podcast Peter Attia 2023-04-03 topics

#249 ‒ How the brain works, Andrew's fascinating backstory, improving scientific literacy, and more | Andrew Huberman, Ph.D.

Audio

Show notes

Andrew Huberman is a Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford University and host of the Huberman Lab podcast . In this episode, Andrew begins with a fascinating discussion about the brain, including the role of the prefrontal cortex in adjusting your ruleset to match your setting, the neural circuitry underlying the ability of stress to limit creativity and problem-solving, the effect of belief on physiology and performance, and more. He speaks about vision being our “superpower” and compares this to animals that rely more on other senses. Next, Andrew opens up about his personal journey, the struggles and losses he has overcome, the value of therapy, and the many great people who helped him along the way. He speaks to his love of biology and discovery and the importance of staying true to your passion rather than being driven purely by ambition. Lastly, the conversation includes a look to the future of Andrew’s scientific work and podcast as well as his unique approach to communicating science and tackling the issue of scientific illiteracy.

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We discuss:

Exercise under blood flow restriction, lactate utilization, and transient changes in the brain function in response to adrenaline and stress [3:30];
The role of the prefrontal cortex in governing rulesets [9:15];
New discoveries about the circuitry between the prefrontal cortex, insula, and amygdala, and the insights gleaned about brain function in different emotional states [15:30];
Comparing human vision and other senses to animals [26:00];
A deep dive into vision: evolutionary adaptations, facial recognition, color, and more [39:45];
Sense of smell, pheromones, and why evolution developed better vision over smell [46:30];
The relationship between visual input and time perception [55:30];
Mindset effects: the effect of belief on physiology and performance [1:00:45];
Accessing higher levels of creativity with broadening rulesets and the limiting nature of stress and fear on creativity [1:05:30];
Stress and fear increase autonomic arousal, limit access to rulesets, and inhibit performance [1:12:15];
Andrew’s upbringing, early childhood, and tough adolescent years [1:15:00];
Andrew’s time in a residential treatment program and how he benefited from therapy [1:20:15];
The beginning of positive changes in Andrew’s young life [1:28:30];
Andrew’s decision to turn his life around [1:37:00];
A new passion for science and exercise helps Andrew [1:42:00];
The difference between a postdoc and a PhD [1:54:15];
Staying in touch with the love of biology and not getting pulled into ambition [1:59:15];
Andrew starts his own lab, and continues work to overcome his demons [2:07:00];
The loss of three mentors leads to deep soul searching [2:12:00];
What motivated Andrew to begin his podcast [2:18:00];
Looking to the future of Andrew’s scientific work, podcast, and more [2:22:45];
Andrew’s unique approach to communicating science and the issue of scientific illiteracy [2:30:00]; and
More.

Show Notes

Notes from intro :
You may recognize Andrew Huberman, not because he is a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University, but rather because he is the host of the very popular Huberman Lab podcast It is probably the #1 podcast in the space of health medicine
Andrew and Peter are also close friends; he is someone who Peter spends a lot of time talking with
Going into this discussion Peter put something out to social media that said, “ Hey, I’m going to be talking with Andrew. Shoot me a bunch of topics that people are interested in. ” Not surprisingly, the response was overwhelming Peter came into the conversation with 10-12 pages of notes based on topics that people wanted to talk about ‒ unfortunately, we didn’t get to even one of them
Instead, we talk broadly about three things
1 – We talk about neuroanatomy and a greater understanding of how the brain works and what the rulesets are with respect to thinking and how senses work (hearing, seeing, smelling, etc.) We go through some real basics here; this is an important podcast because Peter doesn’t make the assumption that the listener is familiar with all of these processes around the brain
2 – We talk about Andrew and his personal journey from childhood, to his education, to his career, and who the most important mentors were in his life Many people are familiar with Andrew the expert There are few podcasts out there that provide any insight into Andrew’s background
3 – We end the conversation on a very important topic ‒ the crisis of scientific literacy and the importance of science communication The latter is something Andrew has done an excellent job of
We are planning a part 2 of this podcast because of all of the content that didn’t get covered and a few questions that came up during this podcast
It is probably the #1 podcast in the space of health medicine
Not surprisingly, the response was overwhelming
Peter came into the conversation with 10-12 pages of notes based on topics that people wanted to talk about ‒ unfortunately, we didn’t get to even one of them
We go through some real basics here; this is an important podcast because Peter doesn’t make the assumption that the listener is familiar with all of these processes around the brain
Many people are familiar with Andrew the expert
There are few podcasts out there that provide any insight into Andrew’s background
The latter is something Andrew has done an excellent job of

Exercise under blood flow restriction, lactate utilization, and transient changes in the brain function in response to adrenaline and stress [3:30]

Morning workout

Andrew always enjoys seeing Peter, he learns from him; and when he trains with him, he always enters a new pained state
This morning he warmed up on the assault bike, then started doing some intervals, and he was going to go for a run when Peter suggested blood flow restriction (BFR) Last time he used the blood flow restriction cuffs on his arms, did some curls with light waits, and those were extremely painful
This time he put the cuffs on his legs and locally it was less painful; it was more of a whole body pain Pedaling for two minutes at 220 watts with the cuffs on his thighs, he didn’t feel like his legs were going to pop, instead his whole body felt a little bit swollen When you come off of that two minutes and you take the cuffs off, he can’t really describe the feeling ‒ it’s somewhere between bliss, relief, and a supercharge
He took off for a run feeling more energized than he had in a long, long time
Peter does this sort of BFR 2-3x a week at the end of a leg workout
Using BFR cuffs on the arms is different; he suspects because there’s less fat and it’s easier to compress the vasculature so you get more distal occlusion Peter agrees, “ Doing bicep curls with those cuffs on, it is really the definition of hell; and it’s much more of a deep, awful pain in the legs”
Andrew enjoyed BRF training; this was his third time doing it
He noticed that when it’s done on the upper body, the pain can be very localized and it starts to migrate around in interesting ways
He actually learned a thing or two about the distribution of sensory receptors in the upper body For instance, immense pain in the hands, and then the moment you think you can’t tolerate it at all, it migrates to your shoulder and away from the hands With the legs, it’s more evenly distributed
He thinks it’s incredible training as long as people don’t try and “cowboy it” and just tie tourniquets You need the proper blood flow restriction cuffs
Last time he used the blood flow restriction cuffs on his arms, did some curls with light waits, and those were extremely painful
Pedaling for two minutes at 220 watts with the cuffs on his thighs, he didn’t feel like his legs were going to pop, instead his whole body felt a little bit swollen
When you come off of that two minutes and you take the cuffs off, he can’t really describe the feeling ‒ it’s somewhere between bliss, relief, and a supercharge
Peter agrees, “ Doing bicep curls with those cuffs on, it is really the definition of hell; and it’s much more of a deep, awful pain in the legs”
For instance, immense pain in the hands, and then the moment you think you can’t tolerate it at all, it migrates to your shoulder and away from the hands
With the legs, it’s more evenly distributed
You need the proper blood flow restriction cuffs

Benefits of BFR training

Growth hormone increase, minimal soreness despite getting quite a lot of metabolic activity
It provides less trauma with more metabolic benefit
One reason Peter likes doing the set Andrew did today is he likes exposing his legs to lactate The more lactate you’re exposed to, the more MCT the cells will upregulate Basically you want your cells to become more and more efficient at taking lactate and getting it out of the cell
Ultimately lactate is an amazing fuel Its role in neurons is just starting to become appreciated We typically think of neurons as only accepting glucose and ketones, but there is emerging evidence that lactate is a fuel Of course the liver can turn lactate right back into glucose via the Cori cycle The more efficiently our cells can get lactate out and start processing, the better
Lactate is not a poison We once thought of lactate as kind of a bad thing It’s only bad if you don’t know what to do with it
The more lactate you’re exposed to, the more MCT the cells will upregulate
Basically you want your cells to become more and more efficient at taking lactate and getting it out of the cell
Its role in neurons is just starting to become appreciated We typically think of neurons as only accepting glucose and ketones, but there is emerging evidence that lactate is a fuel
Of course the liver can turn lactate right back into glucose via the Cori cycle
The more efficiently our cells can get lactate out and start processing, the better
We typically think of neurons as only accepting glucose and ketones, but there is emerging evidence that lactate is a fuel
We once thought of lactate as kind of a bad thing
It’s only bad if you don’t know what to do with it

Lactate utilization in the brain

Andrew’s understanding of neurons that preferentially use lactate as a fuel, they do so under conditions of high stress or high exertion (it doesn’t have to be stressful)
The hypothalamus and areas of the brainstem that control breathing and more primitive functions preferentially utilize lactate first This is evident when you get into an ice bath or any kind of adrenaline shock environment
The little neuroimaging that is out there tells us that the prefrontal cortex essentially shuts down because there’s a preferential shuttling of glucose and lactate to other regions of the brain (simply to keep everything online); it’s not shutting down because of a lack of electrical activity The prefrontal cortex is involved in rule-setting and decision making, but really rule and contingency setting
This is evident when you get into an ice bath or any kind of adrenaline shock environment
The prefrontal cortex is involved in rule-setting and decision making, but really rule and contingency setting

Translated into plain English ‒ if you get into an ice bath or get a shot of adrenaline, your forebrain quiets for 20-30 seconds and all the other systems ramp up to provide survival function; then the forebrain can come online

The autonomic response associated with hypothalamus and brainstem activation

A lot of people feel hijacked by the autonomic response associated with hypothalamus and brainstem activation Heart rate goes up, breathing goes up, pupils dilate, tunnel vision; all of that happens immediately Most people aren’t familiar with those states
The more familiar we can become with those states and the fact that they are transient, the lower the probability we get hijacked by them
This is classic stress inoculation, but it’s nice to see that nowadays a number of people are doing this outside the military and outside of sports training, and just teaching themselves to be comfortable with that pulse of adrenaline and doing it through deliberate cold exposure or blood restriction cuffs
Once you feel that first shot of pain, “ How am I going to make it through two minutes of this? ” That’s another place where you just keep going and then all of a sudden your brain comes online, then the forebrain comes online
Heart rate goes up, breathing goes up, pupils dilate, tunnel vision; all of that happens immediately
Most people aren’t familiar with those states

Peter’s takeaway ‒ we evolved to sacrifice the most advanced part of the brain temporarily for the parts of the brain that are absolutely essential (the midbrain, the brain stem)

Resources are shunted away from a somewhat gratuitous part of the brain that is the most evolved
Realize though, it’s using a broad brush when to say that the forebrain shuts down

The role of the prefrontal cortex in governing rulesets [9:15]

A powerful discovery made by Nolan Williams

The prefrontal cortex is the brain real estate right behind the forehead; it’s involved in rule-setting by context
There’s this classic Stroop task ‒ give people a bunch of cards with words or numbers written on them in different colors, and then you ask them to read the words or the numbers (see the figure below) Or you ask them to tell you the colors and ignore what the words say It sounds easy, but it’s actually pretty hard to do when going fast And then you start switching back and forth That is a very prefrontal cortex-dependent kind of task
Or you ask them to tell you the colors and ignore what the words say
It sounds easy, but it’s actually pretty hard to do when going fast
And then you start switching back and forth
That is a very prefrontal cortex-dependent kind of task

Figure 1. The Stroop task reveals a delay in the reaction time of reading words when the color is incongruent (doesn’t match the word). Image credit: Wikipedia

The Stroop task reflects the ability to adjust your ruleset depending on what’s demanded of you in the context

For example, when Andrew walks in here for a podcast, it’s a very different rule-setting context than when he’s alone at home or when he is engaged in public speaking or or even when he’spodcasting There are slightly different rulesets when you’re a guest versus host of a podcast There are completely different sets when you’re spending time with your children, your wife alone
There are slightly different rulesets when you’re a guest versus host of a podcast
There are completely different sets when you’re spending time with your children, your wife alone

Rule-setting and context is completely governed by prefrontal cortex

The story of Phineas Gage illustrates the function of the prefrontal cortex

Hence the famous case of Phineas Gage , a tamping iron, destroyed his prefrontal cortex

Figure 2. The path of the iron rod through Phineas Gage’s skull . Image credit: Wikipedia

Andrew begins this story with a qualification ‒ everyone is obsessed with clinical trials (they are wonderful and immensely powerful), but we have to remember that in medicine (neuroscience in particular), most of what we know about memory comes from one single patient (the famous HM ) who had bilateral hippocampal damage Doctors deliberately burned out his hippocampi to offset epilepsy, temporal lobe epilepsy
Doctors deliberately burned out his hippocampi to offset epilepsy, temporal lobe epilepsy

Figure 3. Neuroanatomy, Patient HM had most of his hippocampus removed . Image credit: Wikipedia & John Hopkins Medicine

The case of Phineas Gage was a result of an accident He was a railroad worker and they would drive these tamps in with explosives, and he caught one coming up through the base of his jaw, went out through the forehead Somehow it missed the critical vasculature, and he survived
After the accident Phineas Gage became somebody who did not obey rulesets; he had inappropriate behavior He wasn’t necessarily profane, but he didn’t behave correctly for the context Whereas before he was very well mannered, and he adjusted his behavior according to context When he is out with beers for friends or working on the railroads, he might speak and behave one way When he would go home, he would speak and behave another way, etc. He completely lost the ability to switch rulesets according to context
He was a railroad worker and they would drive these tamps in with explosives, and he caught one coming up through the base of his jaw, went out through the forehead
Somehow it missed the critical vasculature, and he survived
He wasn’t necessarily profane, but he didn’t behave correctly for the context
Whereas before he was very well mannered, and he adjusted his behavior according to context When he is out with beers for friends or working on the railroads, he might speak and behave one way When he would go home, he would speak and behave another way, etc.
He completely lost the ability to switch rulesets according to context
When he is out with beers for friends or working on the railroads, he might speak and behave one way
When he would go home, he would speak and behave another way, etc.

The Amygdala

Related to this is Klüver-Bucy syndrome (Bob Dylan mentions it in a song) This is characterized by bilateral damage to the amygdala
Many people think the amygdala is involved in fear, but it’s really a defense and alertness system in the brain
Monkeys or people who have bilateral amygdala damage, they can still experience certain kinds of fear For instance, drive up CO 2 (carbon dioxide) in their environment or make them breathe pure CO 2 and they will panic, but they become unafraid of things like snakes (if previously they were afraid of snakes) They become kind of sexually and food inappropriate They’ll pick up a pen and start to gnaw on it, maybe taste it. They will try and copulate with various inanimate objects So there’s this kind of bizarre lack of context
This is characterized by bilateral damage to the amygdala
For instance, drive up CO 2 (carbon dioxide) in their environment or make them breathe pure CO 2 and they will panic, but they become unafraid of things like snakes (if previously they were afraid of snakes)
They become kind of sexually and food inappropriate They’ll pick up a pen and start to gnaw on it, maybe taste it. They will try and copulate with various inanimate objects
So there’s this kind of bizarre lack of context
They’ll pick up a pen and start to gnaw on it, maybe taste it.
They will try and copulate with various inanimate objects

We think of the prefrontal cortex as this very evolved structure

It is intimately involved with the limbic pathway ; it’s what we call mono-synaptic
Peter asks, “ So it’s less evolved than the top of the cortex, the neocortex? ”
The whole dating of cortical areas is a bit of a controversial thing, but beautiful work by Arnold Kriegstein at UCSF has focused on this using carbon dating as a way to approach this They’ve looked at brains from different species and are starting to establish homology from a macaque to a baboon to a human It’s hard to study homology and evolution of the nervous system because there is no fossil record The skull is preserved, but the brain degenerates and disappears
The two ways you establish homology come from development 1 – Developmental position ‒ for example, if you look at the hippocampus (an area associated with memory) in a mouse versus a human In the mouse, the hippocampus is up near the top of the brain In a human, it’s down near the bottom And you say, well, how can those be the same structure? If you look during development, they start off in the exact same place In the human brain, because it has so much neocortex (the outer shell), the whole thing starts moving and moving and moving, and it ends up down there at the bottom 2 – Connectivity ‒ for example, we know that the prefrontal cortex and amygdala are monosynaptically connected (there’s just one synaptic connection; it doesn’t go through a network) If we were to put an anatomical tracer into the amygdala, to the prefrontal cortex, you would see direct connections between those two structures, and you would see connections with intervening structures Ultimately in the brain, everything is connected to everything; just like on Google Maps, everything is connected to everything, even if it’s by way of ocean The presence of a monosynaptic connection (one connection or direct connection), or even a disynaptic connection (where there’s an intervening connection, but only one), is an important criteria for establishing homology because what it really says is that it establishes very fast communication between structures The brain is so metabolically demanding in general that we assume evolution did not introduce a lot of extraneous wiring
They’ve looked at brains from different species and are starting to establish homology from a macaque to a baboon to a human
It’s hard to study homology and evolution of the nervous system because there is no fossil record The skull is preserved, but the brain degenerates and disappears
The skull is preserved, but the brain degenerates and disappears
1 – Developmental position ‒ for example, if you look at the hippocampus (an area associated with memory) in a mouse versus a human In the mouse, the hippocampus is up near the top of the brain In a human, it’s down near the bottom And you say, well, how can those be the same structure? If you look during development, they start off in the exact same place In the human brain, because it has so much neocortex (the outer shell), the whole thing starts moving and moving and moving, and it ends up down there at the bottom
2 – Connectivity ‒ for example, we know that the prefrontal cortex and amygdala are monosynaptically connected (there’s just one synaptic connection; it doesn’t go through a network) If we were to put an anatomical tracer into the amygdala, to the prefrontal cortex, you would see direct connections between those two structures, and you would see connections with intervening structures Ultimately in the brain, everything is connected to everything; just like on Google Maps, everything is connected to everything, even if it’s by way of ocean
The presence of a monosynaptic connection (one connection or direct connection), or even a disynaptic connection (where there’s an intervening connection, but only one), is an important criteria for establishing homology because what it really says is that it establishes very fast communication between structures
The brain is so metabolically demanding in general that we assume evolution did not introduce a lot of extraneous wiring
In the mouse, the hippocampus is up near the top of the brain
In a human, it’s down near the bottom
And you say, well, how can those be the same structure?
If you look during development, they start off in the exact same place
In the human brain, because it has so much neocortex (the outer shell), the whole thing starts moving and moving and moving, and it ends up down there at the bottom
If we were to put an anatomical tracer into the amygdala, to the prefrontal cortex, you would see direct connections between those two structures, and you would see connections with intervening structures
Ultimately in the brain, everything is connected to everything; just like on Google Maps, everything is connected to everything, even if it’s by way of ocean

New discoveries about the circuitry between the prefrontal cortex, insula, and amygdala, and the insights gleaned about brain function in different emotional states [15:30]

So when we think about prefrontal cortex, it’s role in executive function, complex rule-setting, contingencies, we think it must be very evolved
This is the region of the human brain that’s expanded relative to other primates and other species
But it’s involved in some primitive stuff as well, not just by way of connectivity, and this brings us back to the Nolan Williams discovery
The prefrontal cortex is involved in rule-setting and contingencies
The amygdala and associated structures are involved in threat detection The response is kind of generic ‒ they raise heart rate, they raise awareness, they change the visual system, and they tune your auditory system to localize things as opposed to paying attention to everything in your environment Imagine the cone of attention, the so-called “cocktail party effect” ‒ you’re trying to hear a conversation in particular, not listen to just the buzz and the clinks of the glasses and stuff in the room
The insula is also in that circuitry involving prefrontal cortex and amygdala The insula has a map of the body surface and the internal organs It is essentially controlling interoception (at least in one region), which is our perception of everything that’s happening within our body, our perception that our heart rate has increased or decreased, our perception that our blood pressure is dropping, our perception that our gut feels acidic or full or empty, etc. Peter asks, “ What’s the physical size of this region? ” It is fairly expanded in humans, but Andrew would have to check It’s going to be larger than a few millimeters It’s small, but it contains a complete map of the internal body surface, and it’s in a position to integrate information about the outside world and rulesets and internal state ‒ they all converge there
Under conditions where we are rested, we are feeling rational, we understand the environment, we feel in control of things, the prefrontal cortex leads activation of the amygdala and the insula In other words, Andrew can say, “ Okay, my heart rate’s going up a little bit, but I’ve done a podcast before. I can get comfortable here .” Someone who’s never done public speaking, if they get out on stage and they’re feeling their heart rate going up and they’re thinking, “ Oh my God, I’m going to pass out, or I’m going to say something ridiculous ,” and they’re panicking; Andrew asks, “ What happens here? ”
The response is kind of generic ‒ they raise heart rate, they raise awareness, they change the visual system, and they tune your auditory system to localize things as opposed to paying attention to everything in your environment Imagine the cone of attention, the so-called “cocktail party effect” ‒ you’re trying to hear a conversation in particular, not listen to just the buzz and the clinks of the glasses and stuff in the room
Imagine the cone of attention, the so-called “cocktail party effect” ‒ you’re trying to hear a conversation in particular, not listen to just the buzz and the clinks of the glasses and stuff in the room
The insula has a map of the body surface and the internal organs
It is essentially controlling interoception (at least in one region), which is our perception of everything that’s happening within our body, our perception that our heart rate has increased or decreased, our perception that our blood pressure is dropping, our perception that our gut feels acidic or full or empty, etc.
Peter asks, “ What’s the physical size of this region? ” It is fairly expanded in humans, but Andrew would have to check It’s going to be larger than a few millimeters
It’s small, but it contains a complete map of the internal body surface, and it’s in a position to integrate information about the outside world and rulesets and internal state ‒ they all converge there
It is fairly expanded in humans, but Andrew would have to check
It’s going to be larger than a few millimeters
In other words, Andrew can say, “ Okay, my heart rate’s going up a little bit, but I’ve done a podcast before. I can get comfortable here .”
Someone who’s never done public speaking, if they get out on stage and they’re feeling their heart rate going up and they’re thinking, “ Oh my God, I’m going to pass out, or I’m going to say something ridiculous ,” and they’re panicking; Andrew asks, “ What happens here? ”

Nolan’s lab and others have shown that now the insula activity and the amygdala starts leading the ruleset of the prefrontal cortex

In other words, the coach now becomes the player, the trainer becomes the trainee
It’s literally an inversion, instead of it going prefrontal cortex to insula leads amygdala, it’s insula and amygdala lead prefrontal cortex
And so the prefrontal cortex doesn’t shut down completely under conditions of say getting into an ice bath or panic
The prefrontal cortex can only access one or two very specific rulesets

In times of stress, you lose flexibility of thinking

This is kind of a duh when you hear it, but the fact that neuroscientists are finally identifying the underlying neurology is very exciting
Because what we’re talking about is that neural circuits can run in both directions
We had always thought it was, this activates that, activates that in a kind of a chain of events But it can run in the other direction too
But it can run in the other direction too

Are you saying that the action potential moves in the other direction, and the neurotransmitters are actually released on the other side of the synapse?

No
All these structures are reciprocally connected
So we haven’t changed anything about the underlying cell biology, about the axon propagating down the axon The action potential propagating down the axon and transmitter release
It’s just that it’s a two-way highway And suddenly, if everything was running north to south, when we are in our rational mind, creativity, all of those things under conditions of calm, as soon as a certain level of internal discomfort arises, everything starts running south to north
The action potential propagating down the axon and transmitter release
And suddenly, if everything was running north to south, when we are in our rational mind, creativity, all of those things under conditions of calm, as soon as a certain level of internal discomfort arises, everything starts running south to north

This is exceedingly interesting because it means

1 – Neural circuits are not just all the classic lesion data You lesion a structure, like you remove some prefrontal cortex (like the Phineas Gage example), and you can start to see why that’s a cool, naturally occurring experiment You’re just getting an impression of what happens when you blow up one city along this map It doesn’t tell you anything about the direction of flow of information in and out of that map
The more we learn about the prefrontal cortex and these other structures (like the insula), the more we start to understand that the brain has neurons, and we have what are called receptive fields
Receptive fields are basically the way in which specific neurons are activated by specific events in the world, either in our bodies or outside our bodies
Those receptive fields are very dynamic depending on context
While the brain has all this diversity of response, it’s not infinite; we have modes that we sort of fall into bins of autonomic arousal (levels of alertness) in the context of sexual arousal or hunger (it doesn’t always have to be stress) In one of these contexts, the ruleset becomes very, very narrow ‒ it’s find food, it’s have sex, it’s find a safe place to fall asleep
In contrast, when we are rested and we have our basic needs met , this opens up the opportunity to start thinking in new and novel ways It’s like taking the Stroop task to the extreme It’s 2023, what is the metaverse going to look like? What’s going to happen to Twitter? What’s going to happen to the economy? What’s going to happen to public health? And so you can start thinking, what you can start doing is combining different rulesets and evaluating those different rulesets
Andrew believes this is one of the reasons why many people experience their best ideas from doing a lot of structured thinking, but also from taking a walk and all of a sudden an idea comes to us, or in the shower When we aren’t focusing on the implementation of a specific ruleset it’s very clear that the prefrontal cortex has this ability, depending on what else is going on in our body, to start swirling and combining these different rulesets
Andrew and Peter are both fascinated by high performance (for example F1 ), but at the start of any performance there’s the classic laddering up of unskilled, then skilled, then mastery And then this thing that we love to observe, which is virtuosity, is this combining of rulesets in a way that it seems even the performer didn’t even realize was possible
You lesion a structure, like you remove some prefrontal cortex (like the Phineas Gage example), and you can start to see why that’s a cool, naturally occurring experiment
You’re just getting an impression of what happens when you blow up one city along this map
It doesn’t tell you anything about the direction of flow of information in and out of that map
In one of these contexts, the ruleset becomes very, very narrow ‒ it’s find food, it’s have sex, it’s find a safe place to fall asleep
It’s like taking the Stroop task to the extreme
It’s 2023, what is the metaverse going to look like? What’s going to happen to Twitter? What’s going to happen to the economy? What’s going to happen to public health?
And so you can start thinking, what you can start doing is combining different rulesets and evaluating those different rulesets
When we aren’t focusing on the implementation of a specific ruleset it’s very clear that the prefrontal cortex has this ability, depending on what else is going on in our body, to start swirling and combining these different rulesets
And then this thing that we love to observe, which is virtuosity, is this combining of rulesets in a way that it seems even the performer didn’t even realize was possible

The work of Nolan Williams has taught us about this whole prefrontal cortex, insula, amygdala circuitry

When people are in states of calm, and certainly in states of what we consider mental health, things run north to south, prefrontal cortex downward
People who are depressed have deficits in activation of particularly the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, and much of their thinking and their life is run from the insula and amygdala up to the prefrontal cortex And this is why people wake up thinking, “ I don’t know how to accomplish anything today. There’s no point in trying. ” Their rulesets seem like they don’t work because they are only able to access specific rulesets of thinking Meanwhile, the rest of us say, “ Well, hey, get some exercise and apply for a job, look for a new relationship, ” but these rulesets are not available to depressed people It’s almost like depressed people can’t see the play board in the same way
Nolan’s lab has been using transcranial magnetic stimulation to activate (not inhibit) the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex in particular, and he sees that all of a sudden people have new ideas about rulesets revealed to them ( published in The American Journal of Psychiatry )
And this is why people wake up thinking, “ I don’t know how to accomplish anything today. There’s no point in trying. ”
Their rulesets seem like they don’t work because they are only able to access specific rulesets of thinking
Meanwhile, the rest of us say, “ Well, hey, get some exercise and apply for a job, look for a new relationship, ” but these rulesets are not available to depressed people
It’s almost like depressed people can’t see the play board in the same way

Is the idea there that if you stimulate and activate and send the current back north to south, it automatically reduces the south to north or just overwhelms it?

Most likely it overwhelms it, and with time, it creates neuroplasticity that reduces it
This seems to happen by temporarily shutting down people’s interoception
We think so much about how it is important to be connected to your body For many people, their entire life and experience exists from the neck up and the waist down
For many people, their entire life and experience exists from the neck up and the waist down

Interoception is a double-edged sword

People who have extreme levels of interoception can reliably feel and count their heartbeats without taking their pulse or using a heart rate monitor (you can be trained to do this) These people have very high levels of insula activity
There are subregions of the insula that are particularly sensitive to internal state; other regions of the insula are tuned to other things
These people have very high levels of insula activity

Is bowel pain perceived in the insula?

Peter is thinking of the feeling of having a stomach bug or something worse like extreme constipation or a small bowel obstruction
The innervation of the small bowel is insane; we are able to detect pain at even a modest amount of stretch

The answer is yes; the insula is going to a primary site for delivery of somatic sensation to the brain

“ I’m very, very open to the idea that the body plays an important role in all things health and perception, but there is something particularly important about the real estate in our skulls. ”‒ Andrew Huberman

Comparing human vision and other senses to animals [26:00]

Where in the body is the sense of who you are?

There is something particularly important about the real estate in our skulls You could amputate all four of my limbs, that would suck for me, but I’d still be Andrew “If you take out one square millimeter of my prefrontal cortex, the chances are I’m going to be a very different person” Now, that is not true if you remove one square millimeter of a different brain area The last place I would ever allow you to take a square millimeter of neural tissue is my neural retina Peter would have guessed the hippocampus; Andrew replies “ There are a few things I’d like to forget ”
You could amputate all four of my limbs, that would suck for me, but I’d still be Andrew
“If you take out one square millimeter of my prefrontal cortex, the chances are I’m going to be a very different person”
Now, that is not true if you remove one square millimeter of a different brain area The last place I would ever allow you to take a square millimeter of neural tissue is my neural retina Peter would have guessed the hippocampus; Andrew replies “ There are a few things I’d like to forget ”
The last place I would ever allow you to take a square millimeter of neural tissue is my neural retina
Peter would have guessed the hippocampus; Andrew replies “ There are a few things I’d like to forget ”

Vision

Andrew doesn’t care to much about peripheral vision , although you use that when you’re driving
A lot of people think you use foveal vision (central vision) for driving, but there are many people driving out there who are legally blind in their central vision They aren’t great drivers, but they are decent enough to pass the driving test There are a lot of legally blind people driving
They aren’t great drivers, but they are decent enough to pass the driving test
There are a lot of legally blind people driving

You would prioritize vision over any other part of your brain?

Absolutely
Except perhaps the motor cortex
If you look at the allocation of real estate in the human brain, it’s very clear that vision and movement dominate most of the requirements Sensation and the homunculus are also enormous
Sensation and the homunculus are also enormous

The occipital cortex is responsible for vision, on a neuron basis what % is it of total neurons? Would you include glial cells?

Figure 4. Major lobes of the human cerebral cortex . Image credit: Wikipedia

Yes, we should include the glia ‒ Andrew pays homage to the great Ben Barres , his postdoc advisor and Peter’s former instructor at Stanford

In terms of strict volume-based real estate, the amount of the human brain allocated for vision and vision only as well as neurons that are responsive to visual stimuli, this is 40-42%

Areas of the auditory cortex are also responsible for vision If you hear something over to your left, you tend to look left; there’s integration (what we call multimodal neurons)
Multimodal neurons have auditory and visual receptive fields; they can be activated by auditory and visual cues
Peter finds this amazing
If you hear something over to your left, you tend to look left; there’s integration (what we call multimodal neurons)

Different senses are heightened in different animals

One of the things Peter enjoys about bow hunting is the ability to observe other species and how they have different superpowers from us
Axis deer and elk have incredible hearing, but their sense of smell is next level (we don’t have a way to comprehend it) Someone described their amazing sense of smell with this analogy If you were to come across an animal that had been killed, and it was mostly still there and rotting, when you are within 10 feet of it, it would smell rancid beyond words This is what we smell like to an elk a mile away
We always hear that sharks can smell a drop of blood in the water from a mile away, but it’s hard to imagine what that is
There is a beautiful book about animal behavior and perception called An Immense World by Ed Young; it’s all about the sensory specializations of other animals
Peter’s point is that the only sense we have that seems to rival animals is vision
Someone described their amazing sense of smell with this analogy
If you were to come across an animal that had been killed, and it was mostly still there and rotting, when you are within 10 feet of it, it would smell rancid beyond words
This is what we smell like to an elk a mile away

It’s interesting to think that so much of the real estate of our brain is assigned to vision; the olfactory neural component is minimal in comparison

The volume of real estates is not always the best indicator though

A lot of mistakes were made in the early days of neuroscience because of looking at the # of neurons / # connections

A good example would be the Raphe nucleus of the brainstem manufacturers serotonin It sends an enormous projection to the circadian clock of the hypothalamus There have been dozens of experiments evaluating the role of serotonin in that pathway and its ability to shift the circadian system, and so far it seems like it has barely any influence We assume it’s doing something, but it’s not doing anything obvious based on the experiments that have been done
You’ve got to be a little careful in any description about animals and the natural world and vision, because this could end up being a 15 hour podcast Andrew turns into the six-year-old version himself (he was obsessed with learning about animals)
It sends an enormous projection to the circadian clock of the hypothalamus
There have been dozens of experiments evaluating the role of serotonin in that pathway and its ability to shift the circadian system, and so far it seems like it has barely any influence We assume it’s doing something, but it’s not doing anything obvious based on the experiments that have been done
We assume it’s doing something, but it’s not doing anything obvious based on the experiments that have been done
Andrew turns into the six-year-old version himself (he was obsessed with learning about animals)

Putting sensory experiences in perspective

To get a sense of how well we see relative to other animals, if you were to hold out your thumb at arms distance, if Andrew were to draw 60 black lines separated from one another on your thumbnail, you would be able to perceive that We call that being able to measure 60 cycles per degree , cycles of black, white, per one degree of visual angle You can’t count the 60 lines, but you can recognize that they are discrete lines; this is normal for people with 20/20 vision
A raptor bird like a red tail hawk sees at 120 cycles per degree That means they can sit up on a light pole and look down at the ground and see a small gopher raise its head in the ground (they’ll perceive it) They might not be able to count the whiskers on that gopher’s face
We have a pupil and a fovea behind that (see the diagram below) A fovea actually means a pit The fovea is a concentration of retinal cells that allows us to see at highest acuity in the central vision How do we know this? You can put your hand out to the side and you know your fingers are waving off in your periphery You can see that they’re moving, but you can’t really count them As you move your hand in front of your face, you can count the fingers
We call that being able to measure 60 cycles per degree , cycles of black, white, per one degree of visual angle
You can’t count the 60 lines, but you can recognize that they are discrete lines; this is normal for people with 20/20 vision
That means they can sit up on a light pole and look down at the ground and see a small gopher raise its head in the ground (they’ll perceive it) They might not be able to count the whiskers on that gopher’s face
They might not be able to count the whiskers on that gopher’s face
A fovea actually means a pit
The fovea is a concentration of retinal cells that allows us to see at highest acuity in the central vision How do we know this? You can put your hand out to the side and you know your fingers are waving off in your periphery You can see that they’re moving, but you can’t really count them As you move your hand in front of your face, you can count the fingers
How do we know this?
You can put your hand out to the side and you know your fingers are waving off in your periphery
You can see that they’re moving, but you can’t really count them
As you move your hand in front of your face, you can count the fingers

Figure 5. Schematic of the human eye indicating the fovea . Image credit: Wikipedia

We have more pixels in our central vision than in peripheral vision, but only in the center, and it’s circular
Red tail hawks have a fovea, but other types of raptors have another fovea that views the floor (such as a diving bird)
Birds that fly along the ocean have a horizontal visual streak that allows them to view the horizon; and what we consider central is their peripheral They also have a fovea because they need to actually dive into a school of fish and capture a fish while adjusting for the refractory index of the water An example to understand refraction of light in water ‒ if you ever reach for a coin at the bottom of the swimming pool, it’s only when you get very close that you realize you were off by a few centimeters These birds do this incredible feat by distributing the high pixel region of their retina to a visual streak and down below of fovea
The sloth that hangs upside down has its fovea on the top of the eye so it can view the jungle floor
Andrew’s favorite example of this is the J-shape, high density, high pixel concentration of the retina of the elephant so that it can view the trunk and the tip of its trunk It has to make very high acuity placement of the trunk in order to eat properly This is not really a fovea
They also have a fovea because they need to actually dive into a school of fish and capture a fish while adjusting for the refractory index of the water An example to understand refraction of light in water ‒ if you ever reach for a coin at the bottom of the swimming pool, it’s only when you get very close that you realize you were off by a few centimeters
These birds do this incredible feat by distributing the high pixel region of their retina to a visual streak and down below of fovea
An example to understand refraction of light in water ‒ if you ever reach for a coin at the bottom of the swimming pool, it’s only when you get very close that you realize you were off by a few centimeters
It has to make very high acuity placement of the trunk in order to eat properly
This is not really a fovea

Nature has evolved all these incredible retinal specializations, and all have differences in acuity and distribution of what they see in the world

Sheep need to see the horizon and be aware of predators, but they also need to pay attention to what they’re eating Peter recalls friends who have hunted sheep in North America say that if you break horizon out to five miles, the sheep will see you A guy down in Australia for years named Jack Pettigrew did tons of beautiful experiments on animals like sheep and goats, and they have incredibly high acuity vision, but for very select regions of visual space They have a visual streak that is not straight across the eye The sheep doesn’t know that Peter and his friends are creeping up on them on the horizon, they only see a deflection of something in their visual field
Peter recalls friends who have hunted sheep in North America say that if you break horizon out to five miles, the sheep will see you
A guy down in Australia for years named Jack Pettigrew did tons of beautiful experiments on animals like sheep and goats, and they have incredibly high acuity vision, but for very select regions of visual space
They have a visual streak that is not straight across the eye
The sheep doesn’t know that Peter and his friends are creeping up on them on the horizon, they only see a deflection of something in their visual field

The point being one universal truth of all of this is that the retina and the visual system is most sensitive to motion

There’s a very fast pathway that goes from the retina to a brainstem structure called the superior colliculus that immediately engages the orienting reflex It’s not even conscious It’s not a decision-making process If something moves in the periphery, and the signal to noise is great enough that we (or an animal) orient towards it
It’s not even conscious
It’s not a decision-making process
If something moves in the periphery, and the signal to noise is great enough that we (or an animal) orient towards it

Are we more sensitive to the sound or to something moving in our periphery?

Visual periphery moving, though there are exceptions
For instance, watch the Nature is Metal channel on Instagram ‒ there are gruesome examples of lions hunting They move very slowly and they learn that they become invisible to prey when they are not moving
They move very slowly and they learn that they become invisible to prey when they are not moving
If you were to eliminate all your retinal movements and you’re looking right at Andrew, he would disappear
You’re making little microsaccades all the time that prevent the habituation of the neurons that would otherwise erase your visual perception of whoever is in front of you The retina has little microsaccades (basically a little tiny jitter) that prevents the habituation of the neurons in the visual system from essentially losing the perception of what’s in front of you
Experiments have been done ‒ eliminate these little microsaccades and you would become invisible to me The only way Andrew would see you is if he moved his head or his eyes in a bigger eye movement These experiments were done by Hubel and Wiesel , Nobel Prize winners for a number of different aspects of vision You can do this by giving the toxin Curare to eliminate the small muscle movements of the eye (temporarily paralyze these muscles) There are some other drugs that you can use that tap into the cholinergic system
The retina has little microsaccades (basically a little tiny jitter) that prevents the habituation of the neurons in the visual system from essentially losing the perception of what’s in front of you
The only way Andrew would see you is if he moved his head or his eyes in a bigger eye movement
These experiments were done by Hubel and Wiesel , Nobel Prize winners for a number of different aspects of vision
You can do this by giving the toxin Curare to eliminate the small muscle movements of the eye (temporarily paralyze these muscles)
There are some other drugs that you can use that tap into the cholinergic system

Getting into the realm of sensory perception

If your hands are on your thigh, you can habituate to that Some people call it attenuation, habituation, adaptation Smell is another example, if you walk into a dentist’s office, the smell of the dental cement makes you want to vomit, but a couple minutes later you don’t notice it because the olfactory neurons habituate
Some people call it attenuation, habituation, adaptation
Smell is another example, if you walk into a dentist’s office, the smell of the dental cement makes you want to vomit, but a couple minutes later you don’t notice it because the olfactory neurons habituate

Because the nervous system mostly runs on a signal to noise over time algorithm

A deep dive into vision: evolutionary adaptations, facial recognition, color, and more [39:45]

Examples of visual adaptations

There is rapid plasticity in terms of adaptation
If you go into a fun house mirror type environment, that’s more of a visual proprioceptive feedback, where at first you feel kind of wobbly and then you can move You’re like, “ Oh, when I see myself move that way in the mirror, that’s not really how I need to respond. ” At first you feel a little off balance, but there’s very fast adaptation
Here is a wild experiment ‒ you put glasses on somebody that inverts the visual world That’s got to throw off your day. But within four hours you’re navigating just fine What happens? The receptive fields invert and all of a sudden you see the world right side up (it flips)
You’re like, “ Oh, when I see myself move that way in the mirror, that’s not really how I need to respond. ”
At first you feel a little off balance, but there’s very fast adaptation
That’s got to throw off your day.
But within four hours you’re navigating just fine
What happens? The receptive fields invert and all of a sudden you see the world right side up (it flips)

What happens at the cellular level to enable that?

This has been studied by Tomaso Poggio and others and it’s still somewhat of a mystery
It appears to be mediated by bottom-up changes , meaning it is shifts in the ocular motor and visual motor structures of the brainstem communicating with the higher level perceptual centers of the cortex Remember, if we were to splay out from most primitive to most evolved functions within vision, and we can make up “just so” stories Andrew is joking, he wasn’t consulted in the design phase, so he don’t know the logic By the way, anytime someone asks you, “ Why is something this way? ” The response should be, “ I wasn’t consulted in the design phase ” Andrew borrowed that phrase from Russ Van Gelder who’s the chair of ophthalmology at University of Washington (thank you) This simply captures the fact that you can come up with “just so” stories
What we know for sure is that based on genetics and cellular architecture, that the primary function of the visual system was not to see and perceive things It was to recognize when it’s daytime and when it’s nighttime (we’ll come back to this) The neurons that handle this are the so-called melanopsin and intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells , they don’t pay attention to shapes, but they tell the brain when it’s daytime and they tell the brain when it’s absence of light
This relates to Satchidananda Panda , Samer Hattar , Matt Walker (all the greats of Circadian biology ) This relates to sleep and wakefulness
Remember, if we were to splay out from most primitive to most evolved functions within vision, and we can make up “just so” stories
Andrew is joking, he wasn’t consulted in the design phase, so he don’t know the logic By the way, anytime someone asks you, “ Why is something this way? ” The response should be, “ I wasn’t consulted in the design phase ” Andrew borrowed that phrase from Russ Van Gelder who’s the chair of ophthalmology at University of Washington (thank you) This simply captures the fact that you can come up with “just so” stories
By the way, anytime someone asks you, “ Why is something this way? ” The response should be, “ I wasn’t consulted in the design phase ”
Andrew borrowed that phrase from Russ Van Gelder who’s the chair of ophthalmology at University of Washington (thank you)
This simply captures the fact that you can come up with “just so” stories
It was to recognize when it’s daytime and when it’s nighttime (we’ll come back to this)
The neurons that handle this are the so-called melanopsin and intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells , they don’t pay attention to shapes, but they tell the brain when it’s daytime and they tell the brain when it’s absence of light
This relates to sleep and wakefulness

The next thing is neurons that can sense contrast and motion

More important than knowing that your skin has a particular tone is just knowing that you are there and that you are a moving object, as opposed to stationary objects in the room that I just need to navigate around.
Then comes shape and form For example, is that a fish that I want to move away from or do I want to approach and eat? Is it bigger than I am? Is it smaller than I am? These kinds of things
Then comes color of the more traditional sort (we’ll come back to this)
For example, is that a fish that I want to move away from or do I want to approach and eat? Is it bigger than I am? Is it smaller than I am? These kinds of things

The final category is specific features of shape, such as your face

I recognize your face or JFK’s face or Marilyn Monroe’s face
There’s an area of the brain called the fusiform face gyrus ; it lies way up along the visual pathway (meaning very far from the retina), but neurons there are exquisitely tuned to specific faces If you lesion that area, people become what’s called Prosopagnosia , where people know they are looking at a face, but they don’t know whose face it is Ben Barres had a mild face recognition deficit; Andrew would sometimes walk into his office and he’d mistake him for Challa (a woman that worked in the lab) Now that kind of question might have been more context-appropriate given that Ben was transgendered, so maybe his notions of gender and faces were a little bit intermixed But we don’t think that people who are transgendered perceive other people as different genders
This brain area controls recognition of facial identity; it’s a very high-level function
There are extreme examples ‒ a lesion where you can’t recognize anybody or there are also super recognizers
We are at the point now where machine learning and AI is getting better than many humans at face recognition 10 years ago, 15 years ago, retinal scans existed, but nothing like the ones they have now For example, face recognition on your phone for getting into your bank account
Monkeys, macaque monkeys, old world primates also have this fusiform face area This is largely the work of Nancy Kanwisher at MIT
For years it was debated. “I s this a face recognition area really? Or is it just recognition of two dots in a line? ” If I draw two dots in a line on a piece of paper, and you say, “ That’s a face .” If I curl that line upward a little bit, you say, “ It’s smiling .” If I turn it upside down or I put it at 90 degrees, it does not look like a face So the neurons in this area are amazingly tuned to specific features
If you lesion that area, people become what’s called Prosopagnosia , where people know they are looking at a face, but they don’t know whose face it is
Ben Barres had a mild face recognition deficit; Andrew would sometimes walk into his office and he’d mistake him for Challa (a woman that worked in the lab) Now that kind of question might have been more context-appropriate given that Ben was transgendered, so maybe his notions of gender and faces were a little bit intermixed But we don’t think that people who are transgendered perceive other people as different genders
Now that kind of question might have been more context-appropriate given that Ben was transgendered, so maybe his notions of gender and faces were a little bit intermixed
But we don’t think that people who are transgendered perceive other people as different genders
10 years ago, 15 years ago, retinal scans existed, but nothing like the ones they have now
For example, face recognition on your phone for getting into your bank account
This is largely the work of Nancy Kanwisher at MIT
If I draw two dots in a line on a piece of paper, and you say, “ That’s a face .” If I curl that line upward a little bit, you say, “ It’s smiling .”
If I turn it upside down or I put it at 90 degrees, it does not look like a face
So the neurons in this area are amazingly tuned to specific features

Color vision

Your dog sees you in brown/red/orange-ish tones, not the colors we see
A mantis shrimp sees 60 different variations of red that we can’t even perceive
All of that suggests that color vision was a late evolution in the visual system And indeed the genetics of the photopigments in the eye argue that’s true Photopigments absorb either the red, green, or blue, meaning long, medium, and short wavelength lights (not really red, green, or blue)
And indeed the genetics of the photopigments in the eye argue that’s true
Photopigments absorb either the red, green, or blue, meaning long, medium, and short wavelength lights (not really red, green, or blue)

Sense of smell, pheromones, and why evolution developed better vision over smell [46:30]

Peter asked earlier whether or not our olfaction is diminished Beautiful work by a couple, Samir Deeb and his partner at the University of Washington, showed that if you look at human genomics, that humans traded out diversity of olfactory receptors (the ability to sense a rich array of scents compared to other animals) for evolution of that long-wavelength red photo pigment
Beautiful work by a couple, Samir Deeb and his partner at the University of Washington, showed that if you look at human genomics, that humans traded out diversity of olfactory receptors (the ability to sense a rich array of scents compared to other animals) for evolution of that long-wavelength red photo pigment

So trichromacy, this ability to perceive in the color ranges that we perceive, is a late stage evolution, and we traded out olfactory ability for that

Why did we trade out olfactory ability for color vision? Is it literally a brain real estate question? Is it a metabolic question?

To be fair to the olfactory system and the vomeronasal system , smell is incredibly important for humans Anyone that got COVID and couldn’t smell for a day (like Andrew), that sucked Andrew remembers biting into a handful of blueberries and he couldn’t taste it very due to the lack of smell Taste and smell are intermeshed He thought, “Oh my goodness, my life isn’t over. But this really sucks. This is not pleasant at all. These taste like little bags of water.” And he loves blueberries
We are sensitive to the smell of vomit, disgust
We are sensitive to the smell of our romantic partners; we tend to like that smell
The debate between odors and pheromones, pheromone effects in humans are present
Anyone that got COVID and couldn’t smell for a day (like Andrew), that sucked Andrew remembers biting into a handful of blueberries and he couldn’t taste it very due to the lack of smell Taste and smell are intermeshed He thought, “Oh my goodness, my life isn’t over. But this really sucks. This is not pleasant at all. These taste like little bags of water.” And he loves blueberries
Andrew remembers biting into a handful of blueberries and he couldn’t taste it very due to the lack of smell
Taste and smell are intermeshed
He thought, “Oh my goodness, my life isn’t over. But this really sucks. This is not pleasant at all. These taste like little bags of water.” And he loves blueberries

What is the definition of a pheromone?

A hormone is a chemical released in one location in the body that can act at that location and many other locations, so-called endocrine signaling (or paracrine signaling )
A pheromone is a chemical released by one organism that can act on the physiology of another organism

Can we capture the molecular structure of a pheromone? For example, a pheromone released from the nape of your child’s neck (someone you can smell, someone you love)?

The presence of true pheromones in humans is still debated because the so-called accessory olfactory system that governs that hormonal response in other animals There’s an organ in the human nose called Jacobson’s organ that is thought to be the vestigial pheromonal organ; that’s debated
But what is absolutely clear is that the scent, the conscious perception of a scent has dramatic effects on our physiology There’s a direct wiring from the olfactory system
There’s an organ in the human nose called Jacobson’s organ that is thought to be the vestigial pheromonal organ; that’s debated
There’s a direct wiring from the olfactory system

These are odor effects not pheromone effects

The idea of a chemical coming off of your child and going through the vomeronasal system and impacting these aspects of self- oxytocin release, probably dopamine release, all sorts of wonderful things, that’s debated
What is absolutely clear though is that that specific scent clearly is perceived and registered by you and has an impact on your physiology

What is the connection?

It is a molecule traveling into the nose and impacting the deep limbic cortex
You’ve got a six layered cortex (neocortex); it’s thought to be more evolved
The limbic and piriform cortex have fewer layers
The hippocampus (the memory center) is actually three layers It’s cortical; it’s not what we think of as neocortex
It’s very clear from the work of Richard Axel and Linda Buck and others, that the smell of your child’s head and neck is perceived and impacts specific neurons in these more “primitive” brain areas
And there are many automatic (innate) as well as learned responses to that, such as the desire to focus on their needs instead of your own is odor-driven
It’s cortical; it’s not what we think of as neocortex

Whether these responses to your children are pheromone-driven is a little like splitting hairs; it’s debated; olfaction is absolutely powerful for humans

But of course, you can lose your olfaction and still function just fine
Pheromone effects are very powerful in other animals and you see analogs to them in humans

Unique aspects of the human visual system [50:45]

One of the reasons we think that the visual system is so dominant is that it allows us to function based on perception of things at a distance
The olfactory system requires fairly close-range contact
We think of binocular vision (using both eyes) as creating a coherent picture
Elk and many other animals that are olfactory driven can sense odor plumes (cones of odor) This switches between their different nostrils and allows them to distribute odor plumes They can geolocate and track three or four young (or hunters) simultaneously through odor plumes
It sounds crazy, but we do this all the time; it’s called covert attention This is the phenomenon of being at the bar and you’re talking to somebody, but you’re actually checking out somebody else at the bar or somebody walks in who you really dislike or like, and so you’re pretending to have a conversation, but you’re really paying covert attention
Animals like elk can create and split multiple cones of odor attention They can also perceive depth with their odor plumes The concentration of an odor would fall off with distance
We do this with our visual system, obviously things on the horizon You watch a plane fly overhead, it looks like it’s slow If you’re right up next to it’s going to go blazing past Or consider F1 racing, Andrew thinks, “ Why are the cars driving so slow? I thought this was car racing ,” but then they come by and it’s incredibly fast That captures the relationship between visual perception and time perception where the same thing at a distance appears to move slowly (we’ll come back to this)
This switches between their different nostrils and allows them to distribute odor plumes
They can geolocate and track three or four young (or hunters) simultaneously through odor plumes
This is the phenomenon of being at the bar and you’re talking to somebody, but you’re actually checking out somebody else at the bar or somebody walks in who you really dislike or like, and so you’re pretending to have a conversation, but you’re really paying covert attention
They can also perceive depth with their odor plumes
The concentration of an odor would fall off with distance
You watch a plane fly overhead, it looks like it’s slow
If you’re right up next to it’s going to go blazing past
Or consider F1 racing, Andrew thinks, “ Why are the cars driving so slow? I thought this was car racing ,” but then they come by and it’s incredibly fast
That captures the relationship between visual perception and time perception where the same thing at a distance appears to move slowly (we’ll come back to this)
Andrew’s favorite example of this ‒ go to New York City, get up in a skyscraper, look out the window and people below look like little ants moving around kind of slowly Then all of a sudden, look at something in your room and all of a sudden things are moving really fast because they’re close
Other animals do this with their odor plumes, which is insane because it’s not our experience
Also insane ‒ a pit viper sees in the infrared and can sense your heat emissions in the same way as sensing movement is sensing vectors of movement
Then all of a sudden, look at something in your room and all of a sudden things are moving really fast because they’re close

What was the limit for us not to have all of these super senses?

Presumably there were variants of us that were randomly occurring that had those skills, and they got outcompeted by people who had greater and greater visual acuity
Is it a problem of running out of real estate inside the cranium? And if so, why not get a bigger cranium? Neanderthals had bigger cranium
Andrew thinks this is unanswerable, but it’s a fascinating question
Also fascinating is that we have vestigial pheromonal organs
Or that we have an olfactory system that can be used to a greater degree than we do rely on it
And if so, why not get a bigger cranium? Neanderthals had bigger cranium

Humans can be trained to enhance olfactory perception

Andrew is a huge fan of the work of Noam Sobel He used to be at Berkeley and now he’s in Israel When Andrew was at UC Berkeley, he used to see people doing experiments where they would put gloves and goggles, occluding goggles, and all sorts of stuff to block hearing and touch and vision, and Noam taught people to follow odor trails of chocolate and distinguish between different odor trails People can learn this; you can devote more resources to it
He used to be at Berkeley and now he’s in Israel
When Andrew was at UC Berkeley, he used to see people doing experiments where they would put gloves and goggles, occluding goggles, and all sorts of stuff to block hearing and touch and vision, and Noam taught people to follow odor trails of chocolate and distinguish between different odor trails People can learn this; you can devote more resources to it
People can learn this; you can devote more resources to it

In terms of the limit for super senses, Andrew thinks the most straightforward answer is likely that we traded out space (less space devoted to olfactory perception and more space devoted to visual perception)

The relationship between visual input and time perception [55:30]

There is something important about that relationship between vision and time perception At some point in human evolution, whether or not it was through the visual system or through the prefrontal cortical mechanisms, something very special happened for old world primates and us in particular Andrew thinks this is what sets us apart from all the other animals, and it is the reason that we are the curators of the earth and not other species
We have a greater duration of time in our lifespan in which we can engage neuroplasticity (the ability to deliberately change our neural architecture through learning)
Our perception of time ‒ we developed the ability to divorce from memories of the past and experiences in the present and also anticipate experiences in the future
Andrew doesn’t know about animals (because he’s not in the elk’s mind or the mind of a turtle), but everything that we know about their sensory life and perception says that they have memories This whole notion of a goldfish not having a memory is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard First of all, the experiment’s never been done Second, the goldfish has to swim in circles. Who decided it forgot? They can remember food is over there Animals cache food for the winter and go back to those cache sites Squirrels have an incredible memory of location and landmarks and all this stuff
At some point in human evolution, whether or not it was through the visual system or through the prefrontal cortical mechanisms, something very special happened for old world primates and us in particular
Andrew thinks this is what sets us apart from all the other animals, and it is the reason that we are the curators of the earth and not other species
This whole notion of a goldfish not having a memory is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard First of all, the experiment’s never been done Second, the goldfish has to swim in circles. Who decided it forgot? They can remember food is over there
Animals cache food for the winter and go back to those cache sites Squirrels have an incredible memory of location and landmarks and all this stuff
First of all, the experiment’s never been done
Second, the goldfish has to swim in circles. Who decided it forgot?
They can remember food is over there
Squirrels have an incredible memory of location and landmarks and all this stuff

“ We have a memory of past, we have perception of present, but we also can think about how past and present relate to anticipation of future events. And that places us in an incredible arena of interaction with the natural world, where we can make plans in very specific ways .” —Andew Huberman

Andrew’s takeaway on our dependance on vision

Andrew thinks our ability to be so dependent on vision, and the fact that our visual system has this aperture, we can view broad swaths of our visual environment and we can carve up time in very broad bins Think about the plane flying slowly, or we can narrow our visual aperture We could go outside, find a little ant hill and we could pay attention to all the micro-movements of that and focus on that for a couple of hours We can narrow our visual aperture Stress or excitement will narrow our visual aperture
Remember the prefrontal cortex has different rulesets associated with different internal states That also relates to different modes of visual perception
At some point in human evolution, some ancient version of ourselves figured out how to see into the future Obviously, not directly But we anticipate the rulesets of events that are still yet to come Other animals, if they do that, they don’t seem to actualize on that ability Andrew had this bulldog for years and he loved chasing rabbits, but he didn’t wake up on New Year’s Day and say, “ Okay, 50 rabbits this year. ” And if he did, he never actually succeeded in making a good plan to execute that
Think about the plane flying slowly, or we can narrow our visual aperture
We could go outside, find a little ant hill and we could pay attention to all the micro-movements of that and focus on that for a couple of hours
We can narrow our visual aperture
Stress or excitement will narrow our visual aperture
That also relates to different modes of visual perception
Obviously, not directly
But we anticipate the rulesets of events that are still yet to come
Other animals, if they do that, they don’t seem to actualize on that ability Andrew had this bulldog for years and he loved chasing rabbits, but he didn’t wake up on New Year’s Day and say, “ Okay, 50 rabbits this year. ” And if he did, he never actually succeeded in making a good plan to execute that
Andrew had this bulldog for years and he loved chasing rabbits, but he didn’t wake up on New Year’s Day and say, “ Okay, 50 rabbits this year. ”
And if he did, he never actually succeeded in making a good plan to execute that

How could we test that hypothesis?

Andrew doesn’t know
What he does know is there are certain states (including dreams, the liminal state between waking and sleeping) when we are completely devoid of external visual input This is also true in certain psychedelic states And space and time become not normal
First thing we learn is objects fall down, not up We learn, these are our caretakers, and when I feel stressed, I don’t know that I need to have my diaper changed, I just scream, my diaper gets changed (hopefully) Those are the rulesets that we come into the world with, early rulesets
But then at some point our rulesets become very constrained by our immediate experience and by past experience, like, “ Oh gosh, that teacher is not nice, that babysitter is …”
This is also true in certain psychedelic states
And space and time become not normal
We learn, these are our caretakers, and when I feel stressed, I don’t know that I need to have my diaper changed, I just scream, my diaper gets changed (hopefully)
Those are the rulesets that we come into the world with, early rulesets

This is the whole thesis of the Matrix , Neo having to unlearn the constraints of the Matrix

Andrew agrees
And then at some point, the prefrontal cortex, not us consciously, but the prefrontal cortex learns, “ Ah, there’s the possibility, for instance, of birds fly, we don’t fly, but that I can throw a stick. But what if I could throw a stick with… ” and maybe somebody hung some leather ornaments on that stick and figured out they could throw it a little bit further and a little longer The experiments have to be done in the present, of course Andrew thinks it’s these experiences of vision that are outside the realm of normal experience
The experiments have to be done in the present, of course
Andrew thinks it’s these experiences of vision that are outside the realm of normal experience

The evolution of our species suggests we can do this, and we don’t see that complexity of behavior/ planning in other species, and this relates to neuroplasticity and self-knowledge

We’re getting into the abstract and we’re certainly not getting into the realm of laboratory experimentation and having proved any of this

“ But if I were to put it simply, I think the evolution of the visual system allowed us to think in different time domains ”‒ Andrew Huberman

Mindset effects: the effect of belief on physiology and performance [1:00:45]

Experiences in dreams can allow you to access new rulesets

Andrew thinks things like dreaming in liminal states give us access to visual experiences that are impossible in regular conscious, perceptual states
He had a dream the other day where he was in a taxi and then all of a sudden he was someplace else This is not real But the brain can learn things in those states, it can learn about new rulesets, new possibilities of rulesets
This is not real
But the brain can learn things in those states, it can learn about new rulesets, new possibilities of rulesets

Can that be harnessed? (the potential to learn of new possible rulesets in a dream)

For example, nobody has run a four-minute mile If Roger Bannister had dream after dream of breaking the four-minute mile, do we have reason to believe that that would’ve impacted his physiology and belief system in the way that it did when he actually broke the four-minute mile and all of a sudden, breaking the four-minute mile became a standard occurrence?
In other words, the ruleset got broken in the real world and that clearly demonstrated a path to progress
If Roger Bannister had dream after dream of breaking the four-minute mile, do we have reason to believe that that would’ve impacted his physiology and belief system in the way that it did when he actually broke the four-minute mile and all of a sudden, breaking the four-minute mile became a standard occurrence?

Do we have evidence that, had that ruleset been broken in a dream state, it could have had a similar effect for the first individual?

The best evidence Andrew has is the incredible work of his colleague at Stanford, Alia Crum She’s worked on these mindset effects or belief effects These are different than placebo effects
Short answer is yes; there are a million examples
Andrew’s three favorite examples:
1 – You give somebody a milkshake, you tell them it’s a low-calorie milkshake You measure things like their insulin, their glucose response, levels of satiety, levels of ghrelin, etc. You give another group the same milkshake, but you tell them it’s a high-calorie shake; take all the same measures You see vastly different responses (published in Health Psychology , 2011 )
2 – You give hotel workers a little tutorial on the fact that cleaning hotel rooms is boring, but it burns calories and can lower blood pressure and help you lose weight They lose on average between 8-11 pounds in the following three or four weeks You don’t say anything to hotel workers about all the benefits of their work and the exercise that it includes You just tell them that it involves a lot of movement and there will be no consequences There’s clearly a mindset effect
3 – Andrew’s favorite example is related to stress You tell people all the negative impacts of stress on memory and wellbeing and immune system Or you tell people true data on the performance-enhancing effects of stress, sharpening of memory, capacity, reduction of reaction time And you see exactly what people believe, what they’re told and what they believe
She’s worked on these mindset effects or belief effects These are different than placebo effects
These are different than placebo effects
You measure things like their insulin, their glucose response, levels of satiety, levels of ghrelin, etc.
You give another group the same milkshake, but you tell them it’s a high-calorie shake; take all the same measures
You see vastly different responses (published in Health Psychology , 2011 )
They lose on average between 8-11 pounds in the following three or four weeks
You don’t say anything to hotel workers about all the benefits of their work and the exercise that it includes
You just tell them that it involves a lot of movement and there will be no consequences
There’s clearly a mindset effect
You tell people all the negative impacts of stress on memory and wellbeing and immune system
Or you tell people true data on the performance-enhancing effects of stress, sharpening of memory, capacity, reduction of reaction time
And you see exactly what people believe, what they’re told and what they believe

You can’t lie to yourself, but what you believe about a given practice strongly regulates the physiology

This is interesting in terms of the four-minute mile or other things
For example, if you tell people that the burn of lactate, or maybe even the lack of sleep that they had the night before, reflects a training adaptation as opposed to overreaching and overtraining You’re going to see very different outcomes
Ali’s been cuing Andrew to the idea that a lot of the sleep tracking stuff, if you tell people you didn’t have a good night’s sleep, they feel like shit the next day If you tell them they had a great night’s sleep (independent of their sleep physiology), it has an immense impact on their physiology And Andrew is as much a proponent of sleep as the core of mental and physical performance as Matt Walker or anyone else (Peter included)
You’re going to see very different outcomes
If you tell them they had a great night’s sleep (independent of their sleep physiology), it has an immense impact on their physiology
And Andrew is as much a proponent of sleep as the core of mental and physical performance as Matt Walker or anyone else (Peter included)

But what you believe about what you’ve been told has an immense impact on your physiology

Andrew uses this to explain some of the battles around nutrition where you hear people saying one thing or another
There’s a distribution where facts rule and physiology rules, the laws of thermodynamics are intact, but then these belief effects can account for (according to Alia Crum ) anywhere from 8-20% of the effects of anything, like a food or a behavior
She actually set out in her thesis at Harvard to study the effects of exercise and her advisor said to her, “ I think all the effects of exercise are placebo. ” It was a prompt to go actually look at that Ali’s an former D-I athlete ; she’s also a trained clinical psychologist, and runs a lab at Stanford; she’s one of these superhumans She thought this advice was crazy because exercise changes blood pressure by way of a number of different physiological mechanisms But she went and tested the idea that it’s all placebo, and in fact there is a lot that is placebo; so mindset effects are real in terms of physiology
It was a prompt to go actually look at that
Ali’s an former D-I athlete ; she’s also a trained clinical psychologist, and runs a lab at Stanford; she’s one of these superhumans
She thought this advice was crazy because exercise changes blood pressure by way of a number of different physiological mechanisms
But she went and tested the idea that it’s all placebo, and in fact there is a lot that is placebo; so mindset effects are real in terms of physiology

Do mindset effects allow people to break mental barriers?

For certain things, like sending rockets up to Mars, clearly there’s an engineering feat that has to adapt to the physical world You can’t just will it into existence
You can’t just will it into existence

But in terms of what the limits are on human performance and what the limits are in terms of creative endeavors, as far as we know, that’s infinite

Accessing higher levels of creativity with broadening rulesets and the limiting nature of stress and fear on creativity [1:05:30]

A good friend Rick Rubin has a book on creativity coming out Andrew doesn’t want to talk about it because there’s no way he could capture Rick’s brilliance there
But Rick and Andrew have had a lot of discussions about this and it’s clear that creativity involves combining existing rulesets, but also coming up with completely novel rulesets This is something that is a fun space for the philosophically oriented or for the neuroscience oriented or psychologically oriented When was the last time any of us took a walk and thought, “ How do I completely fracture my notions of the rules in a given domain and think about truly new ones? ” It’s hard to do, but once you set the intention around that, Andrew believes that when you enter sleep states, the brain tries to solve the most important problems that are happening in your daily life
Peter notes, “ There’s something really beautiful about singular focus and purpose in life ” He thinks he talked with Matt Walker about this on the podcast a long time ago For him, some of his fondest memories are in college and medical school where life was remarkably simple No responsibilities He doesn’t possess the vocabulary to describe how much he loved mathematics when he was an undergrad He remembers trying to solve a math problem of integrating the volume of a face and he got stuck on the chin because there wa a dimple there, and he went to bed and actually dreamt the solution He dreamt the function needed to be rotated around a Z-axis to come up with the integral He got out of bed and solved the problem Peter thinks this probably doesn’t happen anymore because he’s too distracted; there are too many things he’s trying to do and he lacks that real sense of purpose
Andrew adds one way to describe it in the context of the neural architectures they’ve been talking about You have all the necessary rulesets to complete all the demands of your daily life, from parenting to podcasting, to running your clinical practice and on and on And so you know how to toggle between those, you know not to apply one ruleset in the wrong context and you just go, go, go, go, go And there’s an energetic cost to that When we are singularly focused on one context (even if it’s one conceptual context), you still have the same amount of total neural architecture, but now it’s concentrated
Andrew still has images burned in his brain of neural tissue he was viewing with a microscope He can close his eyes and see it He doesn’t have photographic memory
He used to have an audiographic memory where he could turn on a recorder in his head and then listen back to those conversations later in the evening It was very dangerous to get in an argument with him at that time because he could remember what you said He has lost that ability, but not truly lost it; instead he is thinking about other things That was a useless ability
Andrew doesn’t want to talk about it because there’s no way he could capture Rick’s brilliance there
This is something that is a fun space for the philosophically oriented or for the neuroscience oriented or psychologically oriented
When was the last time any of us took a walk and thought, “ How do I completely fracture my notions of the rules in a given domain and think about truly new ones? ” It’s hard to do, but once you set the intention around that, Andrew believes that when you enter sleep states, the brain tries to solve the most important problems that are happening in your daily life
It’s hard to do, but once you set the intention around that, Andrew believes that when you enter sleep states, the brain tries to solve the most important problems that are happening in your daily life
He thinks he talked with Matt Walker about this on the podcast a long time ago
For him, some of his fondest memories are in college and medical school where life was remarkably simple No responsibilities He doesn’t possess the vocabulary to describe how much he loved mathematics when he was an undergrad
He remembers trying to solve a math problem of integrating the volume of a face and he got stuck on the chin because there wa a dimple there, and he went to bed and actually dreamt the solution He dreamt the function needed to be rotated around a Z-axis to come up with the integral He got out of bed and solved the problem Peter thinks this probably doesn’t happen anymore because he’s too distracted; there are too many things he’s trying to do and he lacks that real sense of purpose
No responsibilities
He doesn’t possess the vocabulary to describe how much he loved mathematics when he was an undergrad
He dreamt the function needed to be rotated around a Z-axis to come up with the integral
He got out of bed and solved the problem
Peter thinks this probably doesn’t happen anymore because he’s too distracted; there are too many things he’s trying to do and he lacks that real sense of purpose
You have all the necessary rulesets to complete all the demands of your daily life, from parenting to podcasting, to running your clinical practice and on and on
And so you know how to toggle between those, you know not to apply one ruleset in the wrong context and you just go, go, go, go, go
And there’s an energetic cost to that
When we are singularly focused on one context (even if it’s one conceptual context), you still have the same amount of total neural architecture, but now it’s concentrated
He can close his eyes and see it
He doesn’t have photographic memory
It was very dangerous to get in an argument with him at that time because he could remember what you said
He has lost that ability, but not truly lost it; instead he is thinking about other things
That was a useless ability

“ I think ultimately being fairly narrow context and being able to access these broader rulesets and come up with new rulesets is incredibly powerful ”‒ Andrew Huberman

There are certain states of body and mind that favor this creativity process
Even though our ability to be gritty and to survive allows us to access a number of important rulesets, we know (based on the relationship between stress and survival and the prefrontal cortex) that those rulesets are constrained If you are in a dangerous situation where you need to protect your family, you are going to figure it out
There is also a state of love that is associated with access to a much broader ruleset and creative ruleset This underlies our evolution as a species
The number of different things that you can do to access survival if you’re taking care of your family is immense, but the number of different adaptations that you can come up with in order to raise your children to be as happy and healthy as they can be, out of love, is absolutely infinite Why? Because it really is, there’s no other option You’re not fearing death What you’re doing is you’re trying to access this landscape of wanting them to be as great as they can be That’s the infinite ruleset Not having constraints on what the outcome is, is really the way to access expanded rulesets
Now this is getting a little bit circular, and there are philosophers out there who going to nitpick this
But in discussions with Rick about creativity, and in discussions with Peter and other folks, it’s very clear that accessing these brain centers that have full understanding of internal state, and then full understanding of past, present, and future That is absolutely the best state to be in, in order to access expanded rulesets, and ever expanding rulesets Whereas anytime I’m accessing knowledge about internal state, but it’s constrained by outcome (I need this not to happen), you have already shut down a number of rulesets
This is why Andrew thinks in dreaming, we aren’t constraining our rulesets It could be a nightmare, it could be the best fantasy we’ve ever had, you can fly, all these things The rulesets are infinite but constrained by experience
We’re not aware yet that we can dream about things in a way that does not reflect what we’ve already experienced We might be able to, we don’t know enough about sleep and dreaming yet
The idea here is that placing one’s mind and body into states of love He knows he is sounding squishy Or we could also think anything that doesn’t include a, “ But not that, ” is an expanded ruleset
He’s not going to do this podcast spinning around in his chair on his head, but the moment he decides what’s appropriate and inappropriate behavior, he’s now started to constrain the rulesets
We can go around this circle as much as we want or as little as we want
Once people start to understand what places their body and mind into the most relaxed and “open” state for accessing new rulesets, the more quickly we can solve problems
If you are in a dangerous situation where you need to protect your family, you are going to figure it out
This underlies our evolution as a species
Why? Because it really is, there’s no other option
You’re not fearing death
What you’re doing is you’re trying to access this landscape of wanting them to be as great as they can be
That’s the infinite ruleset
Not having constraints on what the outcome is, is really the way to access expanded rulesets
That is absolutely the best state to be in, in order to access expanded rulesets, and ever expanding rulesets
Whereas anytime I’m accessing knowledge about internal state, but it’s constrained by outcome (I need this not to happen), you have already shut down a number of rulesets
It could be a nightmare, it could be the best fantasy we’ve ever had, you can fly, all these things
The rulesets are infinite but constrained by experience
We might be able to, we don’t know enough about sleep and dreaming yet
He knows he is sounding squishy
Or we could also think anything that doesn’t include a, “ But not that, ” is an expanded ruleset

Stress and fear increase autonomic arousal, limit access to rulesets, and inhibit performance [1:12:15]

Evidence from the laboratory

If Andrew gives you a cognitive task and he ramps up your level of autonomic arousal, you can function up to a point But this is mainly dependent on how well you have performed that thing in the past
If he gives you something novel, everybody cliffs Even if you’re a SEAL team six guy, or if you’ve run three countries, or if you’ve parented 12 kids on your own Your rulesets are constrained
If you are asked to do something novel under conditions of even mild stress, you break down
If you are asked to do something novel under conditions of relaxation, and you can pull from what might seem like ridiculous rulesets; you can start solving problems Humans do this exceptionally well
The more we can narrow the context, be it medical school or math or parenting or whatever it is The more we can narrow the context even in the moment The more we can be in a relaxed state, a state of not wanting to avoid something The more rulesets we can access This is where Andrew thinks creative solutions come from
But this is mainly dependent on how well you have performed that thing in the past
Even if you’re a SEAL team six guy, or if you’ve run three countries, or if you’ve parented 12 kids on your own
Your rulesets are constrained
Humans do this exceptionally well
The more we can narrow the context even in the moment
The more we can be in a relaxed state, a state of not wanting to avoid something
The more rulesets we can access
This is where Andrew thinks creative solutions come from

“ I think every major advancement in human evolution has largely been from a desire for something as opposed to an avoidance of something else ”‒ Andrew Huberman

For example, Elon musk wasn’t thinking about going to Mars because he hated Earth He’s thinking about it because he loves the idea of going to Mars
He’s thinking about it because he loves the idea of going to Mars

What about some of the amazing advances in cryptography and nuclear physics in World War II? You could argue that a lot of that was fear based.

Andrew agrees, but for the people doing the work, they just loved that they were solving a problem
We got Feynman all around us here, and he played a prominent role in Andrew’s home and childhood The love of what he did that came through Sure he was working on the bomb, but he was also enjoying picking locks, and laying out all the secrets on the floor of the offices, because he loved the playfulness of it
It was love (maybe love is too much of a loaded word)
But delight is what captures this fascination, curiosity, and thrill of something that we see or experience and want more of Delight is probably the better word for it
The love of what he did that came through
Sure he was working on the bomb, but he was also enjoying picking locks, and laying out all the secrets on the floor of the offices, because he loved the playfulness of it
Delight is probably the better word for it

You can get a lot done out of fear and the need to adapt, but you get a hell of a lot more done out of a genuine desire because you just want more of that thing

Andrew would argue that cryptographers were in bliss Now, they didn’t want to get blown up and they’d love to save people, but there can be multiple purposes behind doing something
Now, they didn’t want to get blown up and they’d love to save people, but there can be multiple purposes behind doing something

Andrew’s upbringing, early childhood, and tough adolescent years [1:15:00]

Upbringing

Andrew grew up in Northern California; he was born in Palo Alto at Stanford Hospital
The joke is, he was born at Stanford, hung around skateboarding on the campus in his youth, then was trained at Stanford (in part), then became a faculty member; so he’ll probably die at Stanford
His dad is from South America He’s Argentine with dark hair, dark eyes He speaks both Spanish and English He came to the US on a naval scholarship He was an experimental physicist at UPenn
His dad met his mother in New York and they moved to California
Andrew and his sister were born in the early and mid-70s (she’s 3 years older)
His dad took a job at Xerox Park (Palo Alto), in the early days of the personal computer, the so-called graphical user interface and things like that.
His mother was a stay-at-home mom; she was a teacher
He lived right over the fence from Gunn High School; it’s the high school that’s infamous for having the huge number of youth suicides Fortunately that’s adjusted There are a lot of kids of Stanford professors It’s not the Palo Alto High School on the other end of town; his end of town tends to be a bit more middle and upper middle class At that time, Palo Alto had Midtown, which there were some families that were at or below the poverty line Nowadays Palo Alto’s all pretty upper class East Palo Alto still struggles
Growing up from birth until about age 12 or 13, it was soccer, swim team, tons of kids on his street hanging out, there were all these boys his age They had all had older sisters his sister’s age
He’s Argentine with dark hair, dark eyes
He speaks both Spanish and English
He came to the US on a naval scholarship
He was an experimental physicist at UPenn
Fortunately that’s adjusted
There are a lot of kids of Stanford professors
It’s not the Palo Alto High School on the other end of town; his end of town tends to be a bit more middle and upper middle class
At that time, Palo Alto had Midtown, which there were some families that were at or below the poverty line Nowadays Palo Alto’s all pretty upper class East Palo Alto still struggles
Nowadays Palo Alto’s all pretty upper class
East Palo Alto still struggles
They had all had older sisters his sister’s age

It was a pretty magical childhood

His dad transitioned into theoretical physics, and he was involved in the early days of chaos theory
The family spent a lot of Andrew’s youth in Aspen in the summers because there’s the Aspen Center for Physics
Andrew grew up running around hearing about Peter Kaus and Feineman and Murray Gell-Mann Those were regular characters in his life, and he met those folks and they were around
He was exposed to the academic world
It was a pretty cool childhood; it was a pretty normal childhood
The family did a sabbatical in Europe where he became really close with his sister She’s an excellent therapist
He wasn’t a great athlete or student, but he was always super curious about biology and animals His Mom used to drop him off at Monet’s Pet Shop on California Avenue; he was obsessed with animals It was directly across from Draper’s Music, which is where the Grateful Dead got their start And those guys used to hang out there because they were from Menlo Park There was a club, The Edge , you wouldn’t find that in Palo Alto now
He had a pretty healthy upbringing There weren’t have any issues around alcohol or drugs in his home It was a two parent home, dinner together every night
Those were regular characters in his life, and he met those folks and they were around
She’s an excellent therapist
His Mom used to drop him off at Monet’s Pet Shop on California Avenue; he was obsessed with animals It was directly across from Draper’s Music, which is where the Grateful Dead got their start And those guys used to hang out there because they were from Menlo Park There was a club, The Edge , you wouldn’t find that in Palo Alto now
It was directly across from Draper’s Music, which is where the Grateful Dead got their start
And those guys used to hang out there because they were from Menlo Park
There was a club, The Edge , you wouldn’t find that in Palo Alto now
There weren’t have any issues around alcohol or drugs in his home
It was a two parent home, dinner together every night

Everything took a hard turn when Andrew was 12-13

There were some things looming under the surface, and his parents divorced Unfortunately they didn’t read the rule book, or if they did, they broke every rule It was a very high conflict situation
His dad moved out and Andrew lived with his mom His sister went off to college
Unfortunately they didn’t read the rule book, or if they did, they broke every rule
It was a very high conflict situation
His sister went off to college

The skateboarding scene

At the time, Andrew had gotten into skateboarding and wasn’t playing soccer or doing other things He fell really deeply into the community of skateboarding, which at that time was really underground Skateboarding is a unique sport, because you have interactions with kids of a lot of different ages He was hanging out with 30 year old guys, 20 year old guys, and kids his own age
A good friend of his named Paul Zuanich was really good at skateboarding, and he started picking up sponsors and turned pro while they were in high school
They started going up to San Francisco and hanging out at the the famed Embarcadero or EMB crowd For skateboarding this is a huge deal, it’s kind of the golden era of street skateboarding There he got exposed to drugs, alcohol, fights He got exposed to a lot of kids that just didn’t go to school There was also a lot of amazing skateboarding The young Danny Way would come through town or Rob Dyrdek , and these names will be familiar to people with DC Shoes
In full disclosure, Andrew wasn’t a very good skateboarder He was okay, but he kept getting hurt He didn’t have the athleticism He hit puberty late at age 14 This is something someday he wants to understand ‒ the relationship between how long puberty lasts and longevity He didn’t grow beard until college, but by the other marks of puberty were there at 14
He fell really deeply into the community of skateboarding, which at that time was really underground
Skateboarding is a unique sport, because you have interactions with kids of a lot of different ages
He was hanging out with 30 year old guys, 20 year old guys, and kids his own age
For skateboarding this is a huge deal, it’s kind of the golden era of street skateboarding
There he got exposed to drugs, alcohol, fights
He got exposed to a lot of kids that just didn’t go to school
There was also a lot of amazing skateboarding The young Danny Way would come through town or Rob Dyrdek , and these names will be familiar to people with DC Shoes
The young Danny Way would come through town or Rob Dyrdek , and these names will be familiar to people with DC Shoes
He was okay, but he kept getting hurt
He didn’t have the athleticism
He hit puberty late at age 14 This is something someday he wants to understand ‒ the relationship between how long puberty lasts and longevity He didn’t grow beard until college, but by the other marks of puberty were there at 14
This is something someday he wants to understand ‒ the relationship between how long puberty lasts and longevity
He didn’t grow beard until college, but by the other marks of puberty were there at 14

He had all this upset in his home life

It was pretty bad; his mom was struggling a lot
His dad was trying to be in the picture, but there was a lot of conflict between him and Andrew
Something about his behavior cued the schools system and he got taken away and put into a residential treatment program up on the peninsula This was not for drug use, alcohol use, or hurting anyone or himself This was mainly for truancy
This was not for drug use, alcohol use, or hurting anyone or himself
This was mainly for truancy

Andrew’s time in a residential treatment program and how he benefited from therapy [1:20:15]

Did they require the permission of your parents to do that?

When he was in the 9th grade, Andrew remembers getting called into the office and asked questions about his home life He caught onto the fact that something was going to happen, and did everything he could to resist getting taken away But they took him away and put him under lock and key
He was really angry and upset then, but he doesn’t have a ton of emotion around it anymore
It was a terrible situation; his home life was so bad at that point His sister was off in college No one was there for him His mom was working, and his parents were so focused on their own stuff
He was basically running his own life, which is terrible for a 14-year-old Boundaries are great; rules are great He had a community of young guys, learning some healthy (and some not healthy) behaviors from older guys
It felt super unfair when he got put away, but the counselors he met there were amazing
He was also very lucky that drugs and alcohol were never his thing A lot of kids in the residential treatment program were dealing with drug and alcohol issues; they were mis-wired There were crazy adults in another building
There was a moment when he thought, “ Is there something genuinely wrong with me? ” He didn’t do anything except not take good care of himself
He caught onto the fact that something was going to happen, and did everything he could to resist getting taken away
But they took him away and put him under lock and key
His sister was off in college
No one was there for him
His mom was working, and his parents were so focused on their own stuff
Boundaries are great; rules are great
He had a community of young guys, learning some healthy (and some not healthy) behaviors from older guys
A lot of kids in the residential treatment program were dealing with drug and alcohol issues; they were mis-wired
There were crazy adults in another building
He didn’t do anything except not take good care of himself

Did you leave the facility each day to go to school or was there school there?

He was locked in a room
His roommate turned out to be a really good guy He was huge; he looked like Richard Ramirez from the Night Stalker
Andrew remembers not being able to sleep, and they came in to do bed checks three times a night They frisked them They did cavity searches for weapons and drugs
He did group therapy with all these people Some of them are talking about terrible molestation experiences, which fortunately he didn’t have, or drug thing
He remembers thinking, “ Why am I here? ” He had no idea
At the time he had picked up one skateboard sponsor, the Spitfire Wheels and Thunder Trucks They put him on out of sympathy Andrew is still friends with the team manager, Steve Ruggie He’s not a pot smoker now, but back then he was
Andrew remembers they literally got one phone call He wasn’t going to call his parents He called Steve and I was like, “ Hey Steve, I’m locked up here. I’m in the peninsula, I’m in Belmont, I don’t know what to do. ” Steve replies, “ Man, you’re the most normal guy I know. I can’t help you. ”
Andrew thought he was genuinely stuck, “ What am I going to do? I just didn’t know where to go .”
What happened was he eventually worked the program they gave him Someone there said, “ Listen, just play the game .”
Eventually he realized they were asking questions that he actually want the answers to What’s going on in my head? Why am I just letting my whole life go? What’s going on at home?
He was huge; he looked like Richard Ramirez from the Night Stalker
They frisked them
They did cavity searches for weapons and drugs
Some of them are talking about terrible molestation experiences, which fortunately he didn’t have, or drug thing
They put him on out of sympathy
Andrew is still friends with the team manager, Steve Ruggie He’s not a pot smoker now, but back then he was
He’s not a pot smoker now, but back then he was
He wasn’t going to call his parents
He called Steve and I was like, “ Hey Steve, I’m locked up here. I’m in the peninsula, I’m in Belmont, I don’t know what to do. ” Steve replies, “ Man, you’re the most normal guy I know. I can’t help you. ”
Steve replies, “ Man, you’re the most normal guy I know. I can’t help you. ”
Someone there said, “ Listen, just play the game .”
What’s going on in my head?
Why am I just letting my whole life go?
What’s going on at home?

Now in retrospect Andrew can summarize what he was dealing with

It was a super traumatic, a daily traumatic environment when he was at home
Or it was just pure neglect
Prior to that year, he had gone off to skate camp in Visalia All the other kids went there with their bags and their parents, but Andrew just went He just hung out; he would just get in cars and go He went to Reno for a week to skate in the Nationals He sucked, but he went anyway; they were just there, a bunch of parentless kids He was part of this huge group of parentless kids
At Gunn High School, there was a spotlight on him Whereas had he been in an inner city school or something, he probably would’ve gone under the radar
This gave him a great sensitivity to the word privileged This word gets thrown around a lot these days in incorrect ways
But he was very lucky to have that spotlight on him
He was also getting into a lot of street fights
He eventually got out of residential treatment, and the agreement was that he would switch high schools and start therapy
All the other kids went there with their bags and their parents, but Andrew just went
He just hung out; he would just get in cars and go
He went to Reno for a week to skate in the Nationals He sucked, but he went anyway; they were just there, a bunch of parentless kids
He was part of this huge group of parentless kids
He sucked, but he went anyway; they were just there, a bunch of parentless kids
Whereas had he been in an inner city school or something, he probably would’ve gone under the radar
This word gets thrown around a lot these days in incorrect ways

How long were you in the residential treatment program?

A month or more, but that was plenty of time You’re not controlling your food, your sleep, it’s all on their plan Good kids were there A couple kids killed themselves while they were there You could get stuff in; there were all sorts of networks It wasn’t jail, but it wasn’t far off
You’re not controlling your food, your sleep, it’s all on their plan
Good kids were there
A couple kids killed themselves while they were there You could get stuff in; there were all sorts of networks It wasn’t jail, but it wasn’t far off
You could get stuff in; there were all sorts of networks
It wasn’t jail, but it wasn’t far off

You went to a great high school. Was the idea to get you a new peer group?

They weren’t so concerned with his peer group
The idea was that he would live with his dad; something Andrew was excited to do at the time and had requested
He switched to Palo Alto High School, just across from the Stanford campus
At the time he had a girlfriend that went there He met her when he worked at the local skateboard shop in the back of the Palo Alto Toy and Sport World
One of the things Andrew had baked into him was an enthusiasm for animals and he liked work He always had a job ‒ a paper route, work in the skate shop
He moved to Palo Alto High School and was supposed to live with his dad He had to be respectful of certain elements of privacy
Then it was decided that he wouldn’t live with his dad, and this was like gasoline on fire This was not his decision He couldn’t live with his mom He couldn’t go to the high school He was hitting puberty He had no interest in biology anymore He was just skateboarding and being a punk But he ended up having a lot of fun and loving his friends and girlfriend at the time
He ended up going to Palo Alto High for about three weeks before he stopped going
Everything was getting worse, worse, worse
He met her when he worked at the local skateboard shop in the back of the Palo Alto Toy and Sport World
He always had a job ‒ a paper route, work in the skate shop
He had to be respectful of certain elements of privacy
This was not his decision
He couldn’t live with his mom
He couldn’t go to the high school
He was hitting puberty
He had no interest in biology anymore
He was just skateboarding and being a punk But he ended up having a lot of fun and loving his friends and girlfriend at the time
But he ended up having a lot of fun and loving his friends and girlfriend at the time

The thing that saved him was therapy

He had to go once or twice a week
The therapist was the first person who really paid attention
His parented loved him, and he loved them
But it was a crazy thing to have somebody listen and give you the confidence to figure things out It was powerful It wasn’t like everything will be okay, but they were going to figure this out It was an amazing dialogue to be in
In therapy, they discussed: What he wanted to do What he wanted to create What is important to him
It was powerful
It wasn’t like everything will be okay, but they were going to figure this out
It was an amazing dialogue to be in
What he wanted to do
What he wanted to create
What is important to him

Andrew has continued to work with this person 1-3x a week until now, and he’s been very lucky to have this mentor for 30 years

At times he had to request some budget help to do this It was hard when he was a graduate student Eventually insurance helped
It was hard when he was a graduate student
Eventually insurance helped

“ But to just be able to understand my own thinking, to be able to separate what was happening around me from what I wanted for myself ”‒ Andrew Huberman

He had a number of huge mistakes along the way; therapy did not allow him to avoid mistakes

The beginning of positive changes in Andrew’s young life [1:28:30]

He got with a different girlfriend
He stopped skateboarding when he got hurt really badly
He started getting involved in fitness
He went back to Gunn high school There was a football coach at school, Bob Peters
Andrew changed his look He used to dye his hair black and wear skateboard clothes He let his hair grow out to its natural color and decided to be a little less outrageous
He started Thai boxing; he was not very good at it but was okay
He started lifting weights, and his body reacted like crazy to that He wasn’t on hormones, it was just the youth thing
He started running; he ran cross country
He still wasn’t very focused on school, but he was doing a little bit better
His girlfriend at the time was a year older, and she had a really good work ethic Andrew would run to her house on Sundays and wash her car
He started doing a lot of physical labor, and figured he’d go into the fire service
He started taking fire science classes at Mission College while he was still in high school; he loved the guys there
At that young age he made the mistake of dabbling in psychedelics Psychedelics have their place in the therapeutic context when people are older But while the brain is still developing, it’s not a good idea
He had a girlfriend, there was a pregnancy
There was a number of things where his life still wasn’t bolted down, and that was causing problems
His girlfriend was loving and great; she went off to college at UC Santa Barbara In his senior year he would go down to visit her Hew would sleep in the parking lot outside her dorm and hang out with people there She was like his family; he mapped everything into her
He applied to Santa Barbara and somehow got in; he went there to be with her He barely broke a thousand on the SAT (he doesn’t remember studying)
Two quarters into UC Santa Barbara, he had more fights than he did time in class By the end of the year, he flunked out
There was a football coach at school, Bob Peters
He used to dye his hair black and wear skateboard clothes
He let his hair grow out to its natural color and decided to be a little less outrageous
He wasn’t on hormones, it was just the youth thing
Andrew would run to her house on Sundays and wash her car
Psychedelics have their place in the therapeutic context when people are older
But while the brain is still developing, it’s not a good idea
In his senior year he would go down to visit her
Hew would sleep in the parking lot outside her dorm and hang out with people there
She was like his family; he mapped everything into her
He barely broke a thousand on the SAT (he doesn’t remember studying)
By the end of the year, he flunked out

“ I think I just had so much fire and so much anger… inside ”‒ Andrew Huberman

At the risk of stating the obvious, it sounds like you were very angry at your parents and you had good reason to be

Yeah, he was angry with them
There was no organization in his life except the organization that he wanted to see his high school girlfriend Her parents hated him Her dad thought he was a punk, a disaster (and he was right) She had a tough home life and Andrew moved into a protective role She was a hard worker, and her dad was an extremely hard worker, so Andrew had a lot to prove
With running, lifting weights, and stuff with the fire service, Andrew was learning there was a direct relationship between input and output Whereas in skateboarding, he always felt like it was 10 units of input and then he would get hurt He wasn’t a natural athlete for it
He did some therapy work with his parents (a one-on-one things in the therapist’s office), and Andrew expressed his anger or whatever it was He doesn’t remember being furious, as much as just feeling like “ You people don’t know what you’re doing ”
Her parents hated him
Her dad thought he was a punk, a disaster (and he was right)
She had a tough home life and Andrew moved into a protective role
She was a hard worker, and her dad was an extremely hard worker, so Andrew had a lot to prove
Whereas in skateboarding, he always felt like it was 10 units of input and then he would get hurt He wasn’t a natural athlete for it
He wasn’t a natural athlete for it
He doesn’t remember being furious, as much as just feeling like “ You people don’t know what you’re doing ”

Everytime Peter has a meal with Andrew, he learns something about him that is so remarkable

Peter’s favorite this week is about when Andrew was at some skateboarding thing, and there was no one there to take him home; he ended up getting a ride home with Tony Hawk’s dad They flew him home to San Diego
Andrew was 14-years-old, he goes to the Linda Vista Boys Club and competes in a skateboarding contest He did terribly Then everyone heads off to their cars, and he’s just there with this kid Billy Waldman, (who people referred to as the demon child) and Frank Hawk (who’s Tony Hawk’s dad) Frank ran the National Skateboard Association; he came up to Andrew and asked, “ Where are you going? ” Andrew replied, “ Well, I’m from northern California. I was going to take the bus to Lancaster. There’s this guy that I know in Lancaster .” And he replied, “ No, no, no, no, no. You’re coming with me .” So Tony and his wife (Nancy Hawk) took Andrew to their home Tony had moved out,so Andrew slept in Tony’s room that night To say it was filled with trophies, is an understatement They went to dinner, and they eventually flew him home It was an amazing experience
Frank eventually talked to Andrew’s mom and was like, “ Hey listen, this kid needs some guardrails .” Because skateboarding has a lot of truancy and a lot of wildness
Part of its appeal to many is you don’t need parents around a skateboard You don’t need your pre-workout drink, you need a Slurpee, or beer For the 15-16-year old Andrew, it was a pack of cigarettes and a skateboard (he doesn’t recommend that)
What ended up happening was the next day Frank took Andrew to Tony’s house in Fallbrook He got to meet Tony and Ray Underhill and a bunch of other guys, and pump around on the ramps a little bit, and then flew home That was an amazing experience
10 years later on Instagram, he sent Tony a direct message and said, “ Hey listen, I know you get a ton of messages, but your dad really took me in .” He sent his condolences for the death of Tony’s mom He added, “ And if you don’t believe that my story is true, how’s this? Your parents used to drink black coffee after dinner. ” Tony wrote back, “ No way. Nobody would know that .”
They flew him home to San Diego
He did terribly
Then everyone heads off to their cars, and he’s just there with this kid Billy Waldman, (who people referred to as the demon child) and Frank Hawk (who’s Tony Hawk’s dad)
Frank ran the National Skateboard Association; he came up to Andrew and asked, “ Where are you going? ” Andrew replied, “ Well, I’m from northern California. I was going to take the bus to Lancaster. There’s this guy that I know in Lancaster .” And he replied, “ No, no, no, no, no. You’re coming with me .”
So Tony and his wife (Nancy Hawk) took Andrew to their home Tony had moved out,so Andrew slept in Tony’s room that night To say it was filled with trophies, is an understatement
They went to dinner, and they eventually flew him home
It was an amazing experience
Andrew replied, “ Well, I’m from northern California. I was going to take the bus to Lancaster. There’s this guy that I know in Lancaster .”
And he replied, “ No, no, no, no, no. You’re coming with me .”
Tony had moved out,so Andrew slept in Tony’s room that night
To say it was filled with trophies, is an understatement
Because skateboarding has a lot of truancy and a lot of wildness
You don’t need your pre-workout drink, you need a Slurpee, or beer
For the 15-16-year old Andrew, it was a pack of cigarettes and a skateboard (he doesn’t recommend that)
He got to meet Tony and Ray Underhill and a bunch of other guys, and pump around on the ramps a little bit, and then flew home
That was an amazing experience
He sent his condolences for the death of Tony’s mom
He added, “ And if you don’t believe that my story is true, how’s this? Your parents used to drink black coffee after dinner. ”
Tony wrote back, “ No way. Nobody would know that .”

Amazing experiences and struggles

A number of people tried to help Andrew along the way
He had amazing experiences skateboarding in the early to mid ‘90s To be a 14 year old kid at the Reno Nationals, running around the casinos with your friends and seeing these amazing skateboarders He was also seeing rampant amounts of drug use and rampant amounts of odd types dating relationships
It was fun to be free and wild, but he felt like he was always the guy at the end, because he wasn’t very good at skateboarding
He didn’t have a home, and he didn’t have any structure
He was the guy that didn’t know where to go
To be a 14 year old kid at the Reno Nationals, running around the casinos with your friends and seeing these amazing skateboarders
He was also seeing rampant amounts of drug use and rampant amounts of odd types dating relationships

And to this day, even if he’s at a scientific meeting, and everyone clears out at the end, he gets totally depressed, “I feel like I’ve got nowhere to go”

He’s owned homes, he had a dog
He was angry with his parents and also just flabbergasted
Now, having spent time with friends who have kids, 14 is pretty young
He was involved in all sorts of things at 14 that he would never subject a 14 year old to You want to preserve that innocence of youth as much as possible At the same time, the fighting and hard work forced him to grow up The fact that he thought about making a living really early on
You want to preserve that innocence of youth as much as possible
At the same time, the fighting and hard work forced him to grow up The fact that he thought about making a living really early on
The fact that he thought about making a living really early on

Andrew’s decision to turn his life around [1:37:00]

In your first semester at UC Santa Barbara, who were you getting into fights with?

Just people
Andrew was ever somebody who provoked fights or initiated them, but somehow it just found him
He was not a big drinker, but there wa a lot of alcohol intake in that town
In the summer between his freshman and sophomore year of college, there was a house that everyone hung out at, and he decided to stay there for the summer He wouldn’t go home, what would he do at home?
He had split-up with his girlfriend; they were having issues
He was living in the town of Ala Vista with his pet ferret, and was squatting in a house In skateboarding, you learn how to just kind of squat in places
He was delivering bagels for the bagel cafe
He showed up at a friend’s house, and a bunch of guys were stealing some stuff from the house He got into this fight with a bunch of guys And the people he had shown up there with all scrambled, they all just took off This fight started getting ratcheted up into weapons, and people hitting each other with skateboards, and knives coming out; the police show up In the end, he was let go because he was “protecting our property” He remembers the police officers congratulated him
He remembers feeling like this picture sucks He was 19-years-old He had no future in skateboarding He barely went to class He was getting into fights He’d been thrown out of the dormitory for something stupid related to the fighting He split up with girlfriend He worked at the bagel cafe
He wouldn’t go home, what would he do at home?
In skateboarding, you learn how to just kind of squat in places
He got into this fight with a bunch of guys
And the people he had shown up there with all scrambled, they all just took off
This fight started getting ratcheted up into weapons, and people hitting each other with skateboards, and knives coming out; the police show up
In the end, he was let go because he was “protecting our property” He remembers the police officers congratulated him
He remembers the police officers congratulated him
He was 19-years-old
He had no future in skateboarding
He barely went to class
He was getting into fights
He’d been thrown out of the dormitory for something stupid related to the fighting
He split up with girlfriend
He worked at the bagel cafe

At that point, he didn’t really know what to do. He remembers thinking he was a total screw-up

He actually wrote a letter to his mom in the summer of ‘94 saying all these things he felt about the past and what he was going to do going forward He still has the letter
He still has the letter

He made a hard left turn

He took a leave of absence from UC Santa Barbara
He moved home and went to Foothill college
His sister was home from abroad after college; they lived with their mom and this other girl who rented a room
He went to Foothill College and just listened to himself
One thing Andrew knows how to do is memorize information
He just started focusing on coursework and working out
And from that point on, except for one course in college, he was a straight-A student
After a quarter there and a summer, he went back to Santa Barbara and lived in a studio apartment by himself
He got back together with the girlfriend

How did you fund this? Did you just take out loans to do all this?

He was very blessed, his dad helped with money
He didn’t want to go back to Santa Barbara, he wanted to go to Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington He wanted to be a journalist or do something related to writing But his dad said, “ No way. I’m not going to pay for this fluff education, liberal arts school. You’re going to go back there where there was some science .”
He wanted to be a journalist or do something related to writing
But his dad said, “ No way. I’m not going to pay for this fluff education, liberal arts school. You’re going to go back there where there was some science .”

Andrew went back to school and was just a machine

It was like Henry Rollins style, just work out
He listened to Rancid , listened to Bob Dylan , listened to classical music on loop, drank coffee, worked out, ran, studied
His goal was to be on the far end of the curve; they used to publish the curve for every class outside
He became a straight A student

Eventually he started working in a laboratory

He took a class from a guy named Harry Carlisle who was teaching about mental health, neuroscience, physiology, brown fat thermogenesis Andrew started working in his laboratory on brown adipose tissues, and dopamine antagonists , and clozapine neuroleptics, and effects on temperature He was obsessed with physiology and temperature
Meanwhile, he was getting really interested in fitness and supplementation
He tried to run cross country for Santa Barbara, but you had to run a sub-10 two mile, and that was way too fast Guys on the team were built like whippets Andrew is 6’1” and was 185-200 lbs then
Andrew started working in his laboratory on brown adipose tissues, and dopamine antagonists , and clozapine neuroleptics, and effects on temperature He was obsessed with physiology and temperature
He was obsessed with physiology and temperature
Guys on the team were built like whippets
Andrew is 6’1” and was 185-200 lbs then

How fast do you run two miles today?

He doesn’t know, but his fastest mile ever was in high school He ran a 4:57 first mile in a three mile race, and then bonked and had to walk off the race So basically he failed the race But that’s was pure adrenaline; it wasn’t training capacity
He’s not a fast runner; he runs a two-mile run once a week, and would be happy with a 12 to 13 minute time
He ran a 4:57 first mile in a three mile race, and then bonked and had to walk off the race So basically he failed the race But that’s was pure adrenaline; it wasn’t training capacity
So basically he failed the race
But that’s was pure adrenaline; it wasn’t training capacity

A new passion for science and exercise helps Andrew [1:42:00]

Andrew started getting really into work in Harry’s lab; he was great Harry smoked cigarettes in the lab, he’d light them with the bunsen birder and smoke in the fume hood They would drink coffee They were injecting rats with MDMA They were studying the temperature regulating effects of MDMA, and we were studying amphetamines Andrew was learning so much neuroscience; he was like a kid in a candy shop; it was amazing
There was not a neuroscience degree at the time, it was called neurochemistry or neurobiology
He was also taking psychology courses and bio-psychology courses
He met a guy named Ben Reese , who is expert in visual system development
Andrew started learning about all these retinal specializations
He learned there was a guy on campus named Gerald Jacobs , who discovered the evolution of vision and color vision (and is a member of the National Academy )
Harry smoked cigarettes in the lab, he’d light them with the bunsen birder and smoke in the fume hood
They would drink coffee
They were injecting rats with MDMA
They were studying the temperature regulating effects of MDMA, and we were studying amphetamines
Andrew was learning so much neuroscience; he was like a kid in a candy shop; it was amazing

Andrew’s crowd completely changed to a bunch of neuroscience dorks

He started hanging out with all these guys who were to him the coolest guys in the world, and in many ways still are
He learned about all this mental health stuff he saw when he was locked up and how it related to his friendship circle, family, people who have anxiety He learned about schizophrenia, neurotransmitters ‒ dopamine, norepinephrine It’s not just Freudian Theory (even though he respects Freudian Theory)
He and his girlfriend decided to part ways They managed to make it about two more years
He was on a mission to go to graduate school
At this point, it was no drinking, no drugs Once a month, he would go out and really tie one on with friends
He learned about schizophrenia, neurotransmitters ‒ dopamine, norepinephrine
It’s not just Freudian Theory (even though he respects Freudian Theory)
They managed to make it about two more years
Once a month, he would go out and really tie one on with friends

Are you still talking on the phone with your therapist with some regularity?

Every week

Going back to this pivotal moment, the fight where the cops came. It sounds like a very orthogonal moment.

100%

Andrew realized he was going to end up dead or in jail

When the knives came out he realized he didn’t want to hurt anyone
He had been locked up once before, and that was an experience he did not want again
He realized at the time that he wasn’t doing anything well
At the time he was paying the bodybuilder Mike Mentzer $100 to coach him and give him a program He had read a think about him that his high intensity training was way better than everything else He stopped doing high-volume work and started doing two sets per muscle group each week and just grew like a week Mike took a liking to him and was sending him Ayn Rand books
He had read a think about him that his high intensity training was way better than everything else
He stopped doing high-volume work and started doing two sets per muscle group each week and just grew like a week
Mike took a liking to him and was sending him Ayn Rand books

Is Mike Mentzer still alive?

No, he and his brother both died of heart attacks
They were both pretty heavy amphetamine users
Mike trained clients in a high-intensity training program for bodybuilding
Dorian Yates worked under him and used to bark at Andrew over the phone: “ PhD stands for piled high and deep ” “ You seem really interested in ideas. Don’t be a moron. Don’t be a bodybuilder. Don’t touch steroids. You have a mind. Develop your mind. ” This had a huge impact on Andrew
Him and Bob Peters (a high school football coach) taught him about weight training and running
Gary Hall was a guy Andrew grew up with skateboarding told him early on (when Andrew was 14), “ Look, your parents are really messed up, and so many of the people we know in skateboarding are super messed up. If you mess up, I’m going to kick your ass. ” Gary moved away to Milpitas, but now he is Andrew’s lab operations manager Andrew remembered him saying, “ It’s not your fault, but if you screw up… ” They laugh about this now
“ PhD stands for piled high and deep ”
“ You seem really interested in ideas. Don’t be a moron. Don’t be a bodybuilder. Don’t touch steroids. You have a mind. Develop your mind. ”
This had a huge impact on Andrew
Gary moved away to Milpitas, but now he is Andrew’s lab operations manager
Andrew remembered him saying, “ It’s not your fault, but if you screw up… ” They laugh about this now
They laugh about this now

“ I think in those years I started just realizing discipline is the answer… I needed structure, and the structure had to be self-imposed .”‒ Andrew Huberman

He really got into school and by the time he graduated, he graduated with honors and had published a paper It wasn’t magnificent but the data was solid
He got into Berkeley and Princeton for graduate school and decided to go to UC Berkeley
He loved his time at UC Berkeley He originally wanted to work with Carla Shatz , an amazing developmental neurobiologist She developed the phrase, “ fire together, wire together ” But she moved to Harvard She is now back at Stanford
He decided to move to UC Davis where she suggested working with a younger faculty member, Barbara Chapman She was his PhD advisor
Andrew had met someone when he was in Berkeley (a wonderful person), but he ended that relationship when he joined Barbara’s lab so he could just focus on school
It wasn’t magnificent but the data was solid
He originally wanted to work with Carla Shatz , an amazing developmental neurobiologist She developed the phrase, “ fire together, wire together ” But she moved to Harvard She is now back at Stanford
She developed the phrase, “ fire together, wire together ”
But she moved to Harvard
She is now back at Stanford
She was his PhD advisor

“ I literally lived in the laboratory. I’d bring my groceries, I’d train at the gym, I’d sometimes shower in the monkey cage washer with the heat turned down, and I was just a machine. I was just work, work, work, work, work, work. ”‒ Andrew Huberman

They published a bunch of papers
He wasn’t paying much attention to his emotional and personal development, but in terms of loving science and focusing on science He loved it so much He adored Barbara
Things started happening along the way
He met Ben Barres , the first transgendered member of The National Academy In 2001 or 2002 he came to UC Davis to give a talk; he came into the lab and started talking to Andrew Andrew was supposed to deliver him to a seminar and they ended up being an hour late because they were just riffing on science
Andrew thought, “ This guy is the best. He’s got this energy. ” Andrew has always been tuned into people’s enthusiasm and excitement; he can spot bullshit pretty quick
Andrew has never been drawn to people who are purely ambitious Ambition is an algorithm that works, but when somebody is in love with what they do That was why he loved skateboarding; you don’t survive long in that community unless you love it And the same is true with science
Andrew was in love with retinal biology, in love with developmental neurobiology, and he saw Ben’s love of glia Andrew could care less about glia, but they resonated on this passion
Ben happened to be transgendered, and Andrew didn’t even know he was transgendered, but they became friends
At some point, Andrew started going down to Palo Alto to teach his lab some techniques, and Ben said to him, “ You should just do a postdoc in my lab .”
He loved it so much
He adored Barbara
In 2001 or 2002 he came to UC Davis to give a talk; he came into the lab and started talking to Andrew
Andrew was supposed to deliver him to a seminar and they ended up being an hour late because they were just riffing on science
Andrew has always been tuned into people’s enthusiasm and excitement; he can spot bullshit pretty quick
Ambition is an algorithm that works, but when somebody is in love with what they do That was why he loved skateboarding; you don’t survive long in that community unless you love it And the same is true with science
That was why he loved skateboarding; you don’t survive long in that community unless you love it
And the same is true with science
Andrew could care less about glia, but they resonated on this passion

Were you sure that you wanted to do a postdoc?

Yes, he had decided in undergrad that he wanted to run a lab, teach students, and be a researcher; he was going to do it ethically and honestly
He looked up to Harry Carlisle so much Harry drove a black truck, smoked cigarettes, and drank coffee Don’t smoke, it’s bad; Andrew doesn’t smoke anymore His wife was a therapist; she ran the psychology center at UC Santa Barbara Andrew adored them and wanted to be that The fact that his dad was a professor added to this
Over the years, Andrew was in touch with his parents and they were proud of his shift He still has a lot of issues to work out with him, less so with his mom He buried the hatched with his dad in 2007
Andrew earned his PhD from UC Davis
Harry drove a black truck, smoked cigarettes, and drank coffee Don’t smoke, it’s bad; Andrew doesn’t smoke anymore
His wife was a therapist; she ran the psychology center at UC Santa Barbara
Andrew adored them and wanted to be that The fact that his dad was a professor added to this
Don’t smoke, it’s bad; Andrew doesn’t smoke anymore
The fact that his dad was a professor added to this
He still has a lot of issues to work out with him, less so with his mom
He buried the hatched with his dad in 2007

Andrew went to Harvard to do a postdoc but realized he didn’t want to work for the guy

He was sitting in on lab meetings, and the personality traits of this person were repulsive
Andrew didn’t like the way he treated a janitor with a stutter Just thinking about this makes his blood boil
Andrew has never been an aggressor, never started a fight
Even in nursery school, he has been an advocate and protector of others
It was an after-work interaction, and the way he communicated, Andrew knew there was no way he could be there
He remembered thinking, “ Oh no. What am I going to do? ” He had just moved to Boston He broke up with his girlfriend on the West Coast; his girlfriend at the end of graduate school was great This was November of 2005 and he was supposed to start January one
He told him he was leaving, but at the time didn’t have the skills to be direct about why
They guy said, “ No. You need to get therapy first. ”
Andrew replied, “ Well, I’ve got loads of that under my belt, so that’s not going to work. ”
There were certain things in the interaction around his decision to leave that made it absolutely clear that leaving was the right thing to do
He called Ben Barres because he had turned him down for a postdoc; at the time, he didn’t want to work in Palo Alto
Ben, in his love of biology, just said, “ Come to my lab. You can work on anything you want… But you have to pay it forward someday. ”
When Ben was a graduate student in David Corey’s
at Harvard, David Corey worked on hair cells, hearing stuff, and he allowed one person (Ben) to do something different So Ben was going to pay it forward through Andrew
Andrew wanted to work on stuff related to what he was going to do at Harvard, but he didn’t want to compete with that lab They were a big monster lab Ben was like, “ No, you have to work on that… You have to .” Andrew didn’t want to at that point There were three labs trying to figure out genetic markers for retinal cells ‒ this guy at Harvard, a guy in Basel ( Botond Roska ) who does amazing work, and then Andrew, alone as a postdoc
At the time the hunt for genetic markers for retinal cells was a big deal Andrew felt there was plenty to go around ‒ there were many retinal cells, 40 ganglion cells (the output cells of the retina that connect to the brain), there was so much territory Andrew ended up getting his slice, the guy at Harvard got a bigger slice (he had a lot more people), and Botond did that and so much more for visual repair
Botond and Karl Deisseroth have figured out ways to get blind people to see, putting light sensitive options into the eye etc.
Andrew was just one postdoc, but it worked out well; he got a job at UC SanDiego which has a great neuroscience program
Just thinking about this makes his blood boil
He had just moved to Boston
He broke up with his girlfriend on the West Coast; his girlfriend at the end of graduate school was great
This was November of 2005 and he was supposed to start January one
So Ben was going to pay it forward through Andrew
They were a big monster lab
Ben was like, “ No, you have to work on that… You have to .”
Andrew didn’t want to at that point
There were three labs trying to figure out genetic markers for retinal cells ‒ this guy at Harvard, a guy in Basel ( Botond Roska ) who does amazing work, and then Andrew, alone as a postdoc
Andrew felt there was plenty to go around ‒ there were many retinal cells, 40 ganglion cells (the output cells of the retina that connect to the brain), there was so much territory
Andrew ended up getting his slice, the guy at Harvard got a bigger slice (he had a lot more people), and Botond did that and so much more for visual repair

The difference between a postdoc and a PhD [1:54:15]

Give folks a bit of a sense of the difference between a PhD and a postdoc

During your PhD, you’re working closely under the mentorship of one person That’s also true in the postdoc
During the PhD, the requirements are to learn the basics of the field and be tested on them in the classroom, learn the basics of experimentation and experimental design, and then become expert in one specific area by doing experiments
Andrew always says you get your PhD by being an expert in one very specific area You have to know everything about what you did and why, literally down to what specific antibody you used and where it is in the refrigerator You need to be able to do everything that’s on your papers Learn the publication process, learn how to write, learn to take rejection, learn to take challenge in the seminar format, all of that
That’s also true in the postdoc
You have to know everything about what you did and why, literally down to what specific antibody you used and where it is in the refrigerator
You need to be able to do everything that’s on your papers
Learn the publication process, learn how to write, learn to take rejection, learn to take challenge in the seminar format, all of that

What is the expectation for a PhD as far as publications?

This varies
Andrew did very well as a PhD student; he published 4-6 first author papers in great journals
1-2 would be sufficient if they’re good quality papers, and some projects go better than others

“ The key requirement of the PhD is to become a true expert in one area, and then to be able to frame how that fits into the context of the field as a whole ”‒ Andrew Huberman

Your PhD thesis is given not for saying, “ I did this, I did this, I did this ,” which any technician could do
It’s given to you for saying, “ I did this, I did this, I did this, and the implications are blank, ” and to extend that into the discoveries of past and other laboratories Typically, that correlates with having one first author manuscript in a good journal, but not always
Andrew did his PhD in four years, which was pretty quick
Typically, that correlates with having one first author manuscript in a good journal, but not always

Was half of that in the classroom and half in the lab?

Typically, you’re taking courses only in the first two years
You also have to consider peer group, this was 2000-2004 Andrew was 25 when he started his PhD, and he finished when he was 30 He had no children He was dating, but wasn’t in a committed relationship for most of it He literally worked 12-16 hours a day He was not in the best health; he lived on Peet’s black coffee, Diet Mountain Dew, cucumbers, ground beef, oatmeal, oranges, and love of what he was doing He was into vitamins and creatine; he worked out one day a week in the gym and ran one day a week He was young, so his body didn’t fall apart, but it wasn’t good He prioritized everything around work
In 2012 he started taking better care of himself and began taking Athletic Greens
Andrew was 25 when he started his PhD, and he finished when he was 30
He had no children
He was dating, but wasn’t in a committed relationship for most of it
He literally worked 12-16 hours a day
He was not in the best health; he lived on Peet’s black coffee, Diet Mountain Dew, cucumbers, ground beef, oatmeal, oranges, and love of what he was doing He was into vitamins and creatine; he worked out one day a week in the gym and ran one day a week He was young, so his body didn’t fall apart, but it wasn’t good
He prioritized everything around work
He was into vitamins and creatine; he worked out one day a week in the gym and ran one day a week
He was young, so his body didn’t fall apart, but it wasn’t good

What was the title of your dissertation?

It was Neural Activity and Axon Guidant Q-Dependent Development of Eye Specific Segregation in the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus This is basically saying there are molecules and there are patterns of neural activity that govern brain wiring
At the time, he was working in ferrets and cats (carnivore species), and he wanted to move away from that He’s always been an animal lover; he had a pet ferret He didn’t want to work on large animals He’s done some non-human primate work; he published a lot on the fetal primate (fetal macaques)
This is basically saying there are molecules and there are patterns of neural activity that govern brain wiring
He’s always been an animal lover; he had a pet ferret
He didn’t want to work on large animals
He’s done some non-human primate work; he published a lot on the fetal primate (fetal macaques)

How big is an adult macaque?

An adult male macaque can be a couple feet tall
They’ll rip a limb off of you if you let them
They carry herpes B which can kill you There’s a famous case in Atlanta of one splashing its pee into a woman’s eye She wasn’t wearing the face shield, and she was dead two weeks later You’re better off getting HIV
Andrew does not like working on macaques for a number of reasons, and he doesn’t work with them any longer
As a postdoc, you’re not taking courses You’re mainly focused on research You’re developing your own independent research program
There’s a famous case in Atlanta of one splashing its pee into a woman’s eye
She wasn’t wearing the face shield, and she was dead two weeks later
You’re better off getting HIV
You’re mainly focused on research
You’re developing your own independent research program

What is the purpose of a postdoc?

Would you do a postdoc if you didn’t want to have your own lab?

How many people do a postdoc and choose to go into industry rather than form their own lab?

Nowadays about 80% go into industry
But now there are a lot more jobs for neuroscientists in industry, places like Genentech , etc.
At the time, there wasn’t as many industry jobs

What defines the duration of a postdoc?

You know when you’re ready to move on as a postdoc because you generally have one or two papers and a story to take into a seminar
In both the PhD and the postdoc, the goal is to have a one-hour seminar of your own independent work, and the context it fits into, and you get hired Peter has an honorary PhD in some facet of Formula One where he can spend one hour talking
Andrew’s postdoc was great; he loved working for Ben
Peter has an honorary PhD in some facet of Formula One where he can spend one hour talking

Staying in touch with the love of biology and not getting pulled into ambition [1:59:15]

Andrew left Palo Alto for San Francisco

In 2005 he moved back to the Bay Area of San Francisco, he didn’t want to live in Palo Alto He commuted down 280, and loved working in Ben’s lab; there were 30 people in the lab He started his postdoc in 2005 and finished in 2010
Peter was in the Bay Area for med school from ‘97 to ‘01 and lived there again from ‘06 to ‘08
Andrew was living at Clayton and Parnassus, right near UCSF, the old campus, the hospital
His sister was in the neighborhood and had just adopted, so he wanted to be to spend time with her
Peter spent a lot of time out there because his wife ran the Coumadin Clinic at UCSF
Andrew was a few blocks from the Haight Ashbury Clinic , a very different clinic, but famous because of the Manson thing, and if anyone hasn’t read Charles Manson, A Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties , a lot of history there
He commuted down 280, and loved working in Ben’s lab; there were 30 people in the lab
He started his postdoc in 2005 and finished in 2010

Andred loved working in Ben’s huge, vibrant lab

There were 32 people in the lab, and it was run by a person with a face recognition issue; you can imagine it was hilarious
The lab meetings were legendary; they were 4 hours or more; people would argue and fight Ben could be very politically incorrect, which was hilarious At the time, it was also important for us to have someone challenge us in these very direct ways We were all politically correct, but Ben said some pretty outrageous things
Ben could be very politically incorrect, which was hilarious
At the time, it was also important for us to have someone challenge us in these very direct ways
We were all politically correct, but Ben said some pretty outrageous things

Andrew learned so much from Ben about staying in touch with the love of biology and not getting pulled into ambition

Ben called it the light, or the flame
Ben was incredibly ambitious, but he just loved biology

Something weird happened in 2000

Peter had the distinction by just luck by the year he was in med school (‘97), Andrew’s postdoc advisor (Ben Barres) was the head of neuroscience He year began as Barbara Barres and ended as Ben The she to he transition occurred during that year Even though that was more than 25 years ago, it didn’t seem that unusual, but this had much more to do with Ben
He year began as Barbara Barres and ended as Ben
The she to he transition occurred during that year
Even though that was more than 25 years ago, it didn’t seem that unusual, but this had much more to do with Ben

Ben passed away in 2017

Andrew wrote Ben’s obituary for Nature
When Ben moved to the Bay area, Andrew sat with Ben for many hours recording conversations with him that he hopes to someday release Talking about his history and the decision to transition and his thoughts on when and how best for people to transition, what that means, his relationship to sex, the verb and sexuality, academia It’s a great audio file because he tears loose on people in academia He says at the beginning, “ Is this for my obituary? ” Andrew replied, “ Yes ,” and he said, “ Well, it better be for a good journal .” Andrew said, “ It’s for Nature ,” and he says, “ Okay, well, given that it’s for my obituary, I’m going to say whatever the fuck I want. ” And he really does; he lets people have it But he also really expresses a lot of heart for the things that he thinks are important in science and in life Andrew was sitting there, tears just running down his eyes trying to get these recordings, and he realizes what’s happening He’s going to be dead soon He had pancreatic cancer, and as a non-clinician, that was pretty intense
Talking about his history and the decision to transition and his thoughts on when and how best for people to transition, what that means, his relationship to sex, the verb and sexuality, academia
It’s a great audio file because he tears loose on people in academia
He says at the beginning, “ Is this for my obituary? ” Andrew replied, “ Yes ,” and he said, “ Well, it better be for a good journal .” Andrew said, “ It’s for Nature ,” and he says, “ Okay, well, given that it’s for my obituary, I’m going to say whatever the fuck I want. ” And he really does; he lets people have it
But he also really expresses a lot of heart for the things that he thinks are important in science and in life
Andrew was sitting there, tears just running down his eyes trying to get these recordings, and he realizes what’s happening He’s going to be dead soon He had pancreatic cancer, and as a non-clinician, that was pretty intense
Andrew said, “ It’s for Nature ,” and he says, “ Okay, well, given that it’s for my obituary, I’m going to say whatever the fuck I want. ”
And he really does; he lets people have it
He’s going to be dead soon
He had pancreatic cancer, and as a non-clinician, that was pretty intense

Peter reconnected with Ben in 2012

Ben had red some of Peter’s blog and reached out and became interested in some of the things Peter was doing
He asked if Peter would check his bloods, etc.
Ben was really into data
One thing that people don’t realize about Ben is that he was always trying different diets He struggled with his weight a lot Because he transitioned, he was taking testosterone, but he had always struggled with his weight He had tried keto, he had tried fasting, he had tried vegan diets He was always sampling with different things, and he was always asking me about nutrition and supplementation
When Andrew was in his lab, he was working a lot, and he noticed that the fewer carbohydrates he ate, the more he could stay awake Andrew is a pure omnivore; he loves starches, but tends to eat oatmeal, rice, and pasta ‒ what he considers “clean” starches
At the time, Ben caught him drinking the oil off the top of a jar of almond butter, and then slugging back two expressos Ben was like, “ What are you doing? You’re going to die of a heart attack .” Andrew was like, “ No, you have to understand, certain lipids can be used as fuel if you’re not taking enough carbohydrate.” Then he would scream, “ That’s ridiculous. That violates all the rules of biology .”
Then Ben came back to him six months later and was like, “ I’m doing this low carb thing and I’m losing weight like crazy. How come nobody knows about it? ” He said “ Most doctors are so unhealthy. They don’t know anything. ” Ben was a MD, PhD
Andrew remembers Ben telling him, “ Don’t believe any dogma, don’t believe any of it. ”
He struggled with his weight a lot
Because he transitioned, he was taking testosterone, but he had always struggled with his weight
He had tried keto, he had tried fasting, he had tried vegan diets
He was always sampling with different things, and he was always asking me about nutrition and supplementation
Andrew is a pure omnivore; he loves starches, but tends to eat oatmeal, rice, and pasta ‒ what he considers “clean” starches
Ben was like, “ What are you doing? You’re going to die of a heart attack .”
Andrew was like, “ No, you have to understand, certain lipids can be used as fuel if you’re not taking enough carbohydrate.”
Then he would scream, “ That’s ridiculous. That violates all the rules of biology .”
He said “ Most doctors are so unhealthy. They don’t know anything. ”
Ben was a MD, PhD

Ben had this heretical thing ‒ there’s a theme here

Andrew liked hanging out with punks and skateboarders when he was younger, not because they were wild, but because they looked at things differently
He loves stories He loved the Steve Jobs book He remembers seeing Steve walking barefoot through the neighborhood when he was a postdoc, when he would visit my folks in Palo Alto He would also visit his high school girlfriend, that he met at the skateboard shop She was his vegan chef, and her sister worked for Steve Steve was a punk rocker and didn’t even realize it
Andrew’s heroes are people like Joe Strummer , Oliver Sacks , people that really went against the grain of their field out of love, not as an F-U
When Ben started working on glia , everyone thought glia were stupid Why would you study support cells?
Ben showed they were important for everything, disease in particular, but normal brain functioning and development
Ben was the one who really encouraged Andrew to stay in touch with that feeling around doing things and to never let ambition pull you in a direction where you were divorced from that for too long
Ben was also an extremely hard worker He understood that that’s what Rick Rubin called “the source,” that’s the ability to continue working long hours and not feel like you’re depleting yourself
Andrew got really close to Ben in those years that he worked for him Ben was healthy then During those years when he was working for Ben, he wasn’t making enough money to survive in the Bay Area; he was really struggling
He loved the Steve Jobs book
He remembers seeing Steve walking barefoot through the neighborhood when he was a postdoc, when he would visit my folks in Palo Alto He would also visit his high school girlfriend, that he met at the skateboard shop She was his vegan chef, and her sister worked for Steve
Steve was a punk rocker and didn’t even realize it
He would also visit his high school girlfriend, that he met at the skateboard shop
She was his vegan chef, and her sister worked for Steve
Why would you study support cells?
He understood that that’s what Rick Rubin called “the source,” that’s the ability to continue working long hours and not feel like you’re depleting yourself
Ben was healthy then
During those years when he was working for Ben, he wasn’t making enough money to survive in the Bay Area; he was really struggling

What is a postdoc salary?

He had a Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship , which is a premier fellowship from a private institution They pay more, and he was making $45k But rents were crazy and gas and food and everything else Living on $45k in the Bay Area was rough, and he didn’t have kids
Andrew actually went back to Thrasher Magazine He had a bunch of friends that worked there They’re located in the only truly dangerous part of San Francisco, Hunter’s Point They gave him a job writing articles for Thrasher and SLAP Magazine , the sibling magazine He wrote a bunch of articles under a different name (Andy Huberman); people in skateboarding knew him as Andy He was writing articles on musics and bands He was going to hear bands play and then getting back to the lab at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning Sleeping in Ben’s office, and then working in the day He was making an extra $500-1000 bucks a month
It was great to go to shows for free, get to know musicians, fall back in with the skateboard set (all the ones who were healthy and how had families and jobs) All the other dysfunction got pushed away
He was in both worlds again
They pay more, and he was making $45k
But rents were crazy and gas and food and everything else
Living on $45k in the Bay Area was rough, and he didn’t have kids
He had a bunch of friends that worked there
They’re located in the only truly dangerous part of San Francisco, Hunter’s Point
They gave him a job writing articles for Thrasher and SLAP Magazine , the sibling magazine
He wrote a bunch of articles under a different name (Andy Huberman); people in skateboarding knew him as Andy
He was writing articles on musics and bands
He was going to hear bands play and then getting back to the lab at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning Sleeping in Ben’s office, and then working in the day
He was making an extra $500-1000 bucks a month
Sleeping in Ben’s office, and then working in the day
All the other dysfunction got pushed away

Andrew starts his own lab, and continues work to overcome his demons [2:07:00]

Eventually Andrew got a job at UC San Diego

He had a choice between UC San Diego and MIT
While he loves the academic community in Boston, he realized, “ I’m a California kid, I’m a skateboarder and punk rocker at heart .” He thought, “ Back there, everything’s focused on lineage and how old you are and how long you’ve been around ” In the Bay Area it’s all about the young tech and youth is really valued You could be 25 years old in the Bay Area, and if you have a great idea, people don’t care The East Coast is different, at least at the time it felt different
Andrew went to UC San Diego in 2011 and his lab flourished there
He left in 2015 because he got hired back to Stanford when Ben was still in the department
He thought, “ Back there, everything’s focused on lineage and how old you are and how long you’ve been around ”
In the Bay Area it’s all about the young tech and youth is really valued You could be 25 years old in the Bay Area, and if you have a great idea, people don’t care The East Coast is different, at least at the time it felt different
You could be 25 years old in the Bay Area, and if you have a great idea, people don’t care
The East Coast is different, at least at the time it felt different

The weird thread through all of this is the contrast between life as a graduate student/ posdoc and life as a professor

In San Diego, he lived in Normal Heights, out towards El Cajon
He went from making $42-45,000 dollars a year as a postdoc to $100,000-110,000 as a starting assistant professor
He went from having essentially no responsibility to buying a little house, getting a bulldog puppy, and getting a laboratory
He hired a technician that he knew from Davis, and just went ham
It was all about experiments, experiments, experiments He lived in the lab two or three days a week, brushing his teeth in the sink His students were like, “ What’s wrong with this guy? ”
He was very fortunate; they published a bunch of papers in great journals
More importantly, they were having a lot of fun doing research; it was incredible He had all these microscopes
He couldn’t believe he had his name on the door Actually, he’s always thought that labs should name themselves after the work they do as opposed to the name
He met a woman and was in a five-year relationship with somebody there that was really wonderful She taught him a lot about how to balance his professional life and his personal life Despite that relationship not working out, he learned a lot of important elements ‒ for example, it’s good to come home for dinner and be with her and the dogs every once in a while It taught him some self-care He got back into boxing, although he tried not to spar too often
He lived in the lab two or three days a week, brushing his teeth in the sink
His students were like, “ What’s wrong with this guy? ”
He had all these microscopes
Actually, he’s always thought that labs should name themselves after the work they do as opposed to the name
She taught him a lot about how to balance his professional life and his personal life
Despite that relationship not working out, he learned a lot of important elements ‒ for example, it’s good to come home for dinner and be with her and the dogs every once in a while
It taught him some self-care
He got back into boxing, although he tried not to spar too often

Overcoming demons [2:09:00]

Were the demons of your youth still rearing some of the emotional damage?

That would show up in various form
He and his dad finally put to rest their challenges in 2007 He wrote Andrew a letter expressing concern and disappointment in the ways they were relating This was when Andrew was a postdoc in Ben’s lab He remembers thinking, “ He’s reaching out. Maybe it’s time to take a look at this ” He wasn’t about to try and solve it in a conversation; he suggested therapy Andrew wanted to have a conversation in front of somebody would could tell him here he was also wrong They did a total of four sessions with a really excellent female therapist He remembered the question of who was going to pay for it Andrew told his dad, “ I don’t have much money, but I’m going to go in 50/50 with you on this one ” After four sessions, they realized it was the first their man-to-man conversation they ever had
Andrew realized that a lot of the things he struggled with growing up, his dad did too His relationship to his mother His relationship to himself Trying to balance a life in science and ambition
Science is not throwing punches at your face/ shooting at you But you’re also not winning millions of dollars at the end of a case or cashing out a bit IPO The wins are really wins of the heart and wins of discovery ‒ you get a paper in Science or Nature (Andrew is blessed to have more than a few of those) At first you’re like, “Shit, will I ever do that again? ” It’s a lot like a professional athlete, but your world is tiny Once you realize your world is tiny, you have two choices ‒ either leave because it’s too small, or go back to your love of the work But you also have to live in the world and have a family in relationships
He wrote Andrew a letter expressing concern and disappointment in the ways they were relating
This was when Andrew was a postdoc in Ben’s lab
He remembers thinking, “ He’s reaching out. Maybe it’s time to take a look at this ”
He wasn’t about to try and solve it in a conversation; he suggested therapy Andrew wanted to have a conversation in front of somebody would could tell him here he was also wrong They did a total of four sessions with a really excellent female therapist He remembered the question of who was going to pay for it Andrew told his dad, “ I don’t have much money, but I’m going to go in 50/50 with you on this one ” After four sessions, they realized it was the first their man-to-man conversation they ever had
Andrew wanted to have a conversation in front of somebody would could tell him here he was also wrong
They did a total of four sessions with a really excellent female therapist
He remembered the question of who was going to pay for it
Andrew told his dad, “ I don’t have much money, but I’m going to go in 50/50 with you on this one ”
After four sessions, they realized it was the first their man-to-man conversation they ever had
His relationship to his mother
His relationship to himself
Trying to balance a life in science and ambition
But you’re also not winning millions of dollars at the end of a case or cashing out a bit IPO
The wins are really wins of the heart and wins of discovery ‒ you get a paper in Science or Nature (Andrew is blessed to have more than a few of those) At first you’re like, “Shit, will I ever do that again? ” It’s a lot like a professional athlete, but your world is tiny Once you realize your world is tiny, you have two choices ‒ either leave because it’s too small, or go back to your love of the work But you also have to live in the world and have a family in relationships
At first you’re like, “Shit, will I ever do that again? ”
It’s a lot like a professional athlete, but your world is tiny
Once you realize your world is tiny, you have two choices ‒ either leave because it’s too small, or go back to your love of the work
But you also have to live in the world and have a family in relationships

In those conversations, he realized he inherited some real gifts from his dad ‒ curiosity and love of craft

His dad is 80, and he’s still firing on eight cylinders He’s excited about cars, he’s excited about science, he’s excited about movies
Andrew and his dad resonated; they finally hit that point
He’s excited about cars, he’s excited about science, he’s excited about movies

They say forgiveness is really the best thing, and Andrew thinks it really is

He’s good with his dad; they’re super close

The loss of three mentors leads to deep soul searching [2:12:00]

The loss of his undergraduate mentor Harry Carlisle

When Andrew was in San Diego, he went back into full forward center of mass ambition
It was only his girlfriend and bulldog that kept him a little calibrated
When he was a PhD student, the second paper he published was in Science ; he was super proud
He called and told Harry Carlisle because he knew Andrew’s story, gave him a lab to work in, saw him graduate with honors He congratulated him and invited him to have pizza with him and his wife (Jane) to catch up the next time he was in Santa Barbara
Three days later, Harry shot himself in the bathtub, just killed himself
Andrew was there two or three days later speaking at his funeral and was like, “ Holy shit ,” he knew a bunch of people who had died or gone to jail from the skateboarding world
It was just crazy because this was the guy that had taught him about mental health issues and about depression and how it’s all neurochemistry
Andrew and Jane would meet for the next couple of years; he would go to their house and talk to her She recently passed away She told him that they had had a son who had died in a motorcycle accident early on when he was in his teens, and Harry never quite got over that
Harry should have known better
Andrew realized, “ Wow, you can have all the knowledge in the world about the underlying biology, and it might not save you. ”
He congratulated him and invited him to have pizza with him and his wife (Jane) to catch up the next time he was in Santa Barbara
She recently passed away
She told him that they had had a son who had died in a motorcycle accident early on when he was in his teens, and Harry never quite got over that

“ That was a wake up call ”‒ Andrew Huberman

The loss of his PhD advisor, Barbara Chapman

Andrew was very close with his PhD advisor, Barbara Chapman She had two kids while he was in the lab, and his niece is friends with them Their families have merged She started falling out of communication with people, she had early-onset breast cancer and died She had the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations which made her highly susceptible to cancer Andrew spoke at her memorial at the House of Flowers in San Francisco It was horrible; it was like losing his mother
She had two kids while he was in the lab, and his niece is friends with them
Their families have merged
She started falling out of communication with people, she had early-onset breast cancer and died She had the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations which made her highly susceptible to cancer
Andrew spoke at her memorial at the House of Flowers in San Francisco
It was horrible; it was like losing his mother
She had the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations which made her highly susceptible to cancer

Her death destabilized him, but he got through it; he reacted by working twice as hard, which was not a good formula

He got hired back to Stanford; he was working next door to Ben
His first week back he goes out to dinner with Ben Barres, Carla Shatz, Krishna Shanoi, and Karen Hersh They’re at Il Fornaio, downtown Palo Alto; Ben looks at him and says, “ I think I’m having a heart attack ” Ben’s a MD Andrew takes him in his 4Runner to Stanford Hospital and they spend the night talking Ben asks him not to tell anyone in his lab; he doesn’t want them to think he’s dying
Later that week, Ben has a second heart attack; he’s throwing clots; he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
They’re at Il Fornaio, downtown Palo Alto; Ben looks at him and says, “ I think I’m having a heart attack ” Ben’s a MD
Andrew takes him in his 4Runner to Stanford Hospital and they spend the night talking
Ben asks him not to tell anyone in his lab; he doesn’t want them to think he’s dying
Ben’s a MD

From the moment Andrew lands at Stanford, he’s watching his third advisor die

Ben with his MD morbid sense of humor used to joke, “ Andy, you’re the common denominator. ” The joke is, you don’t want Andy to work for you
Andrew had a conversation with Barbara before she died, talking about people who work in hospice Saying goodbye to someone is tough Hearing that somebody went suddenly is tough
Luckily, Barbara’s daughters are both doing really well One graduated from college The other is a neuroscience student at McGill
The joke is, you don’t want Andy to work for you
Saying goodbye to someone is tough
Hearing that somebody went suddenly is tough
One graduated from college
The other is a neuroscience student at McGill

Ben’s passing away was the final nail in the coffin for him; he realized he needed to go all the way back and start doing some deep excavation because he was starting to feel really shut off

At this point, Andrew hated doing his work
He thought he might write a book
He was losing touch with the source, the love for science He had a big lab but wasn’t feeling it
Andrew started foraging, he started doing cage exit Great White Shark diving Real smart, he might as well box nine rounds with Peter or a real fighter with no headgear He was starting to engage in dangerous behavior again
Here he is at age 42 with tenure at Stanford, he’s publishing
He published a full article in Nature in 2018 after Ben’s death, but he remembers feeling pretty joyless and thinking, “ What the fuck and I going to do? I’m out of touch with all of it. ”
He had a big lab but wasn’t feeling it
Real smart, he might as well box nine rounds with Peter or a real fighter with no headgear
He was starting to engage in dangerous behavior again

Therapy

Andrew did the Hoffman process , this is no drugs, no psychedelics, but psychedelic state of self-actualization stuff It was $4-5,000 for the week; they have scholarship programs This was helpful
One of the things that really helped was he did a week-long trauma immersion in 2017 on the east coast with a brilliant guy named Ryan Soave
Andrew was trying to work through many different things: Old stuff he amassed in childhood Major loss as an adult He has mentioned 3-4 girlfriends, and he wasn’t someone who enjoyed skipping from relationship For each of those there was a story of hope for a permanent future and then a cliff He was the common denominator; he’s not going to take all the blame, but there is a consistent variable there
It was $4-5,000 for the week; they have scholarship programs
This was helpful
Old stuff he amassed in childhood
Major loss as an adult
He has mentioned 3-4 girlfriends, and he wasn’t someone who enjoyed skipping from relationship For each of those there was a story of hope for a permanent future and then a cliff
He was the common denominator; he’s not going to take all the blame, but there is a consistent variable there
For each of those there was a story of hope for a permanent future and then a cliff

What motivated Andrew to begin his podcast [2:18:00]

A turning point after so much loss

In 2017 he met a guy named Pat Dossett at Hoffman He had done 13 years in the SEAL teams They became friends, and Andrew would go down to LA (where Pat was living), swim with him and hangout out
In 2019 Pat asked him, “ What are you going to do for the world in 2019? ” That was the seed question He thought about posting one-minute clips on Instagram about the retina or nerdy stuff that he thinks is cool, and Pat made him shake on it
Andrew starting posting, and then in 2020 the pandemic hits, and he thought maybe he should write a book He realized that his lab works on stress and he has some tools for stress and improving sleep He wasn’t going to talk about vaccines because it seemed like a barbed wire topic; you can’t win that conversation
He thought he could teach stuff by going on podcasts, and in 2020 he did 30 podcasts that year He went on Joe Rogan’s podcast , and Lex’s podcast
At the end of 2020, Lex suggested that he start his own podcast, “ But don’t make it just you talking. ”
Andrew took half of the advice, and in 2021 he hired the guy who was going to do PR for his book stuff, Rob Moore and they started the Huberman Lab podcast
He had done 13 years in the SEAL teams
They became friends, and Andrew would go down to LA (where Pat was living), swim with him and hangout out
That was the seed question
He thought about posting one-minute clips on Instagram about the retina or nerdy stuff that he thinks is cool, and Pat made him shake on it
He realized that his lab works on stress and he has some tools for stress and improving sleep
He wasn’t going to talk about vaccines because it seemed like a barbed wire topic; you can’t win that conversation
He went on Joe Rogan’s podcast , and Lex’s podcast

In 2019, he was blabbing into Instagram; in 2020, he was going on podcasts

During those years he was so frightened
He hoped none of his colleagues would see this But if they did, they would know that everything he’s saying is true
Probably the only reason he is not on TikTok is that Stanford forbid them from being on it early on; it’s a security risk
But if they did, they would know that everything he’s saying is true

In 2020, he was really concerned for the world

He knows the director of the National Institute of Mental Health ( Josh Gordon ) and told him that he didn’t see any advice on: Getting regular sunlight Staying on a circadian rhythm Learning some stress mitigation techniques He told him, “ The world is falling apart due to stress ”
Andrew remembers thinking, no one is going to step up, “ I’m going to do this ” He wasn’t selling a book He didn’t have a podcast He was just giving information
When the podcast started he wanted to honor the incredible place that is Stanford He would love to incorporate some of the brilliant minds at Stanford So he invited a bunch of his colleagues Karl Deisseroth was one of his first guests He had Anna Lembke on
Getting regular sunlight
Staying on a circadian rhythm
Learning some stress mitigation techniques
He told him, “ The world is falling apart due to stress ”
He wasn’t selling a book
He didn’t have a podcast
He was just giving information
He would love to incorporate some of the brilliant minds at Stanford
So he invited a bunch of his colleagues
Karl Deisseroth was one of his first guests
He had Anna Lembke on

In this last year the fun really started because he could include people to speak to some of his other long-standing interests

Andy Galpin on fitness
Layne Norton on nutrition and other things

Andrew continues therapy

Throughout this whole time, Andrew has kept a weird journal where he has conversations with different people (Peter, Rick Rubin, etc.) He also keeps having conversations in a journal with Barbara (mostly) and Ben where he discusses major decisions, stance around a podcast, stance around research or what to do with his lab He considers the important lessons that he has learned from them
Andrew still does therapy 1-3x a week, “ because if I didn’t, who knows what would happen ”
He has done some exploration of the psychedelic space (not a lot), and always in the company of a physician
In two of those sessions, MDMA was immensely beneficial for: Allowing him to have a conversation like this Put down his dog, who he was super close to Getting clarity on lessons from his life arc ‒ staying in touch with the things that give us energy as opposed to being ambitious for ambition’s sake Getting the order of that dialogue correct and putting love of craft first, and letting ambition stem from that Appreciating friendship and amazing mentors
He also keeps having conversations in a journal with Barbara (mostly) and Ben where he discusses major decisions, stance around a podcast, stance around research or what to do with his lab
He considers the important lessons that he has learned from them
Allowing him to have a conversation like this
Put down his dog, who he was super close to
Getting clarity on lessons from his life arc ‒ staying in touch with the things that give us energy as opposed to being ambitious for ambition’s sake
Getting the order of that dialogue correct and putting love of craft first, and letting ambition stem from that
Appreciating friendship and amazing mentors

Looking to the future of Andrew’s scientific work, podcast, and more [2:22:45]

Huberman Lab is one of the top podcasts

In the podcast space, Andrew listened to Tim Ferriss’s podcast early on, and read his books He listened to Joe Rogan , Peter Attia, Lex Fridman, Rich Roll Rhonda Patrick , he jokes “First Man In” was actually a woman, it was Rhonda Before he knew these people, there was the Ben Barres’s and Richard Axel’s of the world
He listened to Joe Rogan , Peter Attia, Lex Fridman, Rich Roll
Rhonda Patrick , he jokes “First Man In” was actually a woman, it was Rhonda
Before he knew these people, there was the Ben Barres’s and Richard Axel’s of the world

These are the greats of podcasting, so he pays a lot of attention to how he can do things well like them but different

There are no rewards for just imitation

The beauty of podcasting relative to science is that if Peter and Andrew have the same guest on in one week, it raises it in the algorithm

Where as in science, if two papers come out simultaneously in a journal, that lends strength to the argument that the data and conclusions are true because of two independent discoveries But there is this notion of scooping ‒ if someone publishes a result in a given arena and then you’re six months late publishing the same finding, you can’t get it into a good journal It’s the opposite in podcasting
If Joe has David Goggins on yesterday, and then he comes on Peter’s or Andrew’s podcast, it’s a rising tide that raises all boats, and the algorithm is the tide
Andrew is still running a lab but he’s also in a field where goodness grows goodness Sharing and being generous makes everybody succeed more You learn from seeing how someone relates in other conversations
Whatever deadening was created by the death of Andrew’s advisors in 2020 (and especially in 2021), it was just like rocket fuel It was that conversation with Lex and all the other stuff that led up to it
But there is this notion of scooping ‒ if someone publishes a result in a given arena and then you’re six months late publishing the same finding, you can’t get it into a good journal
It’s the opposite in podcasting
Sharing and being generous makes everybody succeed more
You learn from seeing how someone relates in other conversations
It was that conversation with Lex and all the other stuff that led up to it

“ If you gave me a $100 billion to stop podcasting, I wouldn’t do it ”‒ Andrew Huberman

Andrew knows that at some point, the lights are going to go out for him and he’ll be dead, and the question is, “ What are you going to have, and what have you done? ” He feels he’s good if he can, “ Touch into the beauty and utility of biology and share that… the rest is just noise ”
He feels he’s good if he can, “ Touch into the beauty and utility of biology and share that… the rest is just noise ”

Given the meteoric rise of your amazing work over the past two years, what do you think you’re going to be doing in two years?

Podcasting
In the lab, he has a paper that’s right on the 99.9 yard line There is one more little thing they want us to tweak before it goes in This is a Cell paper he’s really proud of on human breathing patterns and anxiety [It was published before this podcast was released]
There is another paper he is fighting with a journal about right now
Because of the podcasting, his lab has gotten smaller
But he has a close collaboration with David Spiegel (the Associate Chair of Psychiatry), and they are spinning up a number of programs at Stanford around mind-body research He works on clinical applications of hypnosis Nolan Williams works with psychedelics
There is one more little thing they want us to tweak before it goes in
This is a Cell paper he’s really proud of on human breathing patterns and anxiety [It was published before this podcast was released]
He works on clinical applications of hypnosis
Nolan Williams works with psychedelics
Andrew hasn’t talked too much about this publicly, but all of his podcasts are free They are released on Monday, sometimes also on Wednesdays
They launched a premium channel Thanks to Andrew Wilkinson and Tiny Capital who are matching of funds for people that subscribe What he is trying to do is raise money to fund the best work
They are released on Monday, sometimes also on Wednesdays
Thanks to Andrew Wilkinson and Tiny Capital who are matching of funds for people that subscribe
What he is trying to do is raise money to fund the best work

In two years, he will still be podcasting, he’ll still be a Professor at Stanford, teaching

He will be teaching the same course (next quarter) that Ben taught Peter, Bio 206 on neuroanatomy, functional anatomy, everything around addiction

Andrew would like to get more involved in science philanthropy, in particular to fund research on humans

He is very frustrated with the lack of progress in translating animal models to human treatments
He knows it’s necessary, it takes time
He loves the worm work, fly work, mouse work in particular
There’s also a place for primate work, although thresholds for that are higher given the animals they are
But there’s some excellent human work that really needs funding
Even though he was always well-funded, one of the things he experienced first hand was the frustration of wanting to do the coolest thing and having to take five years to ramp up to do it
Meanwhile, there is a lot of human suffering
There is also a lot to be gained from doing these studies right away
Stanford has great channels for raising funds for doing that high ambition, high output work
Andrew thinks he’s in a unique position to be able to understand the life of the researcher, and what he is doing is creating a system where someone can literally type out no more than half a page in 11-point font And the last thing a researcher needs to do is spend time writing all the justification He will raise funds for funding work though the podcast
And the last thing a researcher needs to do is spend time writing all the justification
He will raise funds for funding work though the podcast

He has always hoped he could shape science policy at some point, and the things that need shaping to make big differences in discovery, curing disease, and laboratories are very simple

Money is necessary but not sufficient to make progress

More money simply gives you more opportunity to try things
There’s never a case of too much money for doing research
There is sometimes a dearth of excellent people, but that’s not a problem at Stanford and other places; there are many excellent places

“ The more money that can go into research, the more progress that will be made, period ”‒ Andrew Huberman

Andrew sees himself podcasting and also being a really strong advocate for directing money into research

We’re losing a lot of graduate students and postdocs and potential graduate students and postdocs There’s a big strike right now in the UC system because they are paid garbage and many of them have kids We’re going to lose entire generations of great discovery
He is also trying to create endowments so that we can pay people a reasonable wage It’s insane, most of the people holding the power to make these decisions wouldn’t live a day with that amount of money in their bank account because it would give them an autonomic shock to just know that they were not necessarily going to make it into the next week
Andrew feels very strongly about giving people resources that allow them to flourish This is very Ben Barres-ish
There’s a big strike right now in the UC system because they are paid garbage and many of them have kids
We’re going to lose entire generations of great discovery
It’s insane, most of the people holding the power to make these decisions wouldn’t live a day with that amount of money in their bank account because it would give them an autonomic shock to just know that they were not necessarily going to make it into the next week
This is very Ben Barres-ish

“ Give people resources that allow them to flourish, that allow them to stay in touch with ‘the source’, if you will ”‒ Andrew Huberman

If he can raise $1 billion for research in the next two years or five years, he thinks he’ll have a greater impact on science and discovery than if he’s writing his next R01

Andrew’s unique approach to communicating science and the issue of scientific illiteracy [2:30:00]

Peter had six pages of single space type on things to talk about today, and they talked about zero of these
He asks, “ When are you coming back to Austin so that we can actually do the podcast ” Anytime; this could be part one
Anytime; this could be part one

Intro to a philosophical question

They discussed earlier how there’s really a renegade spirit that exists in some of the great minds Rick Rubin and Richard Feynman come to mind
There’s no question that you need people who are willing to question everything
It’s no small miracle that the Apple campaign of “think different” was arguably one of the most successful ad campaigns of all time
But, we also have to reconcile that science requires a lot of fundamental knowledge to even give you the privilege to think differently Before you do the PhD, you’ve done four years of undergraduate coursework, which is mostly learning in existing body of knowledge You then spend two years [usually four to six] doing a PhD where you’re learning an existing body of knowledge in a much narrower area than your undergraduate, but at a much deeper level You take a comprehensive exam (they didn’t even talk about how challenging the comps are, depending on the university especially) before you even earn the right to now go sit in the lab to start to think differently Which by the way is essential If you go into the lab, you can’t by definition have a PhD thesis that’s the same as somebody else’s; it has to be unique work
This is what is very difficult about communicating science to the public That line is difficult to explain
It’s very easy in social media to just assume everybody’s an expert because there’s no real ability to distinguish between signal and noise Or you could assume if somebody got something wrong that they’re wrong about everything else they’re saying (which is certainly not the case)
Peter was interviewed on a podcast recently and someone posed the question to him around this and he didn’t have a great answer
Peter thinks about his purpose in providing a sense of source He hopes to get people to think about things
Rick Rubin and Richard Feynman come to mind
Before you do the PhD, you’ve done four years of undergraduate coursework, which is mostly learning in existing body of knowledge
You then spend two years [usually four to six] doing a PhD where you’re learning an existing body of knowledge in a much narrower area than your undergraduate, but at a much deeper level
You take a comprehensive exam (they didn’t even talk about how challenging the comps are, depending on the university especially) before you even earn the right to now go sit in the lab to start to think differently Which by the way is essential If you go into the lab, you can’t by definition have a PhD thesis that’s the same as somebody else’s; it has to be unique work
Which by the way is essential
If you go into the lab, you can’t by definition have a PhD thesis that’s the same as somebody else’s; it has to be unique work
That line is difficult to explain
Or you could assume if somebody got something wrong that they’re wrong about everything else they’re saying (which is certainly not the case)
He hopes to get people to think about things

Peter hopes to provide people with enough substrate in terms of both knowledge and mental models/ frameworks to have some critical thinking

He hopes people are being armed with a tool that will allow them to look at the world and claims But he has no idea if he is able to do that It’s a very difficult thing to do
But he has no idea if he is able to do that
It’s a very difficult thing to do

How do you see your role in addressing the crisis of scientific literacy that has led to a crisis of confidence?

Andrew thinks Peter is not only getting people to think differently (or more deeply), but he is also giving them very useful information He says this as a consumer of the information Peter’s information, but also as somebody who pays a lot of attention to the landscape of this space Peter’s impact is real and significant
Andrew has long been interested in the common themes between different movements and cultures He watched it happen in skateboarding He knew well enough to know that he wasn’t going to play a major role He probably could have run a company or been involved in that; and some of them are worth many hundreds of millions of dollars now These companies run beautifully because they have a family feel In the landscape of science , there are people in it just for ambition, and there are others who are in it for real passion (like Ben), and there is everything in between Likewise within the social media sphere and health education , you’re seeing people that are just compelled to do it because they love it They are also ambitious Other people are purely ambitious, and you can tell because they’re grabbing onto every recent event as a way to get views and likes and grow their channels The fate of the purely ambitious is obvious ‒ over time, it’s just going to end They’re going to flame out
The human aspect comes through when you think about these different universes or cultures, and it gives one answer to the question, “ What are we trying to do here? ”
He says this as a consumer of the information Peter’s information, but also as somebody who pays a lot of attention to the landscape of this space
Peter’s impact is real and significant
He watched it happen in skateboarding He knew well enough to know that he wasn’t going to play a major role He probably could have run a company or been involved in that; and some of them are worth many hundreds of millions of dollars now These companies run beautifully because they have a family feel
In the landscape of science , there are people in it just for ambition, and there are others who are in it for real passion (like Ben), and there is everything in between
Likewise within the social media sphere and health education , you’re seeing people that are just compelled to do it because they love it They are also ambitious Other people are purely ambitious, and you can tell because they’re grabbing onto every recent event as a way to get views and likes and grow their channels
The fate of the purely ambitious is obvious ‒ over time, it’s just going to end They’re going to flame out
He knew well enough to know that he wasn’t going to play a major role
He probably could have run a company or been involved in that; and some of them are worth many hundreds of millions of dollars now
These companies run beautifully because they have a family feel
They are also ambitious
Other people are purely ambitious, and you can tell because they’re grabbing onto every recent event as a way to get views and likes and grow their channels
They’re going to flame out

For Andrew, there are several things that are really like mantras

“ I want to communicate the beauty and utility of biology. I want to do that by being a teacher and to some extent a storyteller ”‒ Andrew Huberman
He wants to be a giver
Peter raises an important point, a formal rigorous education often involves not doing anything creative Especially in biology This is not necessarily the case in mathematics Ramanujan didn’t have the formal education, it wasn’t necessary He was able to derive the insights from Gauss to Newton to Euler all the way through And literally in the dirt he was coming up with creative insights, That is why mathematics and science are fundamentally very different things Especially in biology; the fact set is unbearably large
Andrew agrees, Feynman pointed out that unfortunately taxonomy gets you nowhere
Andrew could tell you the 20 or so different kinds of ganglion cells in the retina, how they code visual space, what they inform the brain likely or not And the only thing that would’ve mattered is for you to understand that some cells sense motion, some cells sense contrast, some encode color information, and that it’s built up in a hierarchy pyramidal model to give you something like face recognition It doesn’t matter if it’s the alpha cell, the beta cell, the theta cell, the schemata cell
In biology, so much of it is showing some degree of ability in the taxonomy It’s not useless because it sets up a common dialogue
Especially in biology
This is not necessarily the case in mathematics Ramanujan didn’t have the formal education, it wasn’t necessary He was able to derive the insights from Gauss to Newton to Euler all the way through And literally in the dirt he was coming up with creative insights,
That is why mathematics and science are fundamentally very different things Especially in biology; the fact set is unbearably large
Ramanujan didn’t have the formal education, it wasn’t necessary
He was able to derive the insights from Gauss to Newton to Euler all the way through
And literally in the dirt he was coming up with creative insights,
Especially in biology; the fact set is unbearably large
And the only thing that would’ve mattered is for you to understand that some cells sense motion, some cells sense contrast, some encode color information, and that it’s built up in a hierarchy pyramidal model to give you something like face recognition
It doesn’t matter if it’s the alpha cell, the beta cell, the theta cell, the schemata cell
It’s not useless because it sets up a common dialogue

Taxonomy doesn’t teach you rulesets

Andrew doesn’t want to go back to the prefrontal cortex per se , but think about the Stroop task (illustrated below)

Figure 6. The Stroop task shows it is easier to name the color of a printed word when the word matches the color (top) than if it does not (bottom) . Image credit: Wikipedia

If you can’t speak the language (that’s red) or recognize that 7+7 = 14 is just true That’s not changing; there’s nothing creative about it
That’s not changing; there’s nothing creative about it

But you can’t come up with alternate rulesets if you don’t have the basic substrates, the basic building blocks

Andrew looks at a high school degree and an undergraduate degree as developing the raw materials from which to then start resampling those raw materials into what is truly novel This is what happens in a PhD
Most PhDs are truly novel but not terribly impactful for their field And most postdocs are like an attempt to show that you can do it twice Then, you get your own laboratory, and there are some labs that survive very well by just turning a crank and doing the same thing over and over again
This is what happens in a PhD
And most postdocs are like an attempt to show that you can do it twice
Then, you get your own laboratory, and there are some labs that survive very well by just turning a crank and doing the same thing over and over again

The fundamental discoveries come from people really taking risk

In the social media space, there are a couple of different issues

Do people need to have a formal rigorous education in something? Andrew would say yes, but we need to put air quotes around formal You look at a guy like Rick Rubin , he doesn’t know what Rick’s undergraduate education was in, but he doubts it was in music producing His “formal” rigorous education is in the real world of producing music
Andrew would hope that the young person out there (or even the older person out there) who really wants to get good at science thinking, puts themselves through the hard filter that is a formal rigorous education in that thing
Andrew would say yes, but we need to put air quotes around formal
You look at a guy like Rick Rubin , he doesn’t know what Rick’s undergraduate education was in, but he doubts it was in music producing His “formal” rigorous education is in the real world of producing music
His “formal” rigorous education is in the real world of producing music

“ The beauty of looking at things through the lens of biology or through the lens of science and experimentation is that really at its essence, your goal is to falsify your own what you think are best ideas .”‒ Andrew Huberman

This gets to the complete other end of the spectrum; Andrew brings it back to Ben’s comment to Peter when he had his epiphany (discussed earlier about weight loss on a keto diet), which is, “ The medical profession doesn’t know that much ” So that the listener doesn’t assume for a moment we’re just sitting here being elitists, saying you shouldn’t be the ones talking about science if you don’t have a background
It’s very clear that scientific literacy in the general public does not require a formal education in science, if you assume zero knowledge and infinite intelligence Andrew thinks it was Max Delbruck that said that
So that the listener doesn’t assume for a moment we’re just sitting here being elitists, saying you shouldn’t be the ones talking about science if you don’t have a background
Andrew thinks it was Max Delbruck that said that

Andrew believes that people are curious and that if you give them the raw materials to understand what you’re about to tell them, they can understand pretty much everything

There’s the whole Feynman quote of, “ If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, then you don’t really understand it .”
You can take adults or younger people and educate them You give them a minimum of nomenclature , and emphasize that the nomenclature isn’t really the point
We call it prefrontal cortex , but we could have called it green monkey tree, it doesn’t matter It’s a ruleset context appropriate setting machine in your brain, and it’s behind the forehead It doesn’t even matter that it’s behind the forehead, but it helps you remember prefrontal What is important is the algorithm that it uses
In biology we’re always talking about processes, and one thing that is really important and can be communicated to the general public (regardless of educational background) is that most of the time when you’re paying attention to science, forget the nouns, focus on the verbs If you want to understand how the brain wires up, forget that it’s an axon, just understand an axon is like a wire That helps you visualize it Andrew can put in your head the ideas of a number of different processes that are involved ‒ going from sperm meets egg, to a baby and a brain Why? Because it’s a bunch of processes , and when you understand one of them, you can more easily understand the next and the next Taxonomy doesn’t do that Knowing what one area of the brain is called doesn’t give you one shred of a hint of that a different brain area is called (it probably confuses you)
You give them a minimum of nomenclature , and emphasize that the nomenclature isn’t really the point
It’s a ruleset context appropriate setting machine in your brain, and it’s behind the forehead
It doesn’t even matter that it’s behind the forehead, but it helps you remember prefrontal
What is important is the algorithm that it uses
If you want to understand how the brain wires up, forget that it’s an axon, just understand an axon is like a wire That helps you visualize it
Andrew can put in your head the ideas of a number of different processes that are involved ‒ going from sperm meets egg, to a baby and a brain
Why? Because it’s a bunch of processes , and when you understand one of them, you can more easily understand the next and the next Taxonomy doesn’t do that Knowing what one area of the brain is called doesn’t give you one shred of a hint of that a different brain area is called (it probably confuses you)
That helps you visualize it
Taxonomy doesn’t do that
Knowing what one area of the brain is called doesn’t give you one shred of a hint of that a different brain area is called (it probably confuses you)

Teaching the verbs in biology is necessary

For example

Andrew has talked about the importance of getting morning sunlight . Why? Low solar angle sunlight has more yellow/ blue contrast And even though you don’t perceive it through these cells, and you look at it through cloud cover That yellow blue/ contrast is what activates the cells in the retina to say it’s morning When the sun is overhead, there’s no yellow/ blue contrast
You can take a picture of it with your phone and see, but what do you need people to understand? You don’t need to see the sunrise, you need to see the sun rising (the verb) You don’t need to see it across the horizon, you need to see it when it’s low in the sky If people hear that and they then remember, “ Oh yeah, because that’s when it’s yellow and blue, ” now it doesn’t matter what the ganglion cells are called (melanopsin) What you’ve got them on is a verb
Low solar angle sunlight has more yellow/ blue contrast
And even though you don’t perceive it through these cells, and you look at it through cloud cover
That yellow blue/ contrast is what activates the cells in the retina to say it’s morning
When the sun is overhead, there’s no yellow/ blue contrast
You don’t need to see the sunrise, you need to see the sun rising (the verb)
You don’t need to see it across the horizon, you need to see it when it’s low in the sky If people hear that and they then remember, “ Oh yeah, because that’s when it’s yellow and blue, ” now it doesn’t matter what the ganglion cells are called (melanopsin) What you’ve got them on is a verb
If people hear that and they then remember, “ Oh yeah, because that’s when it’s yellow and blue, ” now it doesn’t matter what the ganglion cells are called (melanopsin)
What you’ve got them on is a verb

And when you teach people the verb action of biology, they start to understand the real mechanism and the real utility

No one gives a shit about the nouns; it doesn’t matter Especially not to the general public that’s mostly trying to just think about health information
Especially not to the general public that’s mostly trying to just think about health information

We saw this during the pandemic

The problem with the vaccines is they showed these little movies with this ominous little spiky thing and here’s the spike protein when what people really wanted to know is: How do I know it’s going to be safe? What kind of safety is it going to afford me in terms of my health? What are the probabilities? This is an important point Peter thinks the world would be a much better place if people knew freshman statistics and probability
And then, even if when you told them that, a lot of people are still standoffish about it
The way to understand statistics , of course you have to understand the mode, the median, etc. But what’s really important is once you understand standard deviation, you want them to know what it represents ‒ it’s the verb in there You don’t care if people know what one or two standard deviations from the mean is
You also want them to understand what probability means What does a 2% chance that something will happen mean? The thing is either going to happen or not happen; it’s a binary outcome Where does priority and value fit into that?
Peter thinks part of why scientific communication got destroyed during the pandemic is you had people in charge treating everybody like idiots They didn’t take the time to explain probabilistic things Is the vaccine safe ‒ yes, on average Is there a chance of an adverse outcome when you take a Tylenol or a baby aspirin
The thing that keeps Peter up at night is, “ Why can’t we introduce nuance when it matters and not be fooled by noisy nuance that doesn’t matter, which people like to interject as a way to at the worst, hide their nefarious intentions, and at the best, miss the point? ”
Andrew agrees, people were treated like idiots during the pandemic and they responded in a very angry way When you treat people like idiots, they act like idiots or they get angry It’s like a teenager who realizes that their parents don’t understand anything when they start seeing a lot of flip flopping in messaging
When people understand or at least can visualize or experience the verb action of biology, they are forever changed
If Andrew gives you 50 facts about the brain, it doesn’t change you, but if he explains the process underlying even just five of your daily experiences Or what it means when you get tired and how to ameliorate that What it means when you get stressed and how to deal with that
How do I know it’s going to be safe?
What kind of safety is it going to afford me in terms of my health?
What are the probabilities? This is an important point Peter thinks the world would be a much better place if people knew freshman statistics and probability
This is an important point
Peter thinks the world would be a much better place if people knew freshman statistics and probability
But what’s really important is once you understand standard deviation, you want them to know what it represents ‒ it’s the verb in there
You don’t care if people know what one or two standard deviations from the mean is
What does a 2% chance that something will happen mean?
The thing is either going to happen or not happen; it’s a binary outcome
Where does priority and value fit into that?
They didn’t take the time to explain probabilistic things Is the vaccine safe ‒ yes, on average Is there a chance of an adverse outcome when you take a Tylenol or a baby aspirin
Is the vaccine safe ‒ yes, on average
Is there a chance of an adverse outcome when you take a Tylenol or a baby aspirin
When you treat people like idiots, they act like idiots or they get angry
It’s like a teenager who realizes that their parents don’t understand anything when they start seeing a lot of flip flopping in messaging
Or what it means when you get tired and how to ameliorate that
What it means when you get stressed and how to deal with that

If he teaches you the mechanisms that underlie those tools, then the tools are forever embedded in you

Now, one has to be very careful because the best cases where you can teach people something, it works the first time and every time Like sunlight viewing, and in two, three days everything’s changed (if you’re doing that consistently at the right times) Or certain patterns of breathing for stress mitigation Or exercise
But you have to be very careful because if you give people something with the promise that it works the first time and every time and it doesn’t, then you lose trust
You have to build trust over time
Once people understand mechanisms… and it must be the same way that physicians and sports psychologists start to see an interaction between two different people It’s those Peanuts cartoons, the chatter between the two of them
We need a better understanding of algorithms You’re not going to teach somebody calculus by showing them a problem set and a solution You’re going to teach them how you arrive at solutions to any problem set using a particular algorithm more or less
Like sunlight viewing, and in two, three days everything’s changed (if you’re doing that consistently at the right times)
Or certain patterns of breathing for stress mitigation
Or exercise
It’s those Peanuts cartoons, the chatter between the two of them
You’re not going to teach somebody calculus by showing them a problem set and a solution
You’re going to teach them how you arrive at solutions to any problem set using a particular algorithm more or less

One way Peter thinks about it (and in calculus specifically), is if you can come to understand things from first principles and never go into things where you have to memorize anything, the less you can rely on rote memory, the better

Selected Links / Related Material

Andrew’s podcast : Huberman Lab | [1:00]

Nolan Williams reports transcranial magnetic stimulation is helpful for people with depression : Stanford Neuromodulation Therapy (SNT): A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial | The American Journal of Psychiatry (E Cole et al. 2021) | [23:30]

Book about the sensory specializations of animals : An Immense World by Ed Young (June 2022) | [30:00]

Experiment with a milkshake showing the effect of mindset : Mind over milkshakes: mindsets, not just nutrients, determine ghrelin response | Health Psychology (A Crum et al. 2011) | [1:02:15]

Rick Rubin’s book on creativity : The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (January 2023) | [1:05:30]

Book about the history of Charles Manson : Charles Manson, A Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neil (June 2019) | [2:00:15]

Ben Barres obituary in Nature : Ben Barres (1954–2017): neurobiologist who advocated for gender equality in science | Nature (A Huberman 2018) | [2:02:00]

Biography of Steve Jobs : Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (October 2011) | [2:04:45]

Joe Rogan’s first podcast with Andrew : Joe Rogan Experience #1513 – Andrew Huberman | Host Joe Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience (July 23, 2020) | [2:19:15]

Lex Fridman’s first podcast with Andrew : #139 – Andrew Huberman: Neuroscience of Optimal Performance | Host Lex Fridman, Lex Fridman Podcast (November 16, 2020) | [2:19:15]

Episode of the Huberman Lab with Karl Deisseroth : Dr. Karl Deisseroth: Understanding & Healing the Mind | Host Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab (June 28, 2021) | [2:21:00]

Episode of the Huberman Lab with Anna Lembke : Dr. Anna Lembke: Understanding & Treating Addiction | Host Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab (August 16, 2021) | [2:21:00]

Episode of the Huberman Lab with Andy Galpin : Dr. Andy Galpin: How to Assess & Improve All Aspects of Your Fitness | Host Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab (January 18, 2023) | [2:21:15]

Episode of the Huberman Lab with Layne Norton : Dr. Layne Norton: The Science of Eating for Health, Fat Loss & Lean Muscle | Host Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab (November 7, 2022) | [2:21:15]

Rhonda Patrick’s podcast : Found My Fitness | [2:23:00]

Episode of Joe Rogan Experience with David Goggins : Joe Rogan Experience #1906 – David Goggins | Host Joe Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience (December 6, 2022) | [2:23:45]

Andrew’s Cell paper on breathing patterns and anxiety : Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal | Cell Reports Medicine (M Yilmaz Balban et al. 2023) | [2:25:15]

People Mentioned

Nolan Williams (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab) [9:30, 16:00, 18:15, 22:45, 2:25:45]
Arnold Kriegstein (Professor of Neurology at UCSF and founder of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF) [13:15]
Ben Barres (was a Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford University, characterized the interaction between neurons and glial cells) [27:45, 44:00, 1:48:15, 1:52:15, 1:59:15,
Jack Pettigrew (Australian neuroscientist, expert in vision) [36:00]
David Hubel (Neurophysiologist, expert in vision, Nobel laureate) [39:00]
Torsten Wiesel (Neurophysiologist, expert in visual information processing, Nobel laureate) [39:00]
Tomaso Poggio (Pioneered computational neuroscience, expert in visual systems) [41:00]
Russ Van Gelder (Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology at University of Washington ) [41:30]
Satchidananda Panda (Professor and Chair of Regulatory Biology at the Salk Institute) [42:30]
Samer Hattar (Senior Investigator and Chief of the Section on Light and Circadian Rhythms at the NIMH) [42:30]
Matt Walker (Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at UC Berkeley, sleep expert) [42:30]
Nancy Kanwisher (Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT, expert in functional organization of the human brain) [45:30]
Samir Deeb (was a Professor of Genome Sciences and of Medicine at University of Washington School of Medicine) [46:30]
Richard Axel (Professor of Pathology and Biochemistry at Columbia and Nobel laureate) [50:00, 2:23:00]
Linda Buck (Professor at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Nobel laureate, expert in olfaction) [50:00]
Noam Sobel (Head, Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science) [54:45]
Alia Crum (Professor of Psychology at Stanford, expert in changes in subjective mindsets) [1:02:00]
Rick Rubin (influential record Producer) [1:05:30, 1:10:30, 2:05:30, 2:21:30, 2:30:30, 2:38:30]
Harry Carlisle (was a Professor at UC Santa Barbara, a biopsychologist and expert on the biological basis of motivated behaviors) [1:40:45]
Ben Reese (Professor at UC Santa Barbara, an expert in retinal development) [1:42:30]
Jerry Jacobs (Professor at UC Santa Barbara, discovered evolution of color vision) [1:42:45]
Mike Mentzer (bodybuilder) [1:44:45]
Carla Shatz (Professor of Biology at Stanford University, expert in the development of brain circuits) [1:47:00]
Barbara Chapman (was a Professor of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior at UC Davis, expert in brain development) [1:47:15]
David Corey (Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard) [1:52:45]
Botond Roska (Professor of Science at the University of Basel, expert in human retina visual circuits) [1:53:30]
Karl Deisseroth (D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford) [1:54:00; 2:21:00]
Steve Jobs (was the co-founder and CEO of Apple) [2:04:45]
Ryan Soave (trauma therapist) [2:17:30]
Pat Dossett (Co-founder and CEO of Madefor ) [2:18:00]
Joe Rogan (stand-up comedian and podcaster)
Lex Fridman (podcaster and research scientist at MIT)
Josh Gordon (Director of the National Institute of Mental Health) [2:20:15]
Tim Ferriss (Podcaster, author, entrepreneur) [2:22:45]
David Spiegel (Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Center on Stress and Health, and Medical Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford) [2:25:45]
Richard Feynman (theoretical physicist) [2:30:45, 2:36:15, 2:50:30]

Andrew Huberman earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He went on to earn a Master’s degree in Neurobiology and Behavior from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, Davis. He completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University.

Dr. Huberman is currently an Associate Professor of Neurobiology and an Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. His laboratory studies neural regeneration with the goal of developing treatments to prevent and reverse vision loss. They also study neuroplasticity and circuits for anxiety and visually-driven autonomic arousal.

In 2021 Andrew started the Huberman Lab podcast where he discusses neuroscience and the connections between the brain, our organs, our perceptions, our behaviors, and our health. This has become one of the top-10 podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. [ Stanford ]

Twitter: @hubermanlab

Instagram: hubermanlab

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