Mayim Bialik Answers Neuroscience Questions From Twitter

Jarl Wartooth with two swords @locktowndog says,

you ever look back at your day's Twitter posts

and think there's something slightly off

with your gray matter.

Well, Jarl only if you're

the president of the United States.

Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik

and this is Neuroscience Support.

[upbeat music]

Alexandria Friesen, @lexi_friesan asks,

at what point is a guy's frontal lobe fully developed?

With many question marks.

I want to use this knowledge as a gauge

for when to give them a 17th chance

and when to just throw the whole man away.

Well, Lexi, the frontal lobe should be developed

in the late teens or early twenties, if we're lucky

but sometimes by behavior,

it just seems like it doesn't happen.

I'd say if you're looking at a 17th chance,

throw the whole man away or woman.

D, @Bellicosevand says,

one of the thing that does bug me

is this thing called Caprgras syndrome.

Like how do you actually know

that the things around you haven't been replaced

with an exact copy?

Well D, that's the point.

Capgras syndrome is a delusional psychiatric disorder

where you actually believe

that someone close to you

is a replica and not the actual person.

It's a very specific unusual existential crisis

of a disorder.

And the fact is you really don't know.

Robin Richardson, @robin_r_r says,

can Stendhal syndrome kill you?

Well, Stendhal syndrome

is a syndrome of both physical

and emotional features.

Typically when seeing something of tremendous beauty,

you have a rapid heartbeat,

you can faint, you can have hallucinations.

Robin, I don't think it can kill you

but it sounds like you might be in love, enjoy.

Truckmansghost, @truckmansghost says,

is it possible to have Cotard syndrome

but like in a sexy, liberating way?

Well, I'm gonna be as delicate as I can right now,

considering that this is a syndrome

which is a delusion that you are dead

or that your organs are liquefying or putrefying,

I'm gonna go ahead and say no.

Dr. Bhaumik Kamdar, @kamdar_j asked,

does knowing how and why a person behaves

as he behaves, neuroscience,

absolve the person of his actions

and its subsequent consequences.

Knowing how and why a person behaves

is extremely important

in understanding people's motivations.

But it absolutely does not absolve the person

of actions and consequences.

This is a really complicated legal issue obviously.

And I think as our understanding

of human motivation and behavior expands

and as our knowledge of the brain

and the mind expands,

we're understanding more about

some principles of compassion.

And I think that's been solely lacking

from the justice system

especially when it deals

with people with mental health challenges

or psychological or psychiatric conditions.

The entity comma jim, @ludflu says,

neuroscience friends,

hey, how and why does the out-breath activate

the parasympathetic nervous system?

What is the mechanism

and what should I read to understand it?

Let's say that you don't need to know the mechanism

unless you really want to in which case

I would honestly just Google parasympathetic nervous system

and you can read all about it.

But doctors like Dr. Sarno

have talked a lot about deescalating

the agitation of the nervous system

by lowering blood pressure.

And one of the ways that we do this

is with deep exhalation.

There's a whole vagal system of your nervous system

and the vagal system is responsible

for really acting as the downer for your system.

It involves the brain,

it involves organs in your body,

which all contribute to heart rate

and blood constriction, things like that,

and those are the things

that literally increase your blood pressure

and make you feel that sense of agitation.

So the exhalation simulates the vagal nerve

and that whole system,

which helps your entire body literally slow down.

There's also amazing meditation books about breath

and I would look to those

to see the practical applications

of helping your parasympathetic nervous system

calm you down.

Snicket McG, @SnicketChan asks,

is it possible to have chronic fatigue syndrome

as a child?

A lot of people question

the actual diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome.

It is a collection of symptoms

that get grouped into this diagnosis.

And I'm not saying, I believe in it.

Absolutely, you can have chronic fatigue syndrome

and all of those symptoms as a child, 100%,

but also from a clinical perspective,

you really wanna look to

what are the other factors in a child's environment

that are leading to those symptoms.

There is a huge psychological environmental component

to all of these kinds of diagnoses,

whether in adults or children.

So I would actually look to address those first.

Ikran, @ikran says,

is there a mask

that is more trigeminal neuralgia friendly?

I ask that every day.

I'm trying to not put myself in pain

each time I need to buy something.

This is a great question.

The trigeminal nerve is a very special nerve.

It's one of your cranial nerves.

And some people are extremely sensitive

to irritation of that nerve.

That is a thing.

If anyone's ever had a migraine

and has felt your teeth

and your nose and your eye hurt,

that's your trigeminal nerve getting really mad.

I'm gonna go ahead and say,

if that mask is out there,

you can probably find it.

I do not want you to be in pain

every time you need to buy something

or just go back to the old school bandana

and make sure it comes

all the way up to your nose.

Mikel, @cracklechulo wants to know,

guys any recommendations

for someone who has a sleep disorder.

Doesn't matter if it's medicine.

Well, I'm sure that you've searched other things

that people do for sleep disorders besides medicine.

And I would recommend those things

both as a neuroscientist and as a human.

Meditating before bed,

I know some people are like, oh, that's a stupid,

any meditation program

that does guided sleep meditations

can be really helpful in going to sleep.

If you have trouble staying asleep,

meditation will also help

in lowering your general

kind of need for your brain to process actively at night.

People do like melatonin

which you can take in safe supplements

and that mimics your body's natural sleepy hormones.

A warm bath before bed is good

because it actually heats you up

so your body compensates

and lowers your body temperature,

which is what your body likes to go to sleep.

So for those of you who like to get cozy under the covers,

there's a reason for that.

Also just general shout-out

for psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy.

A lot of those of us with sleep disorders

have underlying things going on in our heads

and our lives that can interfere with sleep.

Also having a regular bedtime does help

and a regular wake up time also helps.

Good luck.

Toofaan, @Murtaza_mq says,

is social media responsible for sleep disorder

in most of the cases?

I'm gonna say no, but I haven't done the research.

As a scientist,

I'm gonna go ahead and remind you

that most of means more than 50%.

Social media can do two things

that can interfere with your sleep.

One is it can keep you up later at night

than you should be.

It can make you have too much interaction

with light before sleep

because you're checking it before you sleep.

The most important thing

that social media probably interferes with sleep through

is filling your head

with all sorts of information,

a lot of which is probably not necessarily useful.

The human brain has not changed in the last 10 years

versus hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.

We do need a lot of downtime

and we do need boredom.

And social media has kind of removed

our ability to have downtime and boredom,

which are good for the brain

and also do contribute to healthier sleep.

Notorious OMG with a heart, @secretdiarymom,

what's the best time of day

to switch from uppers to downers?

Asking for my neuro-transmitters.

Well, @secretdiarymom,

your neuro-transmitters pretty much know what to do

without you adding anything to them.

So I would say stop drinking caffeine after noon

or one or two o'clock, that's an upper

and in terms of downers,

I hope you mean nap-time and meditation.

Thanks secretdiarymom.

Iman, @whynotiman_ says,

being tired all the time is such a mystery.

Is it anemia?

Vitamin D deficiency?

Chronic fatigue syndrome?

Depression, insomnia?

Is it just the crushing weight

of being alive in a capitalistic society?

Someone cure me please.

Well, I'm gonna go for crushing weight

of being alive in a capitalistic society,

but there are tests for anemia,

for vitamin D deficiency.

We do have a way to assess

if you have chronic fatigue syndrome.

Depression and insomnia,

those are likely because of the crushing wweight

of being alive in a capitalistic society.

So I'm tired all the time too.

Phoebe Luckhurst, @phoebeluckhurst says,

can anyone please help with some insights

into what games like Candy Crush

do to your brain?

All my neuroscientists are rejecting my advances.

Well, Phoebe, this neuroscientist

isn't rejecting your advances.

I'll be happy to tell you.

They're filling your brain

with random pieces of candy

that you have to, I don't know, make rows of

so they disappear.

Candy Crush is wonderful for distraction.

It is mindless fun.

It's like candy.

It doesn't really have any nutritional value,

but it sure feels good

when you put it in your mouth and eat it.

In all seriousness, Candy Crush is asking your brain

to do a lot of non challenging computation

while also distracting you

from anything that's going on in reality,

which means like any good drug or bad drug,

you should use it for good and not evil.

Good luck.

Ale Salgado, @tiempoasm says,

should we use drugs to boost brain power?

What do you think?

Neuroscientists have different posture.

Well, this neuroscientist has terrible posture.

I'm just kidding.

I'm actually a little bit on the fence here

about boosting brain power with drugs.

I think that what worries me about

the discussions I've heard surrounding boosting brain power

is a need to increase productivity

beyond what feels human and humane.

And I think that's something that concerns me.

I don't think that brain power

should be seen as something that can

and should be treated

as if we're a computer that needs to be supercharged.

I think that there's a human interest level

of understanding that the power that we have is

what our brains were developed to have.

And on the other hand,

we have the ability to create drugs

that can enhance that.

And are there safe ways to do that?

I'm not sure.

Right now it seems that it's being abused,

but I think more will be revealed.

Rhiannon, @V4NHEUSENS says,

wait, I have a question.

Okay, I'm waiting.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, just curious.

Are things like schizophrenia, OCD,

dissociative identity disorder, et cetera

considered neuro-divergent.

I've seen people define it

as your brain being wired differently.

So does apply to those as well?

Just wanted to know, thank you.

Smiley face.

Neuro-divergent typically refers to people

whose brains learn differently

and it's something we typically use

kind of in academic circles

to talk about modalities for learning

and helping people achieve to the level

that their brain is happy to achieve at.

Things like schizophrenia, OCD,

dissociative identity disorder,

those are examples of the brain

not necessarily being wired differently,

but we do know that there are genetic differences

for some forms of schizophrenia and OCD.

DID is usually,

there's likely a genetic component

and also environmental impacts

but these are things that are

more about the way you are genetically coded

rather than the notion of being wired differently.

So I like to think of neuro-divergent

as wiring in terms of learning

and those other things

in terms of diagnostics psychiatric criteria.

Ravi, @ShriyaRavi12 says,

does TikTok stimulate Alice in Wonderland syndrome?

I couldn't possibly be the only person that feels like

they're suckered into a bizarre time-value warp

when I'm consuming this media form.

I'm impressed that you're calling TikTok media form.

I'm digging that.

Alice in Wonderland syndrome

is typically the syndrome where

you feel that a body part of yours

is of a different size.

It's a visual and kind of sensory perceptual syndrome.

The notion of being kind of down the rabbit hole

and losing time is maybe a looser definition

of Alice in Wonderland syndrome.

And I would say you're absolutely correct.

Things like TikTok

and those kinds of media forms

do absolutely suck time away

and much like video gaming,

you can pass a lot of time

without knowing the time has passed.

So you are absolutely right.

TikTok makes you feel like time goes away.

Dr. Cocch, @redstockinglady says,

head hurting from caffeine withdrawal

or growing dendrites?

Having withdrawal

will absolutely make your head hurt.

It will also make you really grumpy.

Growing dendrites, which are

the extensions of neuroma processes

that communicate with other neurons

is not typically something we feel,

but if you're quitting caffeine,

your dendrites might be really grateful

since caffeine is not so great for your brain,

especially in large quantities.

So it could be your dendrites saying like,

you've abused us for too long.

We're gonna make your head hurt

as we stretch ourselves out.

Sieva Kozinsky, @SievaKozinsky says,

what increases the possibilities of multiple sclerosis?

Does smoking marijuana break down axons?

Multiple sclerosis is a genetic disorder

which does cause the demyelination of axons.

Axons are the things that connect the cell body

to the parts of the cell

that communicate with other cells.

And they're aligned, axons aligned with essentially fat.

It's why we need to eat fat and cholesterol,

but in multiple sclerosis,

this fat starts to break down

and the axons can't communicate information rapidly

because fat is a great insulator

for moving information quickly,

especially on the electrical quality.

Smoking marijuana does a lot of things.

It cannot break down axons.

It also does not demyelinate axons,

which is what happens in multiple sclerosis.

So multiple sclerosis is a genetic disease

and smoking marijuana does a lot of things

to interfere with brain function,

but breaking down axons is not one of them.

Faithy, @fpxox says,

am I now realizing the reality of life

because I just turned 25

and my frontal lobe just finished developing?

Or is it the four months of quarantine?

Your frontal lobe does finish developing

somewhere in your early twenties,

but that's not really what makes you understand

the reality of life.

You won't really understand the reality of life

until you can't leave your house

and you have to wear a mask anytime you do.

And you're stuck with yourself

and all of your problems and issues.

So I'm gonna vote for quarantine, happy birthday.

Bewildebeast, @Alex_Bollocks,

is a nerve cell the long thin one

with a huge head with loads of dendrites?

There are lots of different kinds of neurons

and they look a lot of different ways,

but the classical nerve cell,

the classical neuron is a long thin one

with a huge head.

That's where the nucleus is with the DNA,

and loads of dendrites.

Those are the things that communicate with other cells.

So yup, you got it.

That's a nerve cell.

Hollhouse, @mediumtittygoth says,

why don't people talk about

how having ADP the ADHD

can apparently cut around eight years

off a person's lifespan?

And being untreated/undiagnosed until adulthood

can apparently cut an estimated 13 years off your life span

because your neuro-development

is so stunted during childhood?

To be honest with you,

I have not heard these statistics

and this is something I would like to look into.

I think it's an important point though

that a lot of times in science,

we have correlations that may not be causation.

So with these kinds of facts,

and this is kind of

the dangerous thing about the internet,

we can hear things and kind of run with them,

but it really takes looking at this kind of study

and what factors did they control for?

What are the other comorbid factors

we were dealing with

in understanding who the sample size is?

So I'm gonna look into this

and thank you for bringing it to my attention.

These are very startling statistics

and I'm very curious

so scientists are always learning too.

Eve, @evedehaan says,

does anyone else who gets sleep paralysis a lot

know what triggers it?

Won't have it for like six months

and then have it for like five days in a row.

Sleep paralysis is pretty much what it sounds like.

It's usually when you're in a half sleep state

and your body cannot move.

Often have cognition, meaning you want to move.

You are not asleep.

It's not a dream.

It's somewhere in between

and there have been studies done showing that the brainwaves

are literally kind of caught in between.

It can be very terrifying, very scary.

I would look into what's going on

in terms of maybe speaking to a therapist

or a cognitive behavioral therapist

to see if there's a correlation.

There may be food triggers, environmental triggers,

and sometimes a cognitive behavioral therapist

can give you words and cues

that can help you come out of that state quicker

and good luck.

Wani, @mbambara_wani says,

you know how you can reboot devices.

Yes Wani, I know.

Do you think it's possible

to do that to the human brain?

If not, why?

Well, this is gonna be an answer you don't like.

There is something

called electroconvulsive therapy treatment

and many view as very inhumane.

And I would tend to agree with all due respect.

It is essentially a reboot for the human brain

and it involves passing

large amounts of electrical current into the brain.

It is a really dramatic treatment.

Usually for untreatable suicidal depression

that is unresponsive to many other modalities.

I have known people who have had this done.

It is very significant.

Should not be taken lightly.

In general, I will say therapy is a wonderful way

to re-parent your brain

and to reboot emotionally.

It is not the kind of reboot

I think you were asking about.

Thatoneguy, @thatoneguy21000 says,

how do people with epilepsy handle police lights?

Epilepsy is a neurological condition

that does involve seizures.

Those seizures can be brought on

by strobe lights, flickering lights,

probably been in a movie theater or a show,

at an amusement park where they say,

if you have epilepsy,

this show involves strobe lights.

Police lights are not vibrating at that frequency.

Is kind of a hippy dippy way to say it.

Police lights do not trigger epilepsy to my knowledge,

it's usually a more specific

and high frequency kind of flickering

that's gonna trigger that.

Robert @BLKROCKET says,

are mammals wired for empathy,

grief, compassion, loneliness.

Well Robert, you and I are mammals.

And I'm pretty sure you know

that we are wired for empathy.

It's one of the things

that helps us stay bonded as mammals

and perpetuate the species, if you think about it.

We are wired for processing grief, yes.

Primates in particular are wired for grief.

We absolutely see cases of

really most mammals being wired

for compassion and for altruistic behavior.

As for us being wired for loneliness,

loneliness is an extension

of the need to connect and perpetuate togetherness.

Even non-mammals are wired for that,

but yes, mammals are wired

for all of those things and more.

I really enjoyed answering

these smattering of Neuroscience Support questions.

I think that the format of social media

makes us able to communicate in ways

about things we're curious about.

And for someone who's studied the brain

for 12 years of my life

and continues to be a science educator,

it's beautiful to talk about these things.

It's beautiful to see

really the holes in people's knowledge

and also what they're curious about

and what's bothering them.

It really underscores for me

the need for us to have more access

for mental health.

And I think also people are interested in the brain

because it's fun and amazing.

And that's the reason I studied it

so super happy to talk about that

with anyone who wants to talk about it.

Thank you so much, everybody for your questions.

Stay curious and maybe we'll do this again sometime.

[speaks in foreign language]