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Top Brain Scientist: Billionaire Brain, Anxiety & Addictions | Vidita Vaidya | FO518 Raj Shamani – Transcript
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- Vidita Vaidya notes that anxiety is experienced when the body responds as though there is an immediate threat despite no obvious threat being present.
- Vidita Vaidya explains that motivation circuits in humans and animals are fairly similar, with motivation residing in the nucleus accumbens.
- Vidita Vaidya outlines three questions to help find a sustainable process, beginning by identifying what someone thoroughly enjoys doing.
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You've got an actual brain. >> Yes. >> That's what you imagine when you see a human brain. But this is a coat brain. >> Is my brain like this? >> Your brain is bigger than this. It's about 1 and 1/2 kilogram. If I gave you a rat brain. Okay. So now rat brain.
>> That's a rat brain. >> What can this preserved brain tell you about a living brain which is inside? >> Okay. So you can cut this into sections. >> Yeah. Hold on. Oh, you just cut you just cut it. Vidita Veda, one of India's leading neuroscientists, has spent decades studying the most complex organ in the human body, the brain. If you've ever wondered why your mind works the way it
does, then this conversation will completely change the way you understand yourself. If somebody is watching this and they want to find out that what kind of winner they can be, >> go for the most sustainable and the most sustainable is when you fall in love with doing something. that is the single most sustainable way of the long-term likelihood that you will achieve something.
>> Can you tell me like a framework or a question or an exercise so that we can find out which process will work for us? >> I would first say find out what you thoroughly have enjoyed doing. Two, you find out whether you're willing to do the work. That's the sustainability. And three, I think you have to ask that if you didn't get the outcome that you wanted, would the process have given you enough joy? That's the hardest question to answer, but that's the question that's worth answering.
>> Why are some people are so good with their memory and they remember everything versus some individuals are not? >> The brain is much more plastic and much more open to change in a younger nervous system. So your first 25 years of your life, that's a window in which there's much more plasticity than in the second 25 and the last 25. It's down in after that first 25. So when I say plasticity it means the ability of your brain to change in response to environment to be able to adapt better
to the world. >> The word which is now I'm going to say is very loosely used these days. It's called anxiety. So explain me simply like what is anxiety? >> Anxiety is when there is no obvious threat. You can't see a threat. Nobody else can see a threat. But your body is responding like there is an immediate threat. Which means what? My palms will sweat. My mouth will dry. my heart rate goes up. It's literally as bad as a heart attack.
>> If you open up, let's say, a billionaire's brain, Elon Musk, and you open up a brain of a 25year-old feeling stuck, will their brains be identical or different?
experience. Enjoy the show. >> So, you've got an actual brain. >> Yes. These are your gloves. >> Okay.
>> And that's my set. And we'll wear them because we have to wear them because these brains have paraphformaldahhide in them. And so, for safety reasons, we have to have our gloves on. What do they have again?
>> Paraphoraldahhide. That's what keeps the uh the brain tissue fixed. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, shall we take this this particular brain out and take a look? >> So, if I touch it from my bare hands, what will happen?
>> Uh probably not a great idea because you might have a situation in which you might get some rash. >> Okay? >> Because there's paraponaldahhide in it. But I can give you some now in your hand now. I can give you the brain. This is a goat brain. And it does in many ways resemble our brain as you can clearly see it has a lot of these folds right because most of this tissue is folded now. So that's the guy and sulkai of the
brain. That's what you imagine when you see a human brain. But this is a goat brain. >> But is it like is my brain like this? >> Your brain is bigger than this. It's about 1 and 1/2 kilog. This is clearly not 1 and 1/2 kilogram. This must be about 200.
>> But does it feel the same? >> It feels the same. If it is fixed, the human brain would feel the same if it was fixed. >> Okay? >> And so if you were looking at a fixed human brain, it would be larger. It would be about this much. >> Mhm.
>> And this is much smaller. But many of the structures are shared between the goat brain and our brain. >> Tell me one major difference between our brain and goat brain. And one similarity. >> Okay. One big difference is if it was a human brain, the cortex, which is this part, would be much bigger. you wouldn't be able to see the cerebellum because the cortex would have expanded and flowed over the cerebellum tucking the cerebellum underneath. So this would not be visible in a human brain as easily
because this has become so large >> in evolution. This has grown so big that it has flowed over it on either sides and this has got tucked in. >> Okay. >> Okay. The other big thing is you remember we stand on two feet, right? So we pedal. So this imagine if this was a goat this is its head and it has four legs.
>> This has also moved like this. So you would see the human brain this would be tucked underneath. This would be much bigger and flowing on either side. The spinal cord going down like this rather than the spinal cord coming out. >> Oh. So this is like >> this is the beginnings of the spinal cord. From here would come out the long spinal cord with nerves coming out on either sides that control the limbs the rest of the body. That's one obvious difference. Obviously the size is a big
obvious difference >> but where does let's say do you the part which let's say in humans because we are more desirous. >> So where the desire and ambition and all of that plays out in the human brain versus an animal brain.
>> So goats have the ambition of also finding effective grass to eat. Okay, >> we have that ambition and we don't consider it the kind of ambition that we think of. But if a goat doesn't have the motivation to find grass, to find food, to have drink enough water, it won't survive either. So the motivation circuits are actually fairly similar.
The same things that make you want to go and eat are the same things that make you ambitious to want to land on the moon. >> It's the same underlying circuitry. It's just that it's doing very different things in humans from goats. >> Okay? >> But goats have motivation circuitry.
Without motivation circuitry, the animal will not survive. >> And physically, where is it? If if you can point >> there's a structure called the vententral tegmental area, which will be right underneath this. So if you go underneath that, there's a structure there called the vententral tegmental area. And then there are nerves that go all the way underneath here is a region called the strriatum. If I opened it up, you would see it. At the base of the stratum is a structure called the nucleus acumbance. That's where
motivation resides. Can I just turn it around? >> Yeah. Yeah, turn it around. >> So, this is where >> And in humans also it's similar. >> It's very similar. It's very similar.
That's there whether you are a rat, you're a mouse, you're a squirrel, you're a goat, you're a human. >> We all have that baseline circuitry in our brain. >> It's the same circuitry that makes you feel thirst and motivated to go drink water, eat food, have sex. These are all the same underlying building blocks >> under the brain.
>> It's inside. It's embedded underneath here. >> And what is protecting like what's the outside? >> So this stuff right here in coming out of here would be your pituitary. >> What does the magic >> which makes all the hormones of your body? the testosterone, the estrogen, the thyroid hormone, all of those hormones that go everywhere in the rest of the body and do the job of, you know, hormonal control and metabolism come out from a little stock which has now gotten chopped off. But here's the hypothalamus
and the pituitary would emerge from here. >> You can also see it in the >> you would see the same thing if I gave you a rat brain. Okay? >> So now a rat brain >> that's a rat brain. Now what is obvious to you first and foremost is this is smooth >> and this is curly and wrinkled and that is absolutely smooth.
>> And why is like that? >> That's because the cortex is relatively less in size and in the skull it fits >> without having to fold >> fold. Okay. >> Whereas in the good brain the cortex is already expanded and for it to fit it has to fold. So if you take out this cortex and flatten it right like if you flatten it out it would be a one rupee coin. M >> if you take this out and flatten it out, it'll be like a small puri.
>> Okay. >> If you take out a monkey brain and you do the same thing and flatten it out, it'll be a large chapati. And if you take a human brain, human being brain and flatten it out, it'll be a pizza. >> It'll be that big. >> It's big. So now, but the skull hasn't commensurately expanded. We are not walking around with skulls that are this big, right? Like Megamind, we have small skulls. So now the stuff has to still fit. So to fit it has to fold and fold and fold. And that's why you have these
folds which are called gy and sulkai. And here you don't need to fold a smooth brain. It's called a listen phallic brain which is a smooth brain. >> But here's a question. So these brains are preserved brains. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Yes.
>> What's the difference between a live brain which is probably right now in my head or in some living animal >> versus a dead brain and versus a preserved brain? >> Yeah. So a a dead brain suppose we just took the brain out of the body then there would be a lot more blood that would be immediately visible. The brain receives a large amount of your blood supply supply. So you would see blood which you don't see here at all because the blood has been removed and cleared
out. Okay. Also it's significantly softer because when the tissue dies the cells start dying and as they die they literally dissolve away. There are all these enzymes that are chewing up stuff. It will fall apart. If I give you a live brain in a few minutes, it'll start falling apart.
>> Okay, >> here this is preserved because it's had formalin or you a lot of people would have seen this in school when you go into the laboratories and you see things in these long long long long jars and you see one snake or you see some body part. It's been preserved. It's been preserved by using formulin or formaldahhide which preserves the brain and now this will stay like this for actually years.