Mayim Bialik Answers Neuroscience Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

jarl wartooth with two swords at lock town dog says you ever look back at your day's twitter posts and think there's something slightly off with your gray matter well joel only if you're the president of the united states hi i'm mayam bialik and this is neuroscience support [Music] alexandria friesen at lexi friesen 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 20s 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 at bellicose van says one thing that does bug me is this thing called capgras 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 very very specific unusual existential crisis of a disorder and the fact is you really don't know robin richardson at robin underscore r underscore r says can stendall syndrome kill you well stendahl 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 truck man's ghost at truckman's ghost says is it possible to have katard syndrome but like in a sexy liberating way well i'm going to 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 i'm going to go ahead and say no dr baumuk kamdar at kamdar underscore 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 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 um and i think that's been sorely lacking from the justice system especially when it deals with people with mental health challenges or psychological or psychiatric conditions the entity comma jim at blood flu 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 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 de-escalating 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 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 stimulates 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 mcgee at snicket chan 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 don't believe in it absolutely you can have chronic fatigue syndrome and all of those symptoms as a child a hundred percent but also from a clinical perspective you really want to 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 acron at apron 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 really mad i'm going to 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 mikhail at 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 so stupid any meditation program that does guided sleep meditations can be really 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 two fan at mortaza underscore 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 going to 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 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 at secret diary mom what's the best time of day to switch from uppers to downers asking for my neurotransmitters well secret diary mom your neurotransmitters 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 secret diary mom iman at why not iman underscore 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 going to go for crushing weight of being alive in the 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 weight of being alive in a capitalistic society so i'm tired all the time too phoebe luckhurst at phoebe luckhurst 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 at tiempo asm 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 at v4 nuisance 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 etc considered neurodivergent i've seen people define it as your brain being wired differently so does that apply to those as well just wanted to know thank you smiley face neurodivergent 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 there are genetic differences for some forms of schizophrenia and ocd did is usually that 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 neurodivergent as wiring in terms of learning and those other things in terms of diagnostic psychiatric criteria ravi at shria ravi 12 says does tic toc stimulate alice in wonderland syndrome i couldn't possibly be the only person who 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 a media form i'm digging that alice in wonderland syndrome is 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 tick tock 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 tick-tock makes you feel like time goes away dr koch at red stocking lady says head hurting from caffeine withdrawal or growing dendrites caffeine withdrawal will absolutely make your head hurt it'll also make you really really grumpy growing dendrites which are the uh the extensions of neuronal processes that communicate with other neurons is not typically something we feel but if you're quitting caffeine your dendrites might be really really grateful since caffeine's 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 going to make your head hurt as we stretch ourselves out sieva 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 are lined axons are lined with essentially fats 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 of an 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 at 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 20s 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 going to vote for quarantine happy birthday bewilde beast at alex underscore alex 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 yep you got it that's a nerve cell hull house and medium titty goth says why don't people talk about how having add and 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 lifespan because your 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 causations so with these kind 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 in understanding who the sample size is so i'm going to look into this and thank you for bringing it to my attention these are very very startling statistics and i'm very curious so scientists are always learning too eve at eve dehaan 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 you 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 brain waves are literally kind of caught in between it can be very 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 waning says you know how you can reboot devices yes juani i know do you think it's possible to do that to the human brain if not why well this is going to be an answer you don't like there is something called electroconvulsive therapy treatment and many view is 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 really dramatic treatment usually for untreatable suicidal depression that is unresponsive to many 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 that one guy at that one guy 21 000 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 you know vibrating at that frequency is kind of the 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 going to trigger that robert at blk rocket 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 this 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 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 ciao

Channel: WIRED

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Rating: 4.9200826 out of 5

Keywords: mayim bialik neuroscientist, mayim bialik science, mayim bialik big bang, mayim bialik big bang theory, mayim bialik wired, mayim bialik interview, mayim bialik neuroscience support, wired tech support, tech support neuroscience, neuroscience wired, tech support neuroscientist, tech support wired neuroscience, neuroscience tech support, mayim bialik explains science, mayim bialik scientist, mayim bialik’s breakdown, tech support, tech support wired, wired

Id: kLsnWHvFHCo

Length: 21min 39sec (1299 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020