Podcast

Understand & Improve Memory Using Science-Based Tools

Huberman Lab

Last highlighted May 20, 2022 Source ↗ ← All highlights

Introduction Andrew huberman is a professor of neurobiology and ophthemology at stamford school of medicine. To day we are discussing memory, in particular, how to improve your memory. We will talk about the science that points to specific tools for enhancing learning and memory. And i’ll also discuss topics like dejavous and photographic memory. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I’m Andrew Huberman, and I’m a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are discussing memory, in particular, how to improve your memory. Now, the study of memory is one that dates back many decades. And by now, there’s a pretty good understanding of how memories are formed in the brain, the different structures involved, and some of the neurochemicals involved. We will talk about some of that today. Often overlooked, however, is that memories are not just about learning. Memories are also about placing your entire life into a context. And that’s because what’s really special about the brain, and in particular, the human brain, is its ability to place events in the context of past events, the present and future events, And sometimes even combinations of the past and present, or present and future, and so on. So when we talk about memory, what we’re really talking about is how your immediate experiences relate to previous and future experiences. Today, I’m going to make clear how that process occurs. Even if you don’t have a background in biology or psychology, I promise to put it into language that anyone can access and understand. And we are going to talk about the science that points to specific tools for enhancing learning and memory. We’re also going to talk about unlearning and forgetting. There are of course instances in which we would like to forget things. And that too is a biological process for which great tools exist to, for instance, eliminate or at least reduce the emotional load of our previous experience that you really did not Like or that perhaps even was traumatic to you. So today you’re going to learn about the systems in the brain and body that establish memories. You’re going to learn why certain memories are easier to form than others. And I’m going to talk about specific tools that are grounded in not just one, not just a dozen, but well over a hundred studies in animals and humans that point to specific protocols that You can use in order to stamp down learning of particular things more easily. And you can also leverage that same knowledge to better forget or unload the emotional weight of experiences that you did not like. We are also going to discuss topics like deja vu and photographic memory, and for those of you that do not have a photographic memory, and I should point out that I do not have a photographic Memory either, well, you will learn how to use your visual system in order to better learn visual and auditory information. There are protocols to do this grounded in excellent peer-reviewed research. So while you may not have a true photographic memory, by the end of the episode, you will have tools in hand, or I should say tools in mind or in eyes and mind to be able to encode and remember Specific events better than you would otherwise. Before we begin, I’d like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I’d like to thank the sponsors of today’s podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I’ve been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I’m delighted that they’re sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens, and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day, is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I’ve done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome, and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially With every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you’d like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/Huberman and claim a special offer. They’ll give you five free travel packs, plus a year’s supply of vitamin D3K2. There are a ton of data now showing (Time 0:00:00)
How to Get Extremely Strong Activation of a Neural Circuit In a few minutes i’ll explain how to get extremely strong activation of particular neural circuit. The most common form of short term memory that we’re goingto focus on is called working memory. Working memory is your ability to keep a chain of numbers in mind for some period of time. But the expectation really isn’t that you would remember those numbers the next day, and certainly not the next week. Transcript: Andrew Huberman But it can also be associated with positive events, like the first time you saw your romantic partner or something that happened with that romantic partner, or the first time that you Saw your child, or any other positive event, as well as any other extremely negative event. So again, both repetition, and I guess we could label it intensity, but we really mean when we say intensity is strong activation of neurons can lay down these traces, these circuits That are far more likely to be active again than had there not been repetition or not some strong activation of those circuits. So with that in mind, let’s return to the original contrarian question that I raised before, which is why do we remember anything? Every day you wake up, neurons in your brain and body are active, different neural circuits are active, and yet you only remember a small fraction of the things that happen each day. And yet you retain a lot of information from previous days and the days before those and so on. It is only with a lot of repetition or with extremely strong activation of a given neural circuit that we will create new memories. And so in a few minutes, I’ll explain how to get extremely strong activation of particular neural circuits. Repetition is pretty obvious, repetition is repetition, but in a few minutes, I’ll illustrate a whole set of experiments and a whole set of tools that point to how you can get extra strong Activation of a given neural circuit as it relates to learning so that you will remember that information, perhaps not just with one trial of learning, but certainly with far fewer Repetitions than would be required otherwise. Before we go any further, I want to preface the discussion by saying that there are a lot of different kinds of memory. In fact, were you to take a voyage into the neuroscience and or psychology of memory, you would find an immense number of different terms to describe the immense number of different Types of memory that researchers focus on. But for sake of today’s discussion, really just want to focus on short-term memory, medium-term memory, and long-term memory. And while there’s still debate, as is always the case with scientists, frankly, about the exact divisions between short-term, medium, and long-term memory, we can broadly define Short-term memory and long-term memory. And we can describe a couple different types of those that I think you can relate to in your everyday life. The most common form of short-term memory that we’re going to focus on is called working memory. Working memory is your ability to keep a chain of numbers in mind for some period of time, but the expectation really isn’t that you would remember those numbers the next day, and certainly Not the next week. So a good example would be a phone number. If I were to tell you a phone number, 493-2938, well, (Time 0:19:26)
Seizures - What’s Your Name? Jeffrey Toobin: H m’s epilepsy and the subsequent neura surgery that he had taught us much of what we know, or at least think about, in terms of human learning and memory. He says a neuro surgeon made what are called electrolytic legions, actually burned out the hippocampus in the brain of h m. And as a consequence, he lost all explicit memory. toobin: There’s some very important and interesting twists on what h m could and could not do in terms of learning and memory that teach us a lot about the brain. Transcript: Andrew Huberman He would just have a drop seizure. So he would just physically drop and go into a grand mal seizure. So it’s convulsing of the whole body, loss of consciousness, et cetera. Or he would feel it coming on. Oftentimes people with epilepsy can feel the epileptic seizure coming on, kind of like a wave from the back of the brain. And sometimes they can get to a safe circumstance, but not always. And so the frequency and the intensity of his seizures were so robust that the neurosurgeons and neurologists decided that they needed to locate the origin, what they call the foci Of those seizures and remove that brain tissue. Because the way seizures work is they spread out from that focus or that foci of brain tissue. And unfortunately for HM, the focus of his seizures was the hippocampus. So after a lot of deliberation, a neurosurgeon, in fact, one of the most famous neurosurgeons in the world at that time, made what are called electrolytic lesions, actually burned Out the hippocampus in the brain of H.M. And as a consequence, he lost all explicit memory. Now, the consequence of this was that he couldn’t exist in normal everyday life like most people. So he had to live mostly, not entirely, but mostly in a kind of hospital setting. And I’ve talked to several people who have, who, I should say, who met HM directly because he’s no longer alive, but an interaction with him might look like the following. He would walk up to you just fine. You wouldn’t know that he had any kind of brain damage. He could walk fine, he could speak fine. And he’d say, hi, I’m Andrew. And he’d say, hi, I’m whatever his name happened to be. He wouldn’t say HM, but he’d probably say his real name. And then perhaps someone new would walk into the room. He might turn around, look at that person as any of us might do, then turn around back to me and say, hi, what’s your name? And if I were to say, well, I just told you my name and you just told me your name. Do you remember that? He’d say, I’m sorry, I don’t remember any of that. What’s your name? So you had to go through this over and over again. So a complete lack of explicit declarative memory. Now he did have some memory for previous events in his life that dated way back, okay? Again, hinting at the idea that memories are not necessarily stored in the hippocampus, they’re just formed in the hippocampus. So once they’ve moved out of the hippocampus to other brain areas, he could still keep those memories. They’re in a different database, if you will. They’re in a different pattern of firing of other neural circuits, but he couldn’t form new memories. Now there’s some very important and interesting twists on what HM could and (Time 0:29:32)
The Effect of One Trial Learning Jim magaw and larry cahill were the first to demonstrate that emotionally laden experiences are more easily remembered than other experiences. What they did next was immensely important for our understanding of memory and for our building of tools to enhance learning and memory. They evaluated the capacity for stress, and for particular neural chemicals associated with stress, to improve our ability to learn information. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Paragraph and were far more accurate in their remembering of that information. Now, that particular finding wasn’t very novel. Many people had previously described how emotionally intense events are better remembered than non-emotionally intense events. In fact, way back in the 1600s, Francis Bacon, who’s largely credited with developing the scientific method, said, quote, memory is assisted by anything that makes an impression On a powerful passion, inspiring fear, for example, or wonder, shame, or joy. Francis Bacon said that in 1620. So Jim McGaw and Larry Cahill were certainly not the first to demonstrate or to conceive of the idea that emotionally-laden experiences are more easily remembered than other experiences. However, what they did next was immensely important for our understanding of memory and for our building of tools to enhance learning and memory. What they did was they evaluated the capacity for stress and for particular neurochemicals associated with stress to improve our ability to learn information, not just information That is emotional, but information of all kinds. So I’m going to describe some experiments done in animal models just very briefly, and then experiments done on human subjects, because McGaw worked mainly on animals, also human Subjects, Larry Cahill, almost exclusively on human subjects. If you take a rat or a mouse and put it in an arena where at one location, the animal receives an electrical shock, and then you come back the next day, you remove the shock evoking device And you let the animal move around that arena, that animal will quite understandably avoid the location where it was shocked, so-called conditioned place aversion. That effect of avoiding that particular location occurs in one trial. That’s a good example of one trial learning. So somehow the animal knows that it was shocked at that location. It remembers that it is a hippocampal dependent learning. So animals that lack a hippocampus or who have their hippocampus pharmacologically or otherwise incapacitated will not learn that new bit of information. But for animals that do, they remember it after the first time and every time, unless you are to block the release of certain chemicals in the brain and body. And the chemicals I’m referring to are epinephrine, adrenaline, and to some extent, the corticosterones, things like cortisol. Now we know that the effect of getting one trial learning somehow involves epinephrine, at least in this particular experimental scenario, because if researchers do the exact same Experiment, and they have done the exact same experiment, but they introduce a pharmacological blocker of epinephrine so that epinephrine is released in response to the shock, but It cannot actually bind to its receptors and have all of its biological effects. Well, then the animal is perfectly happy to tread back into the area where it received the shock. It’s almost as if it didn’t know, or we have to assume, that it didn’t remember that it received the shock at that location. So it all seems pretty obvious when you hear it, something bad happens (Time 0:41:22)
Condition Place Preference - It’s Not Just About Stress Condition place preference depends on the release of a drenelin ri it’s not just about stress. It’s about a heightened emotional state in the brain and body. You can get one trial learning for positive events, condition place preference, and you can get onetrial learning for negative events. I’m putting what’s called veilence on a making of value judge ment about whether or not the animal liked it or didn’t like it. Transcript: Andrew Huberman In a location, you don’t go back to that location. So that’s condition place avoidance, but it turns out that the opposite is also true, meaning for something called condition place preference, you can take an animal, put it into an Arena, feed it or reward it somehow at one location in that arena. So you can give a hungry rat or mouse food at one particular location, take the animal out, come back the next day. No food is introduced, but it’ll go back to the location where it received the food. Or you can do any variant of this. You can make the arena a little bit chilly and provide warmth at that location. Or you can take a male animal. It turns out male rats and mice will mate at any point, or a female animal that’s at the particular so-called receptive phase of her mating cycle, and give them an opportunity to mate At a given location, they’ll go back to that location and wait and wait. This is perhaps why people go back to the same bar, the bar seat at the bar, or the same restaurant, and wait because of the one time they, you know, things worked out for them, whatever The context was. Conditioned place preference. Conditioned place preference, as with conditioned place avoidance, depends on the release of adrenaline, right? It’s not just about stress. It’s about a heightened emotional state in the brain and body. Okay, this is really important. It’s not just about stress. You can get one trial learning for positive events, condition, place, preference, and you can get one trial learning for negative events. Here I say positive, negative, I’m putting what’s called valence on, I’m making a value judgment about whether or not the animal liked it or didn’t like it. And we have to presume what the animal liked or didn’t like and how it felt, but this turns out all to be true for humans as well. We know that because McGaw and Cahill did experiments where they gave people a boring paragraph to read and only a boring paragraph to read, but one group of subjects was asked to read The paragraph and then to place their arm into very, very cold water. In fact, it was ice water. We know that placing one’s arm into ice water, especially if it’s up to the shoulder or near to it, evokes the release of adrenaline in the body. It’s not an enormous release, but it’s a significant increase. And yes, they measured adrenaline release. In some cases, they also measured for things like cortisol, et cetera. And what they found is that if one evokes the release of adrenaline through this arm into ice water approach, the information that they read previously, just a few minutes before, was Remembered. It was retained as well as emotionally intense information. But keep in mind, the information that they read was not interesting at all, or at least it wasn’t emotionally laden. This had to be the effect of adrenaline released into the brain and body, because if they blocked the release or the function of adrenaline in the brain and or body, they could block this Effect. Now the biology of epinephrine and cortisol are a little bit complex, but there’s some nuance there that’s actually interesting and important to us. First of all, adrenaline is released in the body and in the brain. It’s released in the body from the adrenals. Remember epinephrine and adrenaline are the same thing. Cortisol is also released from the adrenal glands, these two little glands that ride atop our kidneys, but it can’t cross into the brain. It only has what we call peripheral effects, quickening of the heart rate, right? Changes the patterns of blood flow, changes our patterns of breathing, in general makes our breathing more shallow and faster, in general makes our heartbeat more quickly, et cetera. Within our brain, we have a little brain area called locus coeruleus, which is in the back of the brain, which has the opportunity to sprinkler the rest of the brain with the neuromodulator Epinephrine, adrenaline, as well as norepinephrine, a related neuromodulator, and to essentially wake up or create a state of alertness throughout the brain. So it’s a very general effect. The reason we have two sites of release is because (Time 0:44:38)
How to Improve Your Memory The emotionality evoked by an experience dictates whether or not you will learn it quickly. This is absolutely important in terms of thinking about tools to improve your memory. And i am not going to suggest that every time you want to learn something, you plunge your arm into ice water. But there are better ways to get that adrenelin release. and we’ll get into the biology of that in another episode. Transcript: Andrew Huberman These neurochemicals do not cross the blood brain barrier. And so waking up the body with adrenaline and waking up the brain are two separate so-called parallel phenomena. Cortisol can cross the blood brain barrier because it’s lipophilic, meaning it can move through fatty tissue. And we’ll get into the biology of that in another episode, but cortisol in general is released and has much longer term effects. And as I’ve just told you, can permeate throughout the brain and body. Adrenaline has more local effects, or at least is segregated between the brain and the body. This will turn out to be important later. The important thing to keep in mind is that it is the emotionality evoked by an experience, or to be more precise, it is the emotional state that you are in after you experience something That dictates whether or not you will learn it quickly or not. This is absolutely important in terms of thinking about tools to improve your memory. And no, I am not going to suggest that every time you want to learn something, you plunge your arm into ice water. Why won’t I suggest that? Well, it will induce the release of adrenaline, but there are better ways to get that adrenaline release. Before I explain exactly what those tools are, I want to tamp down the biology of how all this works, because in that understanding, you will have access to the best possible tools to Improve your memory. First of all, McGaw and Cahill were excellent experimentalists. They did not just establish that you could quicken the formation of a memory by accessing material that was very emotionally laden or creating an emotional high adrenaline state after Interacting with some things, some words, some person, some information. They also tested whether or not that whole effect could be blocked by blocking the emotional state or by blocking adrenaline. So what they did is they had people read paragraphs that either had a lot of emotional content, or they had people read paragraphs that were pretty boring, but then had them put their Arm into ice water. And I should say they did other experiments too, to increase adrenaline. There were even some shock experiments that were done by other groups, any number of things to evoke the release of adrenaline, even people taking drugs that increase adrenaline. But then they also did what are called blocking (Time 0:48:31)
The Neurochemical Mechanism of Memory The presence of hiadrenlin, high amounts of norepen efron and epenefron allows a memory to be stamped down quickly. This is fundamentally different from the idea that we remember things because they are important to us or because they evoke emotion. There’s something truly magic about that neuro chemical cocktail that removes the need for repetition. O caso. Let’s establish a scientifically grounded set of tools which take into account the identity of the neuro chemicals that are important for enhancing learning. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Experiments. They did experiments where they had people get into a highly emotional state from reading highly emotional material, or they got people to get into a highly emotional, neurochemical State by reading boring material, and then taking a drug to increase adrenaline, or ice bath or a shock. And then they also administered a drug called a beta blocker to block the effect of adrenaline and related chemicals in the brain and body. And what they found is that even if people were exposed to something really emotional or had a lot of adrenaline in their system because they received a drug to increase the amount of Adrenaline, two manipulations that normally would increase memory, keep that in mind, if they gave them a beta blocker, which reduced the response to that adrenaline, right? So no quickening of the heart rate, no quickening of the breathing, no increase in the activity of locus coeruleus and these kind of wake-up signals to the rest of the brain. Well, then the material wasn’t remembered better at all. What this tells us is that, yes, Francis Bacon was right. McGonk and Cahill were right. Hundreds, if not thousands of philosophers and psychologists and neuroscientists were right in stating and in thinking that high emotional states help you learn things. But what McGaw and Cahill really showed, and what’s most important to know, is that it is the presence of high adrenaline, high amounts of norepinephrine and epinephrine, and perhaps Cortisol as well, as you’ll soon see, that allows a memory to be stamped down quickly. It is not the emotion, it is the neurochemical state that you go into as a consequence of the emotion. And it’s very important to understand that while those two things are related, they are not one in the same thing. Because what that means is that were you to evoke the release of epinephrine, norepinephrine and cortisol, or even just one or two of those chemicals, after experiencing something, You are stamping down the experience that you just previously had. Now this is fundamentally important and far and away different than the idea that we remember things because they’re important to us or because they evoke emotion. That’s true, but the real reason, the neurochemical reason, the mechanism behind all that is these neurochemicals have the ability to strengthen neural connections by making them Active just once. There’s something truly magic about that neurochemical cocktail that removes the need for repetition. Okay, (Time 0:50:44)
Caffine and Its Effects on Learning and Memory When i first learned about the results of mcgaw and k hill, i was just blown away. I was upset with myself, because i realized that the way that i had been approaching learning and memory was not optimal. In fact, it was probably in the opposite direction to the enhanced protocol for learning and memory that i’m going to teach you to day. But typically i would drink those things before i would gage in any kind of attempt to learn or memorize a new skill. Transcript: Andrew Huberman So let’s apply this knowledge. Let’s establish a scientifically grounded set of tools, meaning tools that take into account the identity of the neurochemicals that are important for enhancing learning and the Timing of the release of those chemicals in order to enhance learning. When I first learned about the results of McGaw and Cahill, I was just blown away. I was also pretty upset, but not with them. I was upset with myself because I realized that the way that I had been approaching learning and memory was not optimal. In fact, it was probably in the opposite direction to the enhanced protocol for learning and memory that I’m going to teach you today. My typical mode of trying to learn something while I was in college or while I was in graduate school, or as a junior professor, or even a tenured professor, was to sit down to whatever It is I was going to try and learn, perhaps even memorize, or if it was a physical skill, move to whatever environment I was going to learn that physical skill in. And prior to that, to make sure that I was hydrated, because that’s important to me, and certainly can contribute to your brain’s ability to function and your body’s ability to function, And general patterns of alertness, but also to caffeinate. I would have a nice strong cup of coffee or espresso. I would have a nice strong cup of yerba mate. And I still drink coffee or yerba mate very regularly. I drink them in moderation, I think, certainly for me. But typically I would drink those things before I would engage in any kind of attempt to learn or memorize or to acquire a new skill. Now, caffeine in the form of coffee or yerba mate or any other form of caffeine does create a sense of alertness in our brain and body. And it does that through two major mechanisms. The first mechanism is by blocking the effects of adenosine. Adenosine is a molecule that builds up in the brain and body the longer that we are awake, and it’s largely what’s responsible for our feelings of sleepiness and fatigue when we’ve been Awake for a very long time. Caffeine essentially acts to block the effects of adenosine. It’s a competing agonist, not to get technical, but it binds to the receptor for adenosine for some period of time and prevents adenosine from having its normal pattern of action and Thereby reduces our feelings of fatigue. But it also increases state of alertness. So while it’s reducing fatigue, it’s also pushing on neurochemical systems in order to directly increase our alertness. And it does that in large part by increasing the transmission of epinephrine, adrenaline, in the brain and body. It also has this interesting effect of upregulating the number and or efficiency, or we say the efficacy, of dopamine receptors, such that when dopamine is present and as a molecule That increases motivation and craving and pursuit, that dopamine can have a more potent effect than it would otherwise. So caffeine really hits these three systems. It hits other systems too, but it mainly reduces fatigue by reducing adenosine, increases alertness by increasing epinephrine release or adrenaline release, I should say, both From the adrenals in your body and from locus coeruleus within the brain. And it can, in parallel to all that, increase the action or the efficacy of the action of dopamine. So my typical way of approaching learning and memory would be to drink some caffeine and then focus really hard on whatever it is that I’m trying to learn, trying to eliminate distractions, And then hope, hope, hope, or try, try, try, to remember that information as best as I could. And frankly, I felt like it was working pretty well for me. And typically, if I leveraged other forms of pharmacology in order to enhance (Time 0:53:20)
The Relationship Between Adrenelin and Learning and Memory • It is best to take stimulants after or just a few minutes after learning in order to increase memory and learning. • It is not optimal to take stimulants before or during learning. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Learning and memory, things like alpha-GPC or phosphatidylserine, I would do that by taking those things before I sat down to learn a particular set of information or before I went Off to learn a particular physical skill. Now, for those of you out there listening to this, you’re probably thinking, well, okay, the results of McGonkill pointed to the fact that having adrenaline released after learning Something, enhanced learning of that thing, but a lot of these things like caffeine or alpha-GPC can increase epinephrine and adrenaline or dopamine or other molecules in the brain And body that can enhance memory for a long period of time. So it makes sense to take it first or even during learning and then allow that increase to occur. And the increase will occur over a long period of time and will enhance learning and memory. And while that is partially true, it is not entirely true. And it turns out it’s not optimal. Work that was done by the Maga laboratory and other laboratories evaluated the precise temporal relationship between neurochemical activation of these pathways and learning and Memory. What they did is they had animals and or people, depending on the experiment, take a drug, could be caffeine, could be in pill form, something that would increase adrenaline, or related Molecules that create this state of alertness that are related to emotionality. And they had them do it either an hour before, 30 minutes before, 10 minutes before, five minutes before learning, or during the bout of learning, right? The reading of the information or the performing of the skill that one is trying to learn, or five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, et cetera, afterwards. So they looked very precisely at when exactly is best to evoke this adrenaline release. And it turns out that the best time window to evoke the release of these chemicals, if the goal is to enhance learning and memory of the material, is either immediately after, or just A few minutes, five, 10, maybe 15 minutes, after you’re repeating that information, you’re trying to learn that information. Again, this could be cognitive information, or this could be a physical skill. Now, this really spits in the face of the way that most of us approach learning and memory. Most of us, if we use stimulants like caffeine or alpha GPC, we’re taking those before or during an attempt to learn, not afterwards. These results point to the fact that it is after the learning and memory that you really want to get that big increase in epinephrine and the related molecules that will tamp down memory. So what this means is that if you are currently using caffeine or other compounds, and we’ll talk about what those are and safety issues and so forth in a moment, if you’re using those Compounds in order to enhance learning and memory by taking them before or during a learning episode, well, then I encourage you to try and take them either late in the learning episode Or immediately after the learning episode. Now, given everything I’ve told you up until now, why would I say late in the learning episode or immediately after? Well, when you ingest something by (Time 0:56:58)
The Effects of Sleep Deep Rest on Learning and Memory The strengthening of connections in the brain occurs during deep sleep and non sleep deep rest. It is not the case that you need to finish a bout of learning and drop immediately into a nap or sleep. The ideal protocol would be focus on the thing you’re trying to learn very intensely. We have a news letter on how to learn better at huberminlab dot comet te zero cost news letter. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Drinking it or you take it in capsule form, there’s a period of time before that gets absorbed into the body and different substances, such as caffeine, alpha GPC, et cetera, are absorbed From the gut and into the bloodstream and reach the brain and trigger these effects in the brain and body at different rates. So it’s not instantaneous. Some have effects within minutes, others within tens of minutes and so on. It’s really going to depend on the pharmacology of those things. And it’s also going to depend on whether or not you have food in your gut, what else you happen to have circulating in your bloodstream, et cetera. But at a very basic level, we can confidently say that there are not one, not dozens, but as I mentioned before, hundreds of studies in animals and in humans that point to the fact that Triggering the increase of adrenaline late in learning or immediately after learning is going to be most beneficial if your goal is to retain that information for some period of time And to reduce the number of repetitions required in order to learn that information. Now, I want to acknowledge that on previous episodes of this podcast and in appearing on other podcasts, I’ve talked a lot about things like non-sleep deep rest and naps and sleep as Vital to the learning process. And I want to emphasize that none of that information has changed, right? I don’t look at any of that information differently as the consequence of what I’m talking about today. It is still true that the strengthening of connections in the brain, the literal neuroplasticity, the changing of the circuits occurs during deep sleep and non sleep deep rest. And it is also true, and I’ve mentioned these results earlier, that two papers were published in Cell Reports, Cell Press Journal, Excellent Journal, over the last few years, showing That brief naps of about 20 to up to 90 minutes in some period of time after an attempt to learn can enhance the rate of learning and memory. However, those bouts of sleep, the deep sleep that night, I should say, or those brief naps, or even the so-called NSDR, as we call it, non-sleep deep rest, that was used to enhance the Learning and memory of particular pieces of information, either cognitive or physical information or both, that still can be performed, but it can be performed some hours later, Even an hour later. It can be performed two hours later, four hours later. Remember, it’s in these naps and in deep sleep that the actual reconfiguration of the neural circuits occurs, the strengthening of those neural circuits occurs. It is not the case that you need to finish about of learning and drop immediately into a nap or sleep. Some people might do that, but if you’re really trying to optimize and enhance and improve your memory, the data from McGaw and Cahill and many other laboratories that stemmed out from Their initial work really point to the fact that the ideal protocol would be focused on the thing (Time 1:00:13)
The Effects of Sleep Deep Rest on Learning and Memory The strengthening of connections in the brain occurs during deep sleep and non sleep deep rest. It is not the case that you need to finish a bout of learning and drop immediately into a nap or sleep. The ideal protocol would be focus on the thing you’re trying to learn very intensely. We have a news letter on how to learn better at huberminlab dot comet te zero cost news letter. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Drinking it or you take it in capsule form, there’s a period of time before that gets absorbed into the body and different substances, such as caffeine, alpha GPC, et cetera, are absorbed From the gut and into the bloodstream and reach the brain and trigger these effects in the brain and body at different rates. So it’s not instantaneous. Some have effects within minutes, others within tens of minutes and so on. It’s really going to depend on the pharmacology of those things. And it’s also going to depend on whether or not you have food in your gut, what else you happen to have circulating in your bloodstream, et cetera. But at a very basic level, we can confidently say that there are not one, not dozens, but as I mentioned before, hundreds of studies in animals and in humans that point to the fact that Triggering the increase of adrenaline late in learning or immediately after learning is going to be most beneficial if your goal is to retain that information for some period of time And to reduce the number of repetitions required in order to learn that information. Now, I want to acknowledge that on previous episodes of this podcast and in appearing on other podcasts, I’ve talked a lot about things like non-sleep deep rest and naps and sleep as Vital to the learning process. And I want to emphasize that none of that information has changed, right? I don’t look at any of that information differently as the consequence of what I’m talking about today. It is still true that the strengthening of connections in the brain, the literal neuroplasticity, the changing of the circuits occurs during deep sleep and non sleep deep rest. And it is also true, and I’ve mentioned these results earlier, that two papers were published in Cell Reports, Cell Press Journal, Excellent Journal, over the last few years, showing That brief naps of about 20 to up to 90 minutes in some period of time after an attempt to learn can enhance the rate of learning and memory. However, those bouts of sleep, the deep sleep that night, I should say, or those brief naps, or even the so-called NSDR, as we call it, non-sleep deep rest, that was used to enhance the Learning and memory of particular pieces of information, either cognitive or physical information or both, that still can be performed, but it can be performed some hours later, Even an hour later. It can be performed two hours later, four hours later. Remember, it’s in these naps and in deep sleep that the actual reconfiguration of the neural circuits occurs, the strengthening of those neural circuits occurs. It is not the case that you need to finish about of learning and drop immediately into a nap or sleep. Some people might do that, but if you’re really trying to optimize and enhance and improve your memory, the data from McGaw and Cahill and many other laboratories that stemmed out from Their initial work really point to the fact that the ideal protocol would be focused on the thing (Time 1:00:13)
The Effects of Sleep Deep Rest on Learning and Memory The strengthening of connections in the brain occurs during deep sleep and non sleep deep rest. It is not the case that you need to finish a bout of learning and drop immediately into a nap or sleep. The ideal protocol would be focus on the thing you’re trying to learn very intensely. We have a news letter on how to learn better at huberminlab dot comet te zero cost news letter. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Drinking it or you take it in capsule form, there’s a period of time before that gets absorbed into the body and different substances, such as caffeine, alpha GPC, et cetera, are absorbed From the gut and into the bloodstream and reach the brain and trigger these effects in the brain and body at different rates. So it’s not instantaneous. Some have effects within minutes, others within tens of minutes and so on. It’s really going to depend on the pharmacology of those things. And it’s also going to depend on whether or not you have food in your gut, what else you happen to have circulating in your bloodstream, et cetera. But at a very basic level, we can confidently say that there are not one, not dozens, but as I mentioned before, hundreds of studies in animals and in humans that point to the fact that Triggering the increase of adrenaline late in learning or immediately after learning is going to be most beneficial if your goal is to retain that information for some period of time And to reduce the number of repetitions required in order to learn that information. Now, I want to acknowledge that on previous episodes of this podcast and in appearing on other podcasts, I’ve talked a lot about things like non-sleep deep rest and naps and sleep as Vital to the learning process. And I want to emphasize that none of that information has changed, right? I don’t look at any of that information differently as the consequence of what I’m talking about today. It is still true that the strengthening of connections in the brain, the literal neuroplasticity, the changing of the circuits occurs during deep sleep and non sleep deep rest. And it is also true, and I’ve mentioned these results earlier, that two papers were published in Cell Reports, Cell Press Journal, Excellent Journal, over the last few years, showing That brief naps of about 20 to up to 90 minutes in some period of time after an attempt to learn can enhance the rate of learning and memory. However, those bouts of sleep, the deep sleep that night, I should say, or those brief naps, or even the so-called NSDR, as we call it, non-sleep deep rest, that was used to enhance the Learning and memory of particular pieces of information, either cognitive or physical information or both, that still can be performed, but it can be performed some hours later, Even an hour later. It can be performed two hours later, four hours later. Remember, it’s in these naps and in deep sleep that the actual reconfiguration of the neural circuits occurs, the strengthening of those neural circuits occurs. It is not the case that you need to finish about of learning and drop immediately into a nap or sleep. Some people might do that, but if you’re really trying to optimize and enhance and improve your memory, the data from McGaw and Cahill and many other laboratories that stemmed out from Their initial work really point to the fact that the ideal protocol would be focused on the thing (Time 1:00:13)
Cold Health and Performance - How to Evoke Epenefron and Dopomine Release If you’re panic attack prone, please don’t start taking stimulants in order to learn things better. We’ve done several episodes on the utility of cold health and performance. You can do that with a combination of kaffine and alpha g pc. Some of you i know are using other forms of pharmacology. I have to just really declare my stants very clearly, that i am not a fan. Transcript: Andrew Huberman I’m not prescribing anything. I’m a professor, so I profess things. You need to do what’s safe for you. So if you’re somebody who’s not used to drinking caffeine and you suddenly drink four espresso after trying to learn something, you are going to have a severe increase in alertness And probably even anxiety. If you’re panic attack prone, please don’t start taking stimulants in order to learn things better. Please be safe. I don’t just say that to protect me. I say that to protect you. And I should mention that if you’re not accustomed to taking something, you always want to first check with your doctor, of course, but also move into that gradually, right? Start with the lowest effective dose, the minimal effective dose. And sometimes the minimal effective dose is zero milligrams. It’s nothing. Why do I say that? Well, we already talked about results where they put people’s arms into an ice bath in order to evoke adrenaline release. You are welcome to do that if you want. In fact, that’s a pretty low cost, zero pharmacology, at least exogenous pharmacology way to approach this whole thing. That’s a way of evoking your own natural epinephrine, and it turns out also dopamine release. You could take a cold shower, you could do an ice bath or get into a cold circulating bath. We’ve done several episodes on the utility of cold for health and performance. You can find those episodes at hubroonlab.com. Also the episode with my colleague at Stanford from the biology department, Dr. Craig Heller. Lots of protocols in particular in the episode on cold for health and performance that describe how best to use the cold shower or the ice bath or the circulating cold bath in order to Evoke epinephrine and dopamine release. The point is that the time in which you would want to do those protocols is after, ideally immediately after you’re learning about, meaning when you’re sitting down to learn new information Or after trying to learn some new physical skill. Now, whether or not that’s compatible with the other reasons you’re doing deliberate cold exposure, and whether or not that’s compatible with the other things you’re doing, that Depends on the contour of your lifestyle, your training, your academic goals, your learning goals, et cetera. But if your specific purpose is to enhance learning and memory, you want to spike adrenaline afterwards. And so what I’m telling you is you can do that with caffeine. You can do that with alpha GPC. You can do that with a combination of caffeine and alpha GPC, if you can do that safely. Some of you I know are using other forms of pharmacology. I did a long episode all about ADHD. I have to just really declare my stance very clearly that I am not a fan. I am actually opposed to people using prescription drugs who are not prescribed those drugs, right? In order to enhance alertness, I think there’s a big addictive potential. There also is a potential to really disrupt one’s own pharmacology (Time 1:04:26)
How Much Is Increased in Adrenelin? Anything that reduces epenefren an, a drenelin, will impair learning. Caffine drugs like musemal and pecrotoxin, please don’t take those. If you’re taking bata blockers, for instance, or if you’re trying to learn something and it’s not evoking much of an emotional response, well you’re not going to learn it very well. Its only by moving it to late or after the learning, that really shifting the role of adrenalan increase to enhancing memory specifically. Transcript: Andrew Huberman In epinephrine should occur either very late in an attempt to learn something or immediately after an attempt to learn something. I also want to emphasize the general contour of pharmacologic effects and of behavioral tools to create adrenaline. What do I mean by that sentence? What I mean is that McGaw and colleagues explored a huge number of different compounds and approaches, everything from the hand into the ice bath, to injecting adrenaline, to caffeine, To drugs that block the effects of adrenaline and caffeine. Drugs like Musomol and Picrotoxin, please don’t take those. These are drugs that reduce or enhance the amount of adrenaline. And the overall takeaway is that anything that increases adrenaline will increase learning and memory and will reduce the number of repetitions required to learn something, regardless Of whether or not that something has an emotional intensity or not, provided that that spike in adrenaline occurs late in the learning or immediately after. And anything that reduces epinephrine and adrenaline will impair learning. And that’s the key and novel piece of information that I’m adding now, which is if you’re taking beta blockers, for instance, or if you’re trying to learn something and it’s not evoking Much of an emotional response, and you’re not using any pharmacology or other methods to enhance adrenaline release after learning that thing, well, you’re not going to learn it very Well. In fact, McGaw and Cahill did beautiful experiments in humans looking at how much adrenaline is increased by varying the emotional intensity of different things that they were trying To get people to learn, or by changing the dosage of epinephrine, or by changing the amount of epinephrine blocker that they injected. Lots and lots of studies. The key thing to take away from those studies is that for some people, adrenaline was increased 600 to 700%, so six to seven fold over baseline, in the amount of circulating epinephrine Or adrenaline. And keep in mind, sometimes that increase was due to the actual thing they were trying to learn being very emotional, positive or negative emotion. And sometimes it was because they were using a pharmacologic approach or the ice bath approach. I don’t think they ever used a cold shower approach, but that would have been a very effective one, we can be sure. However, other people had a zero to 10% increase, so a very small increase in epinephrine. What we can confidently say on the basis of all those data is that the more epinephrine release, the better that people remembered the material. Over and over again, this was shown, whether or not it was for cognitive materials, so learning a language, learning a passage of words, learning mathematics, or whether or not it was For physical learning. I want to emphasize something about physical learning because I know a number of you are probably drinking a cup of coffee or having a cup of yerba mate, or maybe even an energy drink and Taking some alpha GPC or something before physical exercise. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing to do or that you wouldn’t want to do that, but that’s really to increase alertness. It won’t enhance learning, at least not as well as doing those things the physical exercise. Now, again, many of you, including myself, exercise for sake of the physical benefits of that exercise, so cardiovascular resistance training, but we’re not really focused on learning And memory. So I emphasize this just so it’s immensely clear to everybody. If you want to use those approaches of increasing adrenaline prior to or during physical training or cognitive work for that matter, be my guest. I think that’s perfectly fine, provided that’s safe for you. It’s only by moving it to late or after the learning that you’re really shifting the role of that adrenaline increase to enhancing memory specifically. And as a cautionary note, don’t think that you can push this entire system to the extreme over and over again, or chronically as we say, and get away with it. In other words, you’re not going to be able to take a alpha GPC and a double espresso, do your focus bout of work, cognitive or physical work, and then spike adrenaline again afterwards And remember that stuff even better, right? I’m not encouraging you. In fact, I’m discouraging you from chronically increasing adrenaline, both during and after (Time 1:09:06)
How to Spike a Drenelin to Improve Learning and Memory • Work from mgaw and cahill and others has shown that it’s not the absolute amount of a drenlin that you release in your brain and body that matters for enhancing memory; it’s the amount of drenlin that you release relative to the amount of adrenlin that was in your system just prior, in particular, in the hour or two pri. • Acute, right sharp increases in a drenelin and cartisal actually can enhance learning and indeed can enhance the immune system. • If you really want a leverage information, you might consider getting your brain and body into a very calm and yet alert state, so high attentional state that will allow you to focus on what it is that you’re trying to learn. • Remaining calm throughout that time, and then afterwards, spiking a drenelin, and allowing a drenelin to have these incredible effects on reducing the number of repetitions required to learn. Transcript: Andrew Huberman A given bout of work, if the goal is to learn. Why do I say that? Well, work from McGaw and Cahill and others has shown that it’s not the absolute amount of adrenaline that you release in your brain and body that matters for enhancing memory. It’s the amount of adrenaline that you release relative to the amount of adrenaline that was in your system just prior, in particular in the hour or two prior. So again, it’s the delta, we say, it’s the difference. So if you’re going to chronically increase adrenaline, you’re not going to learn as well. The real key is to have adrenaline modestly low, perhaps even just as much as you need in order to be able to focus on something, pay attention to it, and then spike it afterwards. This is immensely important because, while much of what we’re talking about is actually a form of inducing a neurochemical acute stress, meaning a brief and rapid onset of stress, Well, chronic stress, the chronic elevation of epinephrine and cortisol is actually detrimental to learning. And there’s an entire category of literature, mainly from the work of the great, and sadly the late Bruce McKeown from the Rockefeller University, and some of his scientific offspring, Like the great Robert Sapolsky, showing that chronic stress, chronic elevation of epinephrine actually inhibits learning and memory, and also can inhibit immune system function, Whereas acute, sharp increases in adrenaline, and cortisol actually can enhance learning, and indeed can enhance the immune system. So if you really want to leverage this information, you might consider getting your brain and body into a very calm and yet alert state. So a high attentional state that will allow you to focus on what it is that you’re trying to learn. We know focus is vital for encoding information and for triggering neuroplasticity, but remaining calm throughout that time, and then afterwards spiking adrenaline and allowing Adrenaline to have these incredible effects on reducing the number of repetitions required to learn. So if you’re like me, you’re learning about this information, this beautiful work of McGaw and Cahill and others, and thinking, wow, I should perhaps consider spiking my adrenaline In one form or another at the tail end or immediately following an attempt to learn something. And yet we are not the first to have this conversation, nor were McGaw and Cahill or any other researchers that I’ve discussed today, the first to start using this technique. In fact, there is a beautiful review that was published just this year, May of 2022, in the journal Neuron Cell Press Journal, excellent journal, called Mechanisms of Memory Under Stress. And I just want to read to you the first opening paragraph of this review, which is, as the name suggests, all about memory and stress. So here I’m reading, and I quote, in medieval times, communities threw young children in the river when they wanted them to remember important events. They believed that throwing a child in the water after witnessing historic proceedings would leave a lifelong memory for the events in the child. Believe it or not, this is true. This is a practice that somehow people arrived at. I don’t know if they were aware of what adrenaline was, probably not, but somehow in medieval times, it was understood that spiking adrenaline or creating a robust emotional experience After an experience that one hoped a child would learn, would encourage the child’s nervous system, and they didn’t even know what a nervous system was, but would encourage the brain And body of that child to remember those particular events. Very counterintuitive, if you ask me. I would have thought that the kid would remember only being thrown into the river. My guess is that they remember that, but the idea here anyway is that they also remember the things that preceded being thrown into the river. So both interesting and amusing, and somewhat, I should say, thought stimulating, really, that this is a practice that has been going on for many hundreds of years. And we are not the first to start thinking about using cold water as an adrenaline stimulus, nor are we the first to start thinking about using cold water induced adrenaline as a way to Enhance learning and memory. This has been happening since (Time 1:13:26)
How to Spike a Drenelin to Improve Learning and Memory • Work from mgaw and cahill and others has shown that it’s not the absolute amount of a drenlin that you release in your brain and body that matters for enhancing memory; it’s the amount of drenlin that you release relative to the amount of adrenlin that was in your system just prior, in particular, in the hour or two pri. • Acute, right sharp increases in a drenelin and cartisal actually can enhance learning and indeed can enhance the immune system. • If you really want a leverage information, you might consider getting your brain and body into a very calm and yet alert state, so high attentional state that will allow you to focus on what it is that you’re trying to learn. • Remaining calm throughout that time, and then afterwards, spiking a drenelin, and allowing a drenelin to have these incredible effects on reducing the number of repetitions required to learn. Transcript: Andrew Huberman A given bout of work, if the goal is to learn. Why do I say that? Well, work from McGaw and Cahill and others has shown that it’s not the absolute amount of adrenaline that you release in your brain and body that matters for enhancing memory. It’s the amount of adrenaline that you release relative to the amount of adrenaline that was in your system just prior, in particular in the hour or two prior. So again, it’s the delta, we say, it’s the difference. So if you’re going to chronically increase adrenaline, you’re not going to learn as well. The real key is to have adrenaline modestly low, perhaps even just as much as you need in order to be able to focus on something, pay attention to it, and then spike it afterwards. This is immensely important because, while much of what we’re talking about is actually a form of inducing a neurochemical acute stress, meaning a brief and rapid onset of stress, Well, chronic stress, the chronic elevation of epinephrine and cortisol is actually detrimental to learning. And there’s an entire category of literature, mainly from the work of the great, and sadly the late Bruce McKeown from the Rockefeller University, and some of his scientific offspring, Like the great Robert Sapolsky, showing that chronic stress, chronic elevation of epinephrine actually inhibits learning and memory, and also can inhibit immune system function, Whereas acute, sharp increases in adrenaline, and cortisol actually can enhance learning, and indeed can enhance the immune system. So if you really want to leverage this information, you might consider getting your brain and body into a very calm and yet alert state. So a high attentional state that will allow you to focus on what it is that you’re trying to learn. We know focus is vital for encoding information and for triggering neuroplasticity, but remaining calm throughout that time, and then afterwards spiking adrenaline and allowing Adrenaline to have these incredible effects on reducing the number of repetitions required to learn. So if you’re like me, you’re learning about this information, this beautiful work of McGaw and Cahill and others, and thinking, wow, I should perhaps consider spiking my adrenaline In one form or another at the tail end or immediately following an attempt to learn something. And yet we are not the first to have this conversation, nor were McGaw and Cahill or any other researchers that I’ve discussed today, the first to start using this technique. In fact, there is a beautiful review that was published just this year, May of 2022, in the journal Neuron Cell Press Journal, excellent journal, called Mechanisms of Memory Under Stress. And I just want to read to you the first opening paragraph of this review, which is, as the name suggests, all about memory and stress. So here I’m reading, and I quote, in medieval times, communities threw young children in the river when they wanted them to remember important events. They believed that throwing a child in the water after witnessing historic proceedings would leave a lifelong memory for the events in the child. Believe it or not, this is true. This is a practice that somehow people arrived at. I don’t know if they were aware of what adrenaline was, probably not, but somehow in medieval times, it was understood that spiking adrenaline or creating a robust emotional experience After an experience that one hoped a child would learn, would encourage the child’s nervous system, and they didn’t even know what a nervous system was, but would encourage the brain And body of that child to remember those particular events. Very counterintuitive, if you ask me. I would have thought that the kid would remember only being thrown into the river. My guess is that they remember that, but the idea here anyway is that they also remember the things that preceded being thrown into the river. So both interesting and amusing, and somewhat, I should say, thought stimulating, really, that this is a practice that has been going on for many hundreds of years. And we are not the first to start thinking about using cold water as an adrenaline stimulus, nor are we the first to start thinking about using cold water induced adrenaline as a way to Enhance learning and memory. This has been happening since (Time 1:13:26)
The Amigdola is a Correlation Detector of Emotional Events in the Environment All have a brain structure called the amigdola. A lot of people think it’s associated with fear, but it’s actually associated with threat detection. The amidula detects correlations between sensory events in the environment that trigger the release of a drenelon and what’s going on in the brain. This has a wonderful side and a kind of dark side. Because petest and tromas often involve a increase in a drenelin. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Medieval times. So up until now, I’ve been talking about a pretty broad contour of these experiments. I’ve been talking about the underlying pharmacology, the role of epinephrine and so forth. I haven’t really talked a lot about the underlying neural mechanisms. So I’m just going to take a minute or two and describe those for you because they are informative. We all have a brain structure called the amygdala. A lot of people think it’s associated with fear, but it’s actually associated with threat detection and more generally, and I should say more specifically, with detecting what sorts Of events in the environment are novel and are linked to particular emotional states, both positive emotional states and negative emotional states. So the neurons in the amygdala are exquisitely good at figuring out, right? They don’t have their own mind, but at detecting correlations between sensory events in the environment that trigger the release of adrenaline and what’s going on in the brain. And because the amygdala is so extensively interconnected with other areas of the brain, it basically connects to everything and everything connects back to it. The amygdala is in a position to strengthen particular connections in the brain very easily provided certain conditions are met. And those conditions are the ones we’ve been talking about up until now, emotional saliency that results in increases in epinephrine and cortisol, or circulating epinephrine and Cortisol being much higher than it was 10 minutes or 15 minutes before. And the net effect of the amygdala in this context is to take whatever patterns of neural activity preceded that increase in adrenaline and corticosterone, and strengthen those synapses That were involved in that neural activity. So the amygdala doesn’t have knowledge, it’s not a thinking area, it’s a correlation detector, and it’s correlating neurochemical states of the brain and body with different patterns Of electrical activity in the brain. This is important because it really emphasizes the fact that both negative and positive emotional states and the different but somewhat overlapping chemical states that they create Are the conditions, as we say, the and gates through which memory is laid down. And gates will be familiar to those of you who have done a bit of computer programming. An and gate is simply a condition in which you need one thing and another to happen in order for a third thing to happen. So you need epinephrine elevated, and you need robust activity in a particular brain circuit, if in fact that brain circuit is going to be strengthened. It’s not sufficient to have one or the other, you need both, hence the name AND-gate. And the amygdala is very good at establishing these and-gate contingencies. It’s also a very generic brain structure in the sense that it doesn’t really care what sorts of sensory events are involved, provided they correlated in (Time 1:17:40)
The amigdula is a lumper than a splitter The amidula is more of a lumper than a splitter when it comes to sensory events. Other airs of the brain only become active under very, very specific conditions and only those conditions. There’s no epinefron specifically for a cold shower that is distinct from the epinefrn associated with a really exciting event that makes you really alert. Epenefrn is just a molecule. It’s generic. And so these systems have a lot of overlap. That can explain in large part why, when good things happen in particular locations and in the company of particular people, we often generalize to large categories of people, places and things. Transcript: Andrew Huberman Time with that increase in adrenaline and corticosterone. This has a wonderful side and a kind of dark side. The dark side is that PTSD and traumas of various kinds often involve a increase in adrenaline because whatever it was that caused the PTSD was indeed very stressful, caused these big Increases in these chemicals. And because the amygdala is rather general in its functions, right? It’s not tuned or designed in any kind of way to be specifically active in response to particular types of sensory events or perceptions. Well, then what it means is that we can start to become afraid of entire city blocks where one bad thing happened in a particular room of a particular building in a city block. We can become fearful of any place that contains a lot of people if something bad happened to us in a place that contained a lot of people. The amygdala is not so much of a splitter, as we say in science, we talk about lumpers and splitters. Lumpers are kind of generalizers, if that’s even a word. And I think it is, someone will tell me one way or the other. And splitters are people that are ultra precise and specific and nuanced about every little detail. The amygdala is more of a lumper than a splitter when it comes to sensory events. Other areas of the brain only become active under very, very specific conditions and only those conditions. And similarly, epinephrine is just a molecule. It’s just a chemical that’s circulating in our brain and body. There’s no epinephrine specifically for a cold shower that is distinct from the epinephrine associated with a bad event, which is distinct from the epinephrine associated with a Really exciting event that makes you really alert. Epinephrine is just a molecule. It’s generic. And so these systems have a lot of overlap, and that can explain in large part why, when good things happen in particular locations and in the company of particular people, we often generalize To large categories of people, places, and things. And when negative things happen in particular circumstances, we often generalize about people, places, and things associated with that negative event. So now I’d like to talk about other tools that you can leverage that have been shown in quality peer-reviewed studies to enhance learning and memory. And perhaps one of the most potent of those tools is exercise. There are numerous studies on this in both animal models and fortunately now also in humans, thanks to the beautiful work of people like Wendy Suzuki from New York University. Wendy’s lab has identified (Time 1:20:27)
Load Bearing Exercise Is Important For Inducing the Release of Austio Calson The vast majority of brain real estate, especially in humans, is dedicated to two things: vision and movement. How would your brain know if your body was moving regularly? And how would it knows how much it was moving an how would it know wi limbs it was moving?! This idea has been hypothesised for more than a half century but specially in recent years as we’ve learned more about the function of the brain at a really detailed circuit level. Load bearing exercise in particular, s out to be important for inducing the release of astio calson. The fact that austio son is released from bone, and in particular, can be released in response to load bearing exercise. Transcript: Andrew Huberman In fact, there’s really nice evidence that it can regulate testosterone and estrogen production by the testes and ovaries, and a bunch of other effects in other organs of the body. Because again, it’s acting in this endocrine manner. It’s arriving from bone to a lot of different organs to have effects. Load-bearing exercise in particular, it turns out to be important for inducing the release of osteocalcin. And when you think about this, it makes sense. A nervous system exists for a lot of reasons, to sense, perceive, et cetera. You’ve got taste, you’ve got smell, you’ve got hearing, but the vast majority of brain real estate, especially in humans, is dedicated to two things. One, vision. We have an enormous amount of brain real estate devoted to vision, certainly compared to other senses. And to movement, the ability to generate coarse movements of the body, the ability to generate fine movements of the body, like the digits, or to wink one eye, or to tilt your head in a Particular way, or move your lips and move your face and do all sorts of different things in a very nuanced and detailed way. So much of our brain real estate is devoted to movement that it’s been hypothesized for more than a half century, but especially in recent years, as we’ve learned more about the function Of the brain at a really detailed circuit level, that the relationship between the brain and body and the maintenance, and perhaps even the improvement of neural circuitry in the brain Depends on our body movements and the signal from the body that our brain is still moving. So think about that. How would your brain know if your body was moving regularly? And how would it know how much it was moving? And how would it know which limbs it was moving? Well, you could say, if the heart rate is increased, then the blood flow will be increased and then the brain will know. Ah, but how does your brain know that it’s increased blood flow due to movement and not to, for instance, just stress, right? Maybe you actually can’t move and you’re very stressed about that. And so the increased blood flow is simply a consequence of increased stress. The fact that osteocalcin is released from bone, and in particular can be released in response to load-bearing exercise. So this would be running. Again, weightlifting hasn’t been tested directly, but one would imagine anything that involves jumping and landing or weightlifting or body weight movements and things of that Sort, that’s a signal to release osteocalcin, and we know that signal occurs, that is directly reflective of the fact that the body was moving and moving in particular ways. In fact, you could imagine that big bones, like your femur, are going to release more osteocalcin or be in a position to release more osteocalcin than five movements like the movements Of the digits. And this idea that the body is constantly signaling to the brain about the status of the body and the varying needs of the brain to update its brain circuitry is a really attractive idea (Time 1:29:57)
Load Bearing Exercise Is Important For Inducing the Release of Austio Calson The vast majority of brain real estate, especially in humans, is dedicated to two things: vision and movement. How would your brain know if your body was moving regularly? And how would it knows how much it was moving an how would it know wi limbs it was moving?! This idea has been hypothesised for more than a half century but specially in recent years as we’ve learned more about the function of the brain at a really detailed circuit level. Load bearing exercise in particular, s out to be important for inducing the release of astio calson. The fact that austio son is released from bone, and in particular, can be released in response to load bearing exercise. Transcript: Andrew Huberman In fact, there’s really nice evidence that it can regulate testosterone and estrogen production by the testes and ovaries, and a bunch of other effects in other organs of the body. Because again, it’s acting in this endocrine manner. It’s arriving from bone to a lot of different organs to have effects. Load-bearing exercise in particular, it turns out to be important for inducing the release of osteocalcin. And when you think about this, it makes sense. A nervous system exists for a lot of reasons, to sense, perceive, et cetera. You’ve got taste, you’ve got smell, you’ve got hearing, but the vast majority of brain real estate, especially in humans, is dedicated to two things. One, vision. We have an enormous amount of brain real estate devoted to vision, certainly compared to other senses. And to movement, the ability to generate coarse movements of the body, the ability to generate fine movements of the body, like the digits, or to wink one eye, or to tilt your head in a Particular way, or move your lips and move your face and do all sorts of different things in a very nuanced and detailed way. So much of our brain real estate is devoted to movement that it’s been hypothesized for more than a half century, but especially in recent years, as we’ve learned more about the function Of the brain at a really detailed circuit level, that the relationship between the brain and body and the maintenance, and perhaps even the improvement of neural circuitry in the brain Depends on our body movements and the signal from the body that our brain is still moving. So think about that. How would your brain know if your body was moving regularly? And how would it know how much it was moving? And how would it know which limbs it was moving? Well, you could say, if the heart rate is increased, then the blood flow will be increased and then the brain will know. Ah, but how does your brain know that it’s increased blood flow due to movement and not to, for instance, just stress, right? Maybe you actually can’t move and you’re very stressed about that. And so the increased blood flow is simply a consequence of increased stress. The fact that osteocalcin is released from bone, and in particular can be released in response to load-bearing exercise. So this would be running. Again, weightlifting hasn’t been tested directly, but one would imagine anything that involves jumping and landing or weightlifting or body weight movements and things of that Sort, that’s a signal to release osteocalcin, and we know that signal occurs, that is directly reflective of the fact that the body was moving and moving in particular ways. In fact, you could imagine that big bones, like your femur, are going to release more osteocalcin or be in a position to release more osteocalcin than five movements like the movements Of the digits. And this idea that the body is constantly signaling to the brain about the status of the body and the varying needs of the brain to update its brain circuitry is a really attractive idea (Time 1:29:57)
The Relationship Between Exercise and Learning The relationship between exercise and movement and plasticity. Animals digest their own brain at the transition between moving a lot and being stationary. It’s clear that physical movement and cognitive ability are intimately connected. And ostio calson appears to be at least one way in which that brain body relationship is established and maintained. Transcript: Andrew Huberman That fits entirely with the biology of exercise, osteocalcin, and hippocampal function. I do want to mention that I’m not the first to raise this hypothesis. This hypothesis actually was discussed in a fair amount of detail by John Rady, who’s a professor in Harvard Medical School. He wrote a book called Spark, which was one of the early books, at least from an academic about brain plasticity and the relationship between exercise and movement and plasticity. And John, who I have the good fortune to know, has described to me experiments, or I should say observations of species of ocean-dwelling animals that have, at least for the early part Of their life, a very robust and complicated nervous system. But then these particular animals are in the habit of plopping down onto a rock, they find a kind of a safe, comfy space, and they actually stick to that rock, and they don’t move anymore For a certain portion, I should say the late portion of their life. And it is at the transition between moving a lot and being stationary that those animals actually digest their own brain. They literally metabolize a good portion of their nervous system, I guess they decide, well, don’t need this anymore, and gobble it up, use it for its nutritional value, and then sit There like a moron version of themselves with a limited amount of brain tissue because they don’t need to move anymore. Now, I certainly don’t want to give the message that just moving, just exercise is sufficient to keep the neural architecture of your brain healthy, young, and able to learn. While that might be true, it’s also important to actually engage in attempts to learn new material, either physical material, so new types of movements and skills, and or new types Of cognitive information, languages, mathematics, history, current events, all sorts of things that involve your brain. Nonetheless, it’s clear that physical movement and cognitive ability and the potential to enhance cognitive ability and the ability to learn new physical skills are intimately Connected. And osteocalcin appears to be at least one way in which that brain-body relationship is established and maintained. So given the information about osteocalcin and movement, and given the information about spiking adrenaline late or after a period of attempt to learn, you might be asking, when is The best time to exercise? Now, unfortunately, that has not been addressed (Time 1:32:50)
The Relationship Between Exercise and Learning The relationship between exercise and movement and plasticity. Animals digest their own brain at the transition between moving a lot and being stationary. It’s clear that physical movement and cognitive ability are intimately connected. And ostio calson appears to be at least one way in which that brain body relationship is established and maintained. Transcript: Andrew Huberman That fits entirely with the biology of exercise, osteocalcin, and hippocampal function. I do want to mention that I’m not the first to raise this hypothesis. This hypothesis actually was discussed in a fair amount of detail by John Rady, who’s a professor in Harvard Medical School. He wrote a book called Spark, which was one of the early books, at least from an academic about brain plasticity and the relationship between exercise and movement and plasticity. And John, who I have the good fortune to know, has described to me experiments, or I should say observations of species of ocean-dwelling animals that have, at least for the early part Of their life, a very robust and complicated nervous system. But then these particular animals are in the habit of plopping down onto a rock, they find a kind of a safe, comfy space, and they actually stick to that rock, and they don’t move anymore For a certain portion, I should say the late portion of their life. And it is at the transition between moving a lot and being stationary that those animals actually digest their own brain. They literally metabolize a good portion of their nervous system, I guess they decide, well, don’t need this anymore, and gobble it up, use it for its nutritional value, and then sit There like a moron version of themselves with a limited amount of brain tissue because they don’t need to move anymore. Now, I certainly don’t want to give the message that just moving, just exercise is sufficient to keep the neural architecture of your brain healthy, young, and able to learn. While that might be true, it’s also important to actually engage in attempts to learn new material, either physical material, so new types of movements and skills, and or new types Of cognitive information, languages, mathematics, history, current events, all sorts of things that involve your brain. Nonetheless, it’s clear that physical movement and cognitive ability and the potential to enhance cognitive ability and the ability to learn new physical skills are intimately Connected. And osteocalcin appears to be at least one way in which that brain-body relationship is established and maintained. So given the information about osteocalcin and movement, and given the information about spiking adrenaline late or after a period of attempt to learn, you might be asking, when is The best time to exercise? Now, unfortunately, that has not been addressed (Time 1:32:50)
Using Exercise to Enhance Learning and Memory Exercise that really challenges your system an forces you kind of push through a burn writs a her a, mainly thing about cardo vascular exercise. Exercise either before or after a learning bout makes a lot of sense. People with true photographic memory are often very challenged at remembering things that they hear and oftentimes are not so good at learning physical skills. Transcript: Andrew Huberman In a lot of varying detail where every sort of variation on the theme has been carried out. And yet, Wendy Suzuki’s lab has done really beautiful experiments where they have people exercise, generally it was in the morning, but at other periods of the day as well. And what they find is that at least as late as two hours after that exercise, there’s an enhancement in learning and memory. Now, I want to be clear, we don’t know whether or not that exercise led to big increases in adrenaline. It may be that those forms of exercise were modest enough or didn’t challenge people enough that they merely got a lot of blood flow going, and that the improvements in learning and memory Were related to blood flow, and we presume increases in osteocalcin. However, you could imagine a couple of different logical protocols based on what we’ve talked about. Let’s say you were going to do a form of exercise that was going to spike adrenaline a lot. So this would be exercise that really challenges your system and forces you kind of push through a burn, right? So here I’m mainly thinking about cardiovascular exercise, but it could even be yoga, it could be resistance training. If it’s going to give you a big spike in adrenaline, it’s going to take some serious effort, then logically speaking, you would want to place that after a learning bout in order to increase Learning and memory. However, if you’re using the exercise in order to enhance blood flow and to enhance osteocalcin release in efforts to augment the function of your hippocampus, I think it stands to Reason that doing that exercise sometime within the hour to three hours preceding an attempt to learn makes a lot of sense. And there I’m basing it on the human data from Wendy Suzuki’s lab. I’m basing it on the studies from Eric Kandel and from others labs. Again, right now there hasn’t been an evaluation of a lot of different protocols to arrive at the peer reviewed laboratory super protocol. However, since what we’re talking about is using activities like exercise that most of us, probably, perhaps all of us, should be doing regularly anyway, and I do believe most, if not All of us, should really regularly be trying to learn and keep our brain functioning well and acquire new knowledge because it’s just a wonderful part of life, and there is evidence That that actually can keep your brain young, so to speak. Well then, exercising either before or after a learning bout makes a lot of sense with the emphasis on after a learning bout, if the form of exercise spikes a lot of adrenaline for all The reasons we talked about before. Okay, so we’ve talked about two major categories of protocols to improve memory that are grounded in quality peer-reviewed science. And there is yet another third protocol that we’ll talk about in a few minutes. But before we do that, I want to briefly touch on an aspect of memory. In fact, two aspects of memory that I get a lot of questions about. The first one is photographic memory. To be clear, there are people out there who have a true photographic memory. They can look at a page of text, they can scan it with their eyes, and they can essentially commit that to memory with very little, if any, effort. While it might seem that having a photographic memory is a very attractive skill to have, should caution you against believing that, because it turns out that people with true photographic Memory are often very challenged (Time 1:35:14)
What Are Called Super Recognisers? People with photographic memory have to find a profession. There’s also this category of what are caled super recognizers. These people are, i should mention, highly employable by government agencies. That is the hyper functioning of an area of the brain that we call the fusiform gyrus. And it harbors neurons that respond to faces generally. Transcript: Andrew Huberman At remembering things that they hear, and oftentimes are not so good at learning physical skills. It’s not always the case, but often that’s the case. So be careful what you wish for. If you do have a photographic memory, there are certain professions that lend themselves particularly well to you. And indeed, a lot of people with photographic memory have to find a profession and have to move through life in a way that is in with that photographic memory. So again, it’s a super ability, it’s a hyper ability, and yet it’s not necessarily one that is desirable for most people. There’s also this category of what are called super recognizers. These people are, I should mention, highly employable by government agencies. These are people that have an absolutely astonishing ability to recognize faces and to match faces to templates. They can look at a photograph of say somebody on a most wanted list, and then they can look at video footage of let’s say an airport or a mall or a city street at fairly low resolution, and They can spot the person whose face matches that photograph that they looked at. Even if that video or other footage is of people’s profiles or even the tops of their heads and just a portion of their forehead, these people have just an incredible ability to recognize Faces and to template match. And again, these people often will take jobs with agencies where this sort of thing is important. Some of you out there probably are super recognizers and may or may not notice it. If you’ve ever had the experience of watching a movie and thought to yourself, wow, her mouth looks so much like my cousin’s mouth, or you look at a character in a movie or television show And you think, wow, they look almost like the younger sister of so-and Well, then it’s very likely that you have this, or at least a mild form of the super-recognizer ability. That is not memory per se. That is the hyper-functioning of an area of the brain that we call the fusiform gyrus. The fusiform gyrus is literally a face recognition area and a face template matching area, and it harbors neurons that respond to faces generally. So as humans and other non-human primates care a lot about faces and their emotional content, and the identity of faces is super important to us for all the kinds of reasons that are probably Obvious, knowing who’s friend, who’s foe, who do you know well, who’s famous, who’s not famous, etc. That is not memory per se. And yet, if you’re a super recognizer, or I guess we could call it a moderate face recognizer, or not very good at recognizing faces, because indeed there are some people that are kind Of face blind, They don’t actually recognize people. When they walk in the room, I used to work with somebody like this. I’d walk into his office and he’d say, are you rich or are you Andrew? I’d say, well, am I rich rich? Like, you know, wealth rich? No. And he’d say, no, are you Richard or are you Andrew? And I’d say, I’m Andrew, we know each other really well. And he said, oh, I’m sorry, I’m kind of face blind. And it actually tended to be better or worse depending on how much he was working. Ironically, the (Time 1:38:29)
What Are Called Super Recognisers? People with photographic memory have to find a profession. There’s also this category of what are caled super recognizers. These people are, i should mention, highly employable by government agencies. That is the hyper functioning of an area of the brain that we call the fusiform gyrus. And it harbors neurons that respond to faces generally. Transcript: Andrew Huberman At remembering things that they hear, and oftentimes are not so good at learning physical skills. It’s not always the case, but often that’s the case. So be careful what you wish for. If you do have a photographic memory, there are certain professions that lend themselves particularly well to you. And indeed, a lot of people with photographic memory have to find a profession and have to move through life in a way that is in with that photographic memory. So again, it’s a super ability, it’s a hyper ability, and yet it’s not necessarily one that is desirable for most people. There’s also this category of what are called super recognizers. These people are, I should mention, highly employable by government agencies. These are people that have an absolutely astonishing ability to recognize faces and to match faces to templates. They can look at a photograph of say somebody on a most wanted list, and then they can look at video footage of let’s say an airport or a mall or a city street at fairly low resolution, and They can spot the person whose face matches that photograph that they looked at. Even if that video or other footage is of people’s profiles or even the tops of their heads and just a portion of their forehead, these people have just an incredible ability to recognize Faces and to template match. And again, these people often will take jobs with agencies where this sort of thing is important. Some of you out there probably are super recognizers and may or may not notice it. If you’ve ever had the experience of watching a movie and thought to yourself, wow, her mouth looks so much like my cousin’s mouth, or you look at a character in a movie or television show And you think, wow, they look almost like the younger sister of so-and Well, then it’s very likely that you have this, or at least a mild form of the super-recognizer ability. That is not memory per se. That is the hyper-functioning of an area of the brain that we call the fusiform gyrus. The fusiform gyrus is literally a face recognition area and a face template matching area, and it harbors neurons that respond to faces generally. So as humans and other non-human primates care a lot about faces and their emotional content, and the identity of faces is super important to us for all the kinds of reasons that are probably Obvious, knowing who’s friend, who’s foe, who do you know well, who’s famous, who’s not famous, etc. That is not memory per se. And yet, if you’re a super recognizer, or I guess we could call it a moderate face recognizer, or not very good at recognizing faces, because indeed there are some people that are kind Of face blind, They don’t actually recognize people. When they walk in the room, I used to work with somebody like this. I’d walk into his office and he’d say, are you rich or are you Andrew? I’d say, well, am I rich rich? Like, you know, wealth rich? No. And he’d say, no, are you Richard or are you Andrew? And I’d say, I’m Andrew, we know each other really well. And he said, oh, I’m sorry, I’m kind of face blind. And it actually tended to be better or worse depending on how much he was working. Ironically, the (Time 1:38:29)
The Importance of Visual Images for Learning and Remembering Things Better Next im ang to tell you about a study which points out the immense value of visual images for laying down memories. And this involves both the taking of photographs, something at’s actually quite easy, easily done these days with your phone. So i just briefly want to describe this paper, because it provides a tool that you can leverage in your attempt to learn and remember things better. The title of this paper is photographic memory, the effects of our volitional photo taking on memory for visual and auditory aspects of an experience. Transcript: Andrew Huberman More rested he was, the more face blind he would become. So it wasn’t a sleep deprivation thing. That exists, that’s out there. There’s the full constellation of people’s ability to recognize faces. That’s not really memory. And yet visual function is a profoundly powerful way in which we can enhance our memory. So whether or not you’re a super recognizer of faces, whether or not you are face blind or anything in between. Next, I’m going to tell you about a study which points out the immense value of visual images for laying down memories. And you can leverage this information. And this involves both the taking a photograph, something that’s actually quite easily done these days with your phone, as well as your ability to take mental photographs by literally Snapping your eyelids shut. So I just briefly want to describe this paper because it provides a tool that you can leverage in your attempt to learn and remember things better. The title of this paper is Photographic Memory, the Effects of Our Volitional photo taking on memory for visual and auditory aspects of an experience. I really like this paper because it refers to photographic memory, not in the context of photographic memory that we normally hear about, where people are truly photographic, look At a page and somehow absorb all that information and commit it to memory, but rather the use of camera photographs or the use of mental camera photographs, literally looking at something And deciding blink and snapping a, so to speak, snapping a snapshot of whatever it is that you were looking at and remembering the content. The reason I like this paper and the reason I’m attracted to this issue of mental snapshots is this is something that I’ve been doing since I was a kid. I don’t know why (Time 1:41:39)
How Does the Visual System Outcompete the Auditory System? Researchers found that when people take photos of things, there is enhanced memory for those objects later on. However, it degraded their ability to remember auditory information. This suggests the visual system can out compete the auditory system. If you really want to remember something or somebody, take a photo of that thing or person. Pay attention while you take the photo, but it doesn’t really matter if you look at the photo again. Transcript: Andrew Huberman A memory test at some point later. In this study, people were given volitional control, right? They were given agency in making the decision of what to take photos of. And I’ll just summarize the results. We’ll provide a link to this study. I should say that some of the stuff that they tested was actually pretty challenging. Some of them were pottery and other forms of ceramics that are of the sort that you see if you go to a big museum in a big city. And if you’ve ever done that and you see all the different objects, there are a lot of details in those objects and a lot of those objects look a lot alike. And so, you know, some will have two handles, some will have one handle, the position of the handles, how broad or narrow these things are. You know, a lot of this is pretty detailed stuff. They also took photos of other things. So basically what they found was that if people take pictures of things and they choose which things they’re taking pictures of, right, it’s up to them, it’s volitional, that there’s Enhanced memory for those objects later on. However, it degraded their ability to remember auditory information. So what this means is that when we take a picture of something or a person, we are stamping down a visual memory of that thing, and that makes sense, it’s a photograph after all, but we are Actually inhibiting our ability to remember the auditory, the sound components of that visual scene or what the person was saying. Very interesting, and points to the fact that the visual system can out-compete the auditory system, at least in terms of how the hippocampus is encoding this information. The other finding I find particularly interesting within this study is that it didn’t matter whether or not they ever looked at the photos again. So they actually had people take photos or not take photos of different objects. They had some people keep their photos and they had other people delete their photos. And turns out that whether or not people kept the photos or deleted those photos had no bearing on whether or not they were better or worse at remembering things, they were always better At remembering them as compared to not taking photos of them. What does this mean? It means that if you really want to remember something or somebody, take a photo of that thing or person, pay attention while you take the photo, but it doesn’t really matter if you look At the photo again, somehow the process of taking that photo, probably looking at it, you know, in a camera, typically we’d say through the viewfinder, now because of digital cameras On the screen, on the back of that camera, or on your phone, that framing up of the photograph stamps down a visual image in your mind that is more robust at serving a memory than had you Just looked at that thing with your own eyes. Very interesting, and it raises all sorts of questions for me about whether or not it’s because you’re framing up a small aperture, a small portion of the visual scene. That’s one logical interpretation, although they didn’t test that. I should also say that they found that whether or not you looked at a photo that you took, or whether or not you deleted it, never looked at it again, didn’t just enhance visual memory or The memory for the visual components of that image, but it always reduced your ability to remember sounds associated with that experience. So that’s interesting. And then last but not least, and perhaps most interesting, at least to me, was the fact that you didn’t even need a camera to see this effect. If subjects looked at something and took a mental photograph of that thing, it enhanced their visual memory of that thing significantly more than had they not taken a mental picture. In fact, it increased their memory of that thing almost as much as taking an actual photograph with an actual camera. And the reason I find this so interesting is that a lot of what we try and learn is visual. And for a lot of people, the ability to learn visual information feels challenging. And we’ll look at something and we’ll try and create some detailed understanding of it. We’ll try and understand the relationships between things in that scene. It does appear based on the study that the mere decision to take a mental snapshot, like, okay, I’m going to blink my eyelids and and I’m going to take a snapshot of whatever it is I see, Can actually stamp down a visual memory, much in the same way that a camera can stamp down a visual memory, of course, through vastly distinct mechanisms. No discussion of memory would be complete without a discussion of the ever intriguing phenomenon (Time 1:45:21)