces that we can pull on and

I think these are questions

that I mean it's hard to think of what

could be more important um but that

perspective of thinking about from

experiential statistics I think really

supports you know the need of of of

diversity having bringing in people to

Academia whove had very different

experiences experiential statistics

different biases of what they're going

to think is interesting to work on and

study and obviously in every every

sector of our society so I think

um how can we get more diverse sets of

experiences

represented at each decision-making body

that really

matters yeah Amen to that and also to be

able to understand that um differences

in background experience um require that

we we earlier you mentioned theory of

mind this ability to get into the

mindset of others and and sort of assume

or presume certain mindsets in order to

hopefully create a more benevolent

environment for everybody um

you know it requires um you know

realizing that some people's social

interactions are you know have been

terrible or traumatic or um you know it

requires a departure from self

essentially it requires this empathy or

something like empathy um in all

directions right I mean in all

directions it requires that everyone at

least makes some effort to try and

understand that I do wonder and maybe

someone would put on the comments on

YouTube maybe maybe you're aware um K of

um whether or

not kids are being trained in that

beautiful period of time of life where

neuroplasticity is so robust um although

it does continue throughout the right

lifespan it is especially robust early

in life to um to be in a healthy way

empathically attuned to be able to have

theory of mind more robust theory of

mind yeah so I think it's it's really I

mean I'm I'm so I'm a parent I have two

kids that are in public school and I

think their Public Schools rated you

know it's fine Buton say it's all right

and um but but at their school they

definitely do get education about um

more holistic health and emotional

regulation I think and and considering

others um that's been that's that's a

big focus of the school and I think

that's actually really important I I I I

mean you know again I'm I'm super biased

from from my upbringing but my kids are

going to learn math whenever it's time

to learn the that they'll learn it

whenever they need it you know whenever

they need it they're going to learn it

in a couple I don't know a couple weeks

and figure out do the thing um most of

the things that they learn they're going

to forget them and then have to relearn

them um so what are the things that

you're going to really need to know no

matter what you choose to do and I think

regulating your your own emotions and

and and engaging other individuals in a

healthy sustainable way that you know

and I mean sustainable in terms of the

longevity of their relationships and I

think those are the things that end up

really mattering so I think um also this

question about exposure to abundance and

scarcity uh is really interesting too I

mean I don't know if that's a direction

we want to go into so please yeah well I

think you know this whole you know it

sort sounds sort of new Agy when I say

you know abundant the abundance mindset

right um I mean you see this in people

who are like uh recently divorced or

newly single for whatever reason like is

is the world a place where like finding

um partnership is is relatively

straightforward with some work involved

um or is it like well there's only one

person on the planet for you and they

might be dead already right like um is

there PL if someone else's business

takes off maybe someone you went to

college or high school with or their lab

is doing really well you're seeing them

you know tremendously successful that

maybe they made a $100 million in a in a

new in a company acquisition do you

immediately feel like oh those are

resources that I don't have um even

though I'm not in that business um or do

you see it as wow that there must be a

lot of money out there that um that

people could earn and and potentially

make I really you know prescribe and

believe in this abundance versus

scarcity mindset

framework um I think there's absolutes

like the example we just talked about

this the the kid you know there's just

not food there's scarcity of food fact

you know of course there are individuals

that experience scarcity of various

different needs but many of us we reach

a threshold of abundance and then it

becomes relative we have everything we

absolutely physiologically need if we're

not comparing ourselves to anyone else

but then once we were enter the social

Arena comparison is essential why do we

compare ourselves to others it's it's

ingrain because social status is

something that we need to attend to a

large part of our our our brain is

devoted to representing our relative

social rank what's our place with a

social network what's the dynamic how do

we fit into the social landscape and

comparison I think is just a way to do

that that's that's been evolutionarily

conserved perhaps for less of a good

purpose at this point because so many of

our basic survival needs are met for the

large majority of of humans on the

planet today not not for everybody of

course but so yet what is the percentage

of humans who feel they have everything

that they desire how many people feel

like they don't want for anything and

you know it's interesting because having

things doesn't make

you have an abundance mindset having

abundance does not is not sufficient to

give you the mindset of

abundance that's such an important

statement I mean just I don't think they

could be restated enough

um you've studied social rank mhm uh

people hear social Rank and hierarchy

and I have to guess that at least some

neurons in their amydala and other areas

of the brain get buzzing because as soon

as people hear social

rank they I think naturally started

think well where am I in this social

Rank and um how do I feel about how that

rank is you know established and and all

sorts of interesting and important

questions um some people get very angry

that there are billionaires on this

planet M especially given that in most

major cities you don't have to go very

far to see people who have very limited

uh

resources

so social rank is something that um I

think exists in every little niche like

you know at work and maybe even in the

family there's social rank um I have a

sibling I remember um who got more of a

of a piece of cake like even a slight

difference in that you know was

something that my older sibling would

point out um because she was more

effective at getting the slightly larger

piece of cake cuz I was until I was you

know big enough to offend for myself um

and my friends with larger sibling pools

in their family it was especially

competitive yeah I don't if you've ever

gone to a meal with somebody who had a

lot of siblings they eat fast they they

different resource allocation methods

than if they were an only child versus

uh one sibling MH they there's variation

here I'm generalizing but um but yeah

let's talk about social rank what do we

know about how social rank is organized

in the brain how we perceive our own

social ranking and um yeah like what's

the what's the modern science on this

stuff I find it fascinating um I'm not

scared of any topic well most any topic

and I think this is one that that

affects us all yeah I mean I'll first

say that social rank is something very

specific to a certain type of hierarchy

that assumes a linear hierarchy which

sometimes forms but oftentimes there's

different types of hierarchies that are

flatter or more Amorphis it's not really

clear who's who's the alpha on the

playground I don't know there's this

click here there you know it can be

dynamic right right it's Dynamic it's

not always organized as such but um if

you get animals into a sort of small

space um you will see in many species

especially with in the males um forming

a linear hierarchy and um um we wanted

to explore this and so I think one of

the biggest challenges with studying

social Rank and this is something we've

struggled with as well is how do you

control for the

individual identity versus the uh the

actual rank so what I mean by this is

let's say there's a

study that says um that you know neurons

in a certain brain region fire to

animals of different ranks according to

the rank fire most of the alpha less

less less less down to the rank you know

does that does that tell us that this

brain region encodes social rank maybe

in a loose sense and I'm sure that when

rank issues come up a lot of the brain

lights up for different comp different

reasons but for example let's say the

amydala would respond more to the Alpha

maybe because it inodes social rank but

maybe also

because whoever is the dominant is the

one who's most likely to have

consequences and so all of my

interactions with the alpha are

relatively High consequence and so I'm

sort of stressed out whenever I'm

talking about Alpha paying attention and

you know you remember all the

interactions you have with your boss

more so than you know someone else

there's an attention hierarchy

subordinates attend more to dominance

and so there's it's almost hard to make

this comparison because it's not all

flat like the the clean experiment which

we are still trying to do it's it's

difficult to do the perfect experiment

would be if you take an individual and

change their rank so for

example um I like to use this example

with Barack Obama so just indulge me I

know that this is from a while ago but

once upon a time I met Barack Obama for

a very brief moment when he was

president and and maybe there's some

neurons that light up oh wow you know

there's the Barack Obama president

neurons but if they are identity neurons

once he was no longer president if I was

to be presented with Barack Obama then

they would still fire if they were

ranked Neons then maybe after he was no

longer president it just these neurons

fire to whoever is president now and so

I think that experiment is very

difficult to do and has not been done

but we're working on it right now um in

uh uh another experiment where we take

animals and they're living in groups uh

and we rank them all and then we rehouse

them so everybody has a rank that they

start with then we put all the alphas

together put all the betas together Etc

so that everybody forms a new rank then

you have animals that went up a rank

went down a rank or stayed the same for

every group and so that's something that

we're looking at right now so initially

you take a pool of animals and then

let's say you got your number one two 3

four just for sake of Simplicity let's

say I take the number four lowest in

that hierarchy but now I make them the

top of a new hierarchy that's right

that's right got it and so it's really

preliminary and we'll see what happens

but we're

investigating it it seems that when you

take

Alpha's intermediates or subordinates

and put them together into new

hierarchies it takes them different

amounts of time and then Dynamics are

very different in forming the new

hierarchy and so in any kind of

predictable way that you're willing to

share or is it just too early I think

it's too early but I'll just say I guess

it seems like the

um the intermediates might be taking the

longest amount of time to form the

hierarchy they don't know where they sit

in the hierarchy they they were flexible

or something whereas the dominants

they're going to Duke it out and then

you know we're going to we're going to

battle there'll be defeat it's quick the

fight doesn't last that long

subordinates you know I I I you know we

have to still observe this is all still