Total Recall: Can Your Memories Be Hijacked? | S01E11

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All right, everybody, welcome back
to another episode of Reality Check the Science

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of Fiction. And today we have
doctor Christina Wright with us here today,

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and she is a neuroscientist by training
who received her PhD from Boston College and

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specialized in the neurobiological basis of pathological
fear, which to me is so fascinating

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because fear is all whole science in
and of itself. And today we're talking

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about something that could be quite terrifying
for a lot of people, which is

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the movie Total Recall and the memory
implantation that they used in the movie.

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Paul, thanks, prepare for hypercrime
activating activity. Just a gage tractor of

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beluy, you're late for light speed
like speed, it's too slow? All

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right, Reality Checks silliens. So, Christina, I don't know if you

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got a chance to see Total Recall
or read up on it, but tell

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me just some of your initial thoughts
with the movie. Yeah, so,

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I am going to be completely honest
with you. I did not have a

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chance to watch the whole thing,
So there there's my caveat right there.

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However, I did listen to watch
and read a few samaries, and I

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think that it touches on a really
interesting topic, and it's timely in where

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we are from a research standpoint and
think about whether or not this is something

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that could be a reality, how
far we from this being fiction versus something

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that could happen, What are the
the ethical implications, et cetera. I

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think maybe the thing that stood out
to me the most was the the at

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the end, you still don't really
know what was real and what was fake.

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But those were kind of my initial
takeaways. Yeah, no, and

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it's I've watched both versions, the
original one with Arnold Schwarzenegger and then the

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newer version, which I prefer the
Arnold version, even though he's like,

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I feel so bad saying this.
He's not the best actor, but it's

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so eighties. It's so cheesy and
gory and crass, and it's like there's

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so many things they say in it
they're like, oh my gosh, they

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would never say that now. And
the seed well not even the CGI,

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but the the prosthetics and the makeup
is so angies. It's so over the

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top. But I think one of
the really terrifying concepts in this movie is

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the fact that he doesn't know is
this a memory or is this not?

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Is this real or is this not? So? I don't know if you

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could speak to a little bit of
how memories work. Yeah. Absolutely,

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And before we get into that,
I do want to encourage you to watch

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it be documentary on Arnold Kursenegger's life
that just came out not too long ago,

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because it like goes over his progression
as an actor and it's fascinating.

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Well, let's get small. But
back to the memory point. How do

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you member work? Well, there
are like a billion different theories, and

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by abilion, I mean there are
major, probably like four major theories as

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to how memories take root in the
brain and what their function is, how

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they develop, what makes things stick, what makes things not stick? I

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think the purpose is of this what
we want to maybe zoom in on is

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what makes memories different from reality?
Is that what where we want to maybe

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go first? Or well, I
guess I guess I would like to underscause

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I don't actually understand how exactly memories
work, and I've heard things that may

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or may not be true. For
example, I've heard that every time we

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access the memory it degrades somehow.
So I have you know, college one

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oh one base level biology training,
and I understand how neurons work, and

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I think most people understand how neurons
work in the most basic sense, but

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when it comes to actual memories,
like what are they? Is it just

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data stored in the brain? Is
it a neuron itself? Is it code

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within a neuron? What is a
memory? Yeah, that's a great question.

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Okay, So what you're speaking of
when you're referring to that degradation process

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that can happen when you bring up
a memory every time is part of the

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theory of reconsolidation. So it's a
very robust and reliable theory of kind of

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how memory works. And essentially what
it refers to is once you have something

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that gets stored in the brain as
a memory, you have the ability to

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pull it back up into the top
of your mind and do something with it,

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you know, bringing it into consciousness
is how we interact with thoughts that

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we have stored over time and use
them to interact with our present environment.

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And each time you bring it up, you have to remember that you have

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other new information in your brain that
wasn't there when you filed it away previously.

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So it's not necessarily that it's going
to degrade degrade every time, but

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every time you resurface it, you
have the opportunity to edit it just a

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little bit, because you're incorporating it
with a whole bunch of new thoughts and

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information that weren't there previously. So
what that can do is, over time

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cause you to edit that memory in
a way that maybe you weren't planning to,

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and it can actually become fundamentally different
than the original one you stored however

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many years ago. There is actually
also a piece that refers to you.

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When you pull that memory up,
it can actually get stronger each time.

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Kind of a practice practice theory,
if you will. You know, every

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time you bring something up and you
think about it more, you're strengthening its

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neural connection in your brain before filing
it back away. So I wouldn't say

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degradation is the necessarily the thing that's
happening. Just reframing is probably happening more

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accurately, super interesting. So that
would be a good explanation as to why

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I might have a memory as a
child playing with some toys. But I

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don't remember if this is an actual
memory or if I remember it because I

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saw it on a home video recording
and I've watched that recording so many times

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that it reinforced the childhood memory exactly. And I think that that's one of

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the biggest takeaways to keep in mind
when it comes to memory, is that

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it's not reality, it's not fact, and it is very much generated by

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your brain and what you have going
on in your brain. So I think

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it's really dangerous in a lot of
instances to rely on your memory and really

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feel like super certain that you know
that's exactly how something happened, because it's

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just that true. And that's what
makes eyewitness testimony really challenging. But that's

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sad conversation for many of you know, and I have heard that, like

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there's there's the whole you know,
what was the criminal wearing And someone's like,

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he was wearing a blue shirt and
he was standing behind me, and

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someone else is like, well it
was a she and she was wearing a

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yellow shirt and she was standing in
front of you. It's like their memories

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are completely different. And that's just
so fascinating that our different experiences can I

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guess I like the word you said, edit, it can edit the memory

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in the way that we recall it. So given that understand that surface level

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understanding of how that works. Are
we are we able to like corrupt somebody's

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memory of something by repeating it like
to them. Like if I'm telling a

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story to a friend and I'm confidently
telling them, no, you were wearing

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a blue shirt. I promise you
would that start to change their memory of

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the way they remembered a certain day
or event. I think it certainly could

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if you. It depends on your
relationship with that person. Right, if

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some random person up the street is
trying to convince you that they know of

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something more about something than you do, you're far less likely to take them

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seriously and take that into consideration and
consider you know, maybe I could have

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been wrong. But if it's someone
you trust and you admire or you look

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up to and they're saying, oh
no, you're absolutely inaccurate on that,

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then yeah, that can lead you
to reconsider whether or not your original interpretation

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of the situation was correct and can
lead you to change your mind and there

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more change your memory. So what
happens to the old memory, because I'm

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just thinking of it like file containers, does the old memory get stored further

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back and it gets like overwritten,
like it gets covered with the new memory

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because it's still there. It's a
great question. So there are a few

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different theories on this, and there's
still quite a bit of work to be

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done to determine exactly how these pieces
are filed away in the brain and physically

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where they manifest themselves. Like if
I were to look at the brain,

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where is this memory, how is
it laid out? Et cetera. Still

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a lot of work to be done
there. But I would say probably the

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easiest way to think about it is
back to that editing principle, right,

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so you can pull up that original
memory, edit it a little bit,

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add new information. Oh, this
guy or person that I really admire says

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I'm wrong. I must be wrong. Let me change that, and then

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tug it back away. I would
say, from a like real estate standpoint,

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it would be highly impractical for us
to store successive versions of separate overlapping

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memories all over the brain because we
would run out of space eventually. So

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it's probably more likely, given that
we have a pretty efficient system, that

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it would edit, rewrite, and
then put it back where it was.

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Wow, that's absolutely insane to me. So on some level, there's bits

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of our memory that do get taken
and thrown out, vanishes into the ether

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or whatnot to some level. So
you know, cause it's like, I

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hate to bring up a negative,
but this is part of the science.

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If somebody has a traumatic memory that
the brain hides, that memory is still

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in there, deep deep, deep
talks away. But when we block out

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traumatic memories, they can get accessed
later in life. And that's something I've

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always been curious about because I know
that smell is a great way to access

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memories. I smell something and I
remember when I was ten years old having

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this magical experience. When it comes
to accessing traumatic memories or hiding traumatic memories,

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what do we know about that as
far as just the science of it

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right now? What is our understanding? So that's a super great question and

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super interesting to me. Definitely a
highlight of a highlight of my previous career.

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So when you think about a traumatic
memory, for example, it's different

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and a happy memory. It's different
than a memory of like a to do

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list that you have for or like
a grocery shopping list, right that's something

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that's a little bit more more mundane. So traumatic memories are more robust because

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they are associated with really intense emotional
responses. You wouldn't have the same type

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of intensity associated with a grocery list, so you're more likely to forget that.

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But when you when you think about
like the ability of a memory to

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be recalled, the ones that are
going to be more rope bust are therefore

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more likely to be recalled later and
repressed memories are definitely a real thing,

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and you could forget and not know
and have no conscious understanding of having a

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memory, and then someday, however, many years down the road, you

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get triggered in a particular way and
have that brought up into your consciousness.

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Totally possible. Memories that are more
likely the last that long are more salient

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because they either are associated with the
really strong emotion or they have like multi

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modal information associated with them, Meaning
you have a certain sight that is triggered,

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you have a certain smell that's triggered, maybe a sound, maybe an

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emotion. The more facets and types
of information that come through your senses that

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are aligned with that, and the
more powerful they are, make that memory

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more and more robust and more and
more likely to be triggered later on.

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Fear or traumatic memories are one of
the strongest things that we have, and

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so therefore they are quite likely to
be triggered later on. Let me let

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me pause and see if you have
any follow up questions there, because I

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think i'm I've had to go down
another product. Well, so that has

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to do with the mile in sheath, right. The milin sheath is like

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sort of the integrity of the memory. And my understanding of that is the

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mile and sheaf grows stronger, and
I'll let you explain what that is,

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but it grows stronger with two things, either repetition or something very intense that

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was very strong to remember, either
positive or negative. So I think a

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little point of clarification there. The
milin sheet is really critical for improving the

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ability of a signal to get from
one neuron to another. Without the milin

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sheath, a signal has to travel
much more slowly, and so it's not

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very efficient. And if a signal
doesn't get from one neuron to another quickly

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and efficiently, that connection dies over
time because it's not like not getting plugged

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in fast enough and powerful enough to
actually charge something. So when you think

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about the milin sheets, if we're
we're looking at a neuron we have a

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long axon that's a tail that connects
one neuron to another, and neurons communicate

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with each other by sending electrical and
chemical signals to communicate with each other all

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over the brain and create these really
fascinating and beautiful circuits. Mylon cheese are

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like little booys that are all that
are along that axon. And so when

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you put those little booies on that
axon, and I'm imagining like if you're

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at one of those public swimming arenas
outside in a lake, you know,

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like they have that rope that has
like those those little booies on it.

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It's just like that, and from
there you have an electrical signal that doesn't

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need to go through every little piece
of that neuron axon anymore. It can

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jump, so it makes it a
lot faster. So it goes boom boom

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bom boom bom boom boom, and
it's there instead of there are lested of

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this. Just I had a vivid
reminder of b when I was an anatomy

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class and he had us all go
around the karoom and clap, one student

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at a time. Yeah, yeah, Like that's a poor it's like a

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poor neuron connection. Having us each
clap one at a time, and then

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he had us practice clapping every other
person and it went faster, and then

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Tam did every fifth person. It
went even faster, and then we did

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like every like fifteenth student clapped in
the signal went around the room in like

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a couple seconds. So our that
was my little lesson in anatomy. So

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yeah, it's super interesting. So
that sheath can be stronger or weaker,

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and that's going to improve the signal
of the neurons being able to talk to

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each other and the quality of the
memory. Not going to improve the quality

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of the memory directly, but it
is going to improve the ability of a

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neuron to speak with another neuron and
develop a stronger connection. And it's the

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stronger connection between neurons that is the
foundation of a memory. So what I

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mean by that is there's a whole
principle called neurons that fire together wire together.

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If there's no firing, then there
are no connections in the brain because

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the neurons aren't active. If they
are firing, but they're not firing like

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in a way that they're connecting efficiently
with one one to another. Then if

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connections are not super strong, they'll
they'll die, so it happens to a

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dead neuron. And so unfortunately,
if you die, if a neuron dies

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because it's not being used, you
won't usually get that neuron back. So

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we need to keep using our brains
as much as possible to maintain as many

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of our neurons functioning throughout our lives. So constantly, learn, constantly,

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like just try and exercise, take
care of your body, do whatever you

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can to keep your brain healthy because
it's the only one you get. Wow,

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that's amazing. It's it's almost like
it really is kind of used or

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lose it. Because I took my
first major in college was American sign language,

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and I took four years and I
try head it to like can I

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sign my name? Thoughts about it, and it's like I have lost a

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whole language. And I know that
that's so many people's experience do so they're

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dead. So if I wanted to
relearn a language, it's not like it's

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atrophied and I need to just strengthen
it again. It's dead and I need

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to rebuild it. So I know
I should step that back a little bit

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sore. There is the possibility of
neurons dying for sure if they're not being

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used. More likely in a healthy
brain, those neurons have been recruited to

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do some other type of a job
because they weren't being used for that original

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job. But there is also the
possibility with like illicit drug use, maybe

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not enough sleep, maybe not enough
dreaming, that your neurons can die and

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then they're really really hard to hard
to replace, and they probably won't be

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replaced. And now I just want
to go down the rabbit hole of dreams.

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Yeah, I'm going to try and
stay good today and keep us on

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topic. I didn't yet answer your
second question about the strength of the memory

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and how that's how that's related to
or not related to the mylin sheet,

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so I just want to make sure
that that's crystal clear. So the milin

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sheet increases the ability of a neuron
to effectively communicate with another neuron. But

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the foundation of a memory is a
cluster of neurons firing together and strengthening that

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connection over time, so that anytime
you trigger that memory, a whole map

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of neurons that are devoted to holding
onto that memory light up and activate for

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you to experience that, and then
they deactivate when you put it away,

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so that here's here's an anecdote that
we can speak to. Years ago.

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I was in a minor motorcycle accident. I you know, super story.

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I was. I was a newer
writer and I was driving in the springtime.

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They salt the roads and they slid
out on salt, and I just

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had a minor accident. And then
back to back with that, I can't

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remember which one came first. I
was also in a ski accident, which

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was a little bit more traumatic.
I was not wearing a helmet. Wear

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your helmet, kids wear your helmets, and dult ski in trees and I

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hit my head pretty bad. And
ever since I had those two accidents back

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to back, I have been afraid
of anything that's going beast. So if

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I get on if I get in
a car, and usually it's left hand

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turns, if I'm in a power
at high speeds turning left, I get

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scared. If I'm in an airplane, and I was never scared of airplanes

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before, and we hit turbulence,
it cut really bad. For a while.

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I've been working on it, but
I would be the person who was

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just crying and I would be laughing
to the person next to me, and

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I'm like, I'm mean, this
was going to happen, don't worry about

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me. I'm just crying. I'm
like, my body's scared, but I'm

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not. And I would talk about
how I'm like, it's a physical fear.

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I'm not actually scared of planes.
I understand it's not going to crash.

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But ever since that accident, it
created that little fear cluster, and

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I've just been fighting tooth and nail
to not be scared of airplanes ever since.

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Is that a correct assessment? Yeah? Absolutely, And I think what

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you're really describing is a fear memory
that you created and was stored in your

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brain. And although you've a dressed
some of like the conscious pieces right in

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an attempt to overwrite this by understand
and knowing that, like I'm in an

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airplane, this is safe. Like
I can tell my friend that this is

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probably going to happen, but like
I know that this is not how I

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should respond. You've tried to combat
it a little, but there are some

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emotional responses that trigger physical responses,
which is kind of similar to what you

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would expect in post traumatic stress disorder
or anxiety and fear disorders, where if

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that brain pathway that was created and
activated and generated fear during that time when

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you were experiencing these accidents in this
trauma, if it's triggered, it doesn't

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matter what you think, it's just
going to make your body do what it

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thinks your body needs to do,
which is express fear. And that was

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actually part of my dissertation work was
figuring out what part of your brain creates

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this estimation of how much fear your
body should produce to a given stimuli,

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Like are there neurons that are responsible
for doing the math and saying like this

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is potentially scary, but I can
see that I'm safe and like this is

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not a place where I really need
to run and freak out or like or

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what. And what I ended up
discovering is that there are literally neurons that

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do that math and then tell you
how to behave and they are in the

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fear part of the brain, or
one of the parts that we think is

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really important for fear. And when
you have those neurons messing up their calculations,

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that's when you can get over exaggerated
fear responses to things that really shouldn't

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be that scary. Which is what
you're describing. So it could be that

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your estimation is just a little bit
off, and reasonably so, because you

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experienced something really traumatic before and it
was real before, and so what's your

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brain like, your brain is sitting
there being like, I know, you're

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telling me that this isn't gonna happen
again, but I'm telling you that it's

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already happened twice. That happens twice. That's about no more a motorcycle.

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I'm still gonna ski just I'll keep
it the blues and greens. Yeah,

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but the hell so that so the
brain doing bad math could be a that's

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that's kind of why we have totally
irrational fears, like things like phobias like

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spiders and public speaking I think are
two of the biggest fears. And public

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speaking isn't you know, it's not
dangerous, but people have such a fear

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based on maybe a bad experience socially
because we have such high social equity.

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That's interesting. So what about I
mean, it sounds like there is some

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science that we can kind of unpack
on memory implantation, because it sounds like

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we ourselves have the ability to overwrite
our own memories to a degree, because

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it's like, you know, we
can we can overwrite, you know,

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something that's not scary to be scary, or we can overwrite something that's a

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negative to become a positive, and
we it sounds like we're constantly doing this

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already. What about artificially, are
there any artificial processes of false memories?

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Or maybe not even artificial. I'm
thinking of like you know in Total Recall,

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where they hook him up to the
giant machine and zoop you have a

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whole fake vacation, or now you're
a spy, So it's maybe not always

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that machine. But what is the
scientific understanding of implanted false or artificial memories?

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That's a great question. So there's
actually a really cool ted talk from

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Sea Ramirez Lab. Sever Ramirez is
Lab. He's based in Boston. It's

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actually from like twenty thirteen. The
titles like a Laser and a Mouse or

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something like that. So I recommend
to anybody who's interested in this topic,

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but take a look at that video. But yeah, we do have the

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ability to implant false memories, and
I'll describe how that works. You'll maybe

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a little bit disappointed because they're not
as elaborate right now as a vacation in

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Bali or wherever. But yes,
we can manipulate memories for sure, and

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we can implant false ones as well. And so to describe a little bit

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of what they did, and we
can go into more detail if you want.

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But they went into a mouse's brain, and this is some of that.

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I use the same techniques in my
in my work as well. They

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went into a mouse's brain and they
had a mouse experience fear by I believe

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foot shock in this paradigm, but
it could be mistaken. But let's say,

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for argument's sake, we put a
mouse in a box, We shock

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their foot, We make them afraid
of this box. While doing that,

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we put a probe in their brain
that allows us to see which neurons light

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up when they become afraid. And
the purpose of that probe and the purpose

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of understanding which neurons light up when
they're afraid, is now we know that

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those neurons are involved in that that
fear of memory, right, and that

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fear experience, and that fear of
memory happening. So then what they did,

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after they made sure that they knew
that this rat was afraid of this

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box, they then moved this I
guess the mouse moved the mouse to a

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new box and then using a light
which activates those same neurons. Talk more

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about how that works. But you
can turn on a light and then activate

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those same exact neurons that activated in
a totally different environment where they express fear,

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And you can make a rat afraid
of a new environment and demonstrate a

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fear memory in a totally new place
that they've never been before, just by

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turning on the same neurons that were
responsible for creating that memory in the first

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place. So now you've created a
false memory because you've now made this mouse

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afraid of something they have no business
being afraid of because they've never experienced it

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before. And that's how that works. Wow, So I was the rot.

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I was the rot I was.
I had the ski accident, and

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now I'm scared of airplanes, which
are not correlated because yes, my brain

335
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took is. It was just high
speeds. Yes, what was scary to

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me? And I don't recall the
ski accident. Actually I have no memory

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of that day, but I could
only assume that maybe the turbulence of the

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skis during the crash was something that
was scary that my brain locked onto and

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all those specific neurons lit up,
and then those same neurons are getting reinforced

340
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on the airplane YEP. So I
would say there's a slight difference, right,

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because we don't know that we're activating
the exact same memory for you when

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you're on an airplane as when you
were in your accidents, whereas in the

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experimental version we do know because we've
tagged and selected those neurons specifically and then

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lit them back up in a totally
new place with yours. You could also

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being something called fear transfer, right, So you've experienced fear in this first

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environment, and then you've now found
yourself in an environment that has some of

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the same characteristics, which has allowed
you to read bring that past memory up

348
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in that past fear experience and fear
response up into your present consciousness, and

349
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then you've now applied it over multiple
times of doing that in iterations thinking to

350
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this new environment. So you may
have actively done that, not consciously,

351
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but you may have actively transferred your
fear from one place to another because it

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was so profouned for you. So
when we're implanting these memories, have we

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gone beyond mice or is that where
the research has stopped. So I would

354
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say there's probably a chance that there's
been a more recent experiment in a monkey

355
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that's happened, and from a human
standpoint, I don't know what the latest

356
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research is from the animal primate area, but I would imagine since that happened

357
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in twenty thirteen that they have probably
gone as far as a monkey. From

358
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the human standpoint, we've talked about
the idea of editing memories in situations such

359
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as like post traumatic stress disorder,
where it would be really freaking helpful if

360
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we didn't only have to rely on
talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy to try

361
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and overcome with consciousness these really robust
corresponses. So at one point there was

362
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a proposition and a bit of experimentation
that was being done to see if maybe

363
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ketamine, a specific lower dose of
ketamine could be administered timely, like very

364
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shortly after a traumatic experience occurred and
while that memory was being created and stored.

365
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If you if you were to inject
ketamine when that person was not quite

366
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yet fully formed that memory, like, can we interrupt the can we interrupt

367
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the consolidation of this experience and prevent
it from being as strong as it may

368
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be to create PTSD, maybe in
people who are predisposed to PTSD just because

369
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they have a lot of family members
or something like that who have experienced similar

370
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tendencies. So there has been some
discussion about, like can we use drugs

371
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to interrupt memories and prevent them from
being so profound? But then we get

372
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into this question of ethics, right, like how far can we really go?

373
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What is like? What is ethical? Who can be in charge?

374
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Is it? Is it okay to
edit someone's memories? You of course hope

375
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that people would want to do it
for good or maybe to inject happy memories,

376
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But there's also the converse possibility that
someone tries to do something that's more

377
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in line with the film, right
and delete someone's identity or delete a memory

378
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that's really critical to who they are
as a person or or or whatnot.

379
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I can't think of anything. So
it sounds like we can edit memories a

380
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few different ways. The first one
was just environmental, which is kind of

381
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the natural way that we edit our
memories already, everyone's doing that every single

382
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day. And the second one was
the example of the mouse, which would

383
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:22.240
be an electrical edit of the memories. And then the third one you talked

384
00:30:22.279 --> 00:30:27.400
about is a chemical edit of the
memories in all three or successful and the

385
00:30:27.519 --> 00:30:30.920
you know, the second two or
experience fields that we're exploring a little bit

386
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:40.880
more. Are there any other potential
ways that we could edit memories? I

387
00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:45.880
can't think of any at this moment. I would say, like some sort

388
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of mechanical like interference, right,
some sort of implant or like electronic Yeah,

389
00:30:56.640 --> 00:31:00.240
I know, it would still come
down to electronic or chemical, because

390
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:06.759
that's exactly that's what we are biological
features. So that really kind of gets

391
00:31:06.759 --> 00:31:12.200
me thinking about reality and consciousness because
if we can't even trust our own memories

392
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to provide us the accurate recollection of
what happened, I think it kind of

393
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brings into question kind of the challenge
of what defines consciousness and how our memory

394
00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:30.759
can define one's self because I have
an identity that's built on all of my

395
00:31:30.880 --> 00:31:36.200
memories. Yeah, if I can't
trust those memories, how can I trust

396
00:31:36.200 --> 00:31:45.039
my identity? So how from a
neuroscience perspective, how can we define identity?

397
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:48.920
Yeah? I love your questions,
This is great, Okay, So

398
00:31:49.799 --> 00:31:57.319
your identity and also your perception of
the world that you live in and what's

399
00:31:57.400 --> 00:32:01.720
real and what's not I actually like
to think of and this is maybe a

400
00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:07.160
little bit controversial as just like a
communal hallucination, oh man, because it

401
00:32:07.359 --> 00:32:14.519
is your what you have in your
brain and how you experience the world is

402
00:32:14.759 --> 00:32:20.319
all based up on based upon what
you perceived, and what you perceive is

403
00:32:20.359 --> 00:32:24.960
completely based upon what you pay attention
to. So if you whatever you pay

404
00:32:24.960 --> 00:32:30.920
attention to becomes a part of your
little world, and then your little world,

405
00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:35.240
along with everybody else's world, is
paying attention to a whole flew of

406
00:32:35.279 --> 00:32:37.799
things, and usually they're pretty much
in line with one another. And so

407
00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:43.960
we've developed, we've developed this idea
of reality and come up with customs that

408
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:47.359
we think are appropriate and not appropriate, and created all these little rules.

409
00:32:49.240 --> 00:32:53.599
But it's really just in agreed upon
state. Don't we don't know what a

410
00:32:54.240 --> 00:33:00.000
real one? Is? So fascinating
because we have these equips that we use

411
00:33:00.039 --> 00:33:02.720
in everyday language, it's like,
oh, they're living in their own reality,

412
00:33:02.799 --> 00:33:06.839
and it's like they truly are.
If that person is taking in a

413
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:10.440
completely different set of sensory information than
you are. And I'm not even talking

414
00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:15.960
about clinically schizophrenic people someone living in
their own little world. Their reality is

415
00:33:16.160 --> 00:33:21.599
truly different than yours, exactly,
and you can't repute it because it is.

416
00:33:22.079 --> 00:33:28.119
It fundamentally is. And I think
that that's where it's really important for

417
00:33:28.240 --> 00:33:34.799
me to help people develop more compassion
to people who do experience hallucination, such

418
00:33:34.839 --> 00:33:40.599
as right, people who have schizophrenia
or experience some sort of delusion and an

419
00:33:40.640 --> 00:33:45.799
inability to understand the reality that we
are. It's just that their inputs are

420
00:33:45.799 --> 00:33:50.519
different. Their perception of the world
is different. Their brain isn't set up

421
00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:54.720
to see and observe and understand things
in the way that ours is, and

422
00:33:54.759 --> 00:33:59.519
so of course they're going to come
up with a different result. And that

423
00:33:59.720 --> 00:34:07.119
is the reality period. Well.
And even excuse me, even looking at

424
00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:10.320
humans versus animals, because animals are
going to take in a completely different set

425
00:34:10.360 --> 00:34:14.880
of sensory information as well. So
I mean, this is kind of like

426
00:34:14.920 --> 00:34:17.559
breaking my brain right now. Sorry
audience, tell you guys listening this,

427
00:34:17.719 --> 00:34:22.239
I hope we all have some time
to decompress after this and absorb this podcast.

428
00:34:22.440 --> 00:34:29.599
But like you know, my dog's
reality is highly based on scent sensory,

429
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:34.679
so his world looks and feels completely
different than my world. So this,

430
00:34:35.440 --> 00:34:38.679
when you talk about neuroscience, it
really brings into question what is reality?

431
00:34:39.199 --> 00:34:44.039
And I can really see how reality
could be so fragile for some people

432
00:34:44.079 --> 00:34:47.800
who do use drugs because that gradient
of what we you said, the collective

433
00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:52.639
consciousness, what we define is reality, that gradient starts to break down in

434
00:34:52.719 --> 00:35:00.880
drug users and the staple reality begins
to dissolve. And that's a terrifying thought.

435
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:07.519
So what what do you teach people
when you're talking about developing compassion for

436
00:35:08.119 --> 00:35:15.400
others? I think at the center
of it all is I think we really

437
00:35:15.440 --> 00:35:22.559
need to move away from thinking of
people with mental illness and being instable,

438
00:35:22.719 --> 00:35:29.960
and thinking of them as being crazy
and scary, and think more of mental

439
00:35:29.960 --> 00:35:36.800
disorders as neurobiological disorders. These are
brain disorders, just like a disorder that

440
00:35:36.840 --> 00:35:39.599
you would have of the heart or
the arm, or the liver or the

441
00:35:39.719 --> 00:35:45.840
leg, some sort of problem that
you have with the body part. It's

442
00:35:45.880 --> 00:35:50.119
exactly that, just at this time
it's with the brain, and we don't

443
00:35:50.280 --> 00:35:53.079
understand what the problem is yet,
so we can't label it. And in

444
00:35:53.119 --> 00:36:00.719
the meantime, we've allowed all of
these kind of negative associations to take hold.

445
00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:04.840
Right that these people are crazy or
et cetera, et cetera. So

446
00:36:05.079 --> 00:36:08.119
I would really encourage people to come
away from this conversation with thinking about mental

447
00:36:08.119 --> 00:36:14.000
illness. It's just a body part
disorder and it's a brain problem, and

448
00:36:14.039 --> 00:36:20.039
we're working really, really hard to
figure out what those issues are so that

449
00:36:20.079 --> 00:36:24.599
we can fix them, just like
any other disease. That's really special to

450
00:36:24.599 --> 00:36:28.440
think about, and I'm glad you
brought that up in just like a very

451
00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:31.960
sensitive and compassionate way, and it
gets me thinking more about people who do

452
00:36:32.079 --> 00:36:37.360
see reality differently, whether schizophrenic or
et cetera. I have two things I

453
00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:40.760
want to say about this, and
one I don't know if this is true

454
00:36:40.840 --> 00:36:45.559
at all. I'm going to fact
check myself and comment in the show notes

455
00:36:45.639 --> 00:36:50.199
after this, But I have heard
that there's some tribal colonies, I don't

456
00:36:50.199 --> 00:36:55.000
know where where instead of treating schizophrenia
like a disease, they use these people

457
00:36:55.039 --> 00:36:59.440
and they keep them integrated in society, and they keep them as like wise

458
00:36:59.519 --> 00:37:02.000
people or storytellers, and then they
end up doing a lot better because there's

459
00:37:02.199 --> 00:37:05.480
looks like you said, you know, it's just one part of their brain

460
00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:08.280
that's degraded. It's the whole person
still a person, and so instead of

461
00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:14.599
ostracizing them from society, these tribes
keep them integrated into society with a role

462
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:19.000
that's better suited for the way their
brain works, because they could be storytellers

463
00:37:19.159 --> 00:37:22.320
or whatever. Have you heard of
this. I haven't heard of that specifically,

464
00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:25.079
but I really hope that it's true, and I think it translates to

465
00:37:25.159 --> 00:37:31.400
other populations with other issues as well, or even like aging populations. Right,

466
00:37:31.519 --> 00:37:37.360
the worst thing that we can do
is cut someone off from society and

467
00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:45.519
cut someone off from opportunities to figure
out how to do things well for them

468
00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:50.440
and how to interact with their environment
in a way that gives them joy or

469
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:54.239
inspires them or motivates them. And
there's a different there's a different plug and

470
00:37:54.320 --> 00:38:00.079
a different type of world that appeals
to everyone. I think about like,

471
00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:06.599
it's best if we can keep elderly
people involved in some way and keep them

472
00:38:06.679 --> 00:38:09.199
motivated, because what's life if you
don't have something to live for? Right,

473
00:38:09.760 --> 00:38:15.679
And for people who are on the
autism spectrum or something like that,

474
00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:17.800
it's just that your brains just need
things to be set up just a little

475
00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:22.639
bit differently. And if we took
time to figure out how they needed their

476
00:38:22.679 --> 00:38:25.679
world to be shaped in order for
them to be a little bit more successful.

477
00:38:27.800 --> 00:38:30.920
That would be the best solution because
ultimately we don't have to resort to

478
00:38:31.480 --> 00:38:37.639
medication, if we don't have to
write better to just figure out a way

479
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:42.559
to do it naturally. Absolutely,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah.

480
00:38:42.599 --> 00:38:44.519
The second thing I was going to
say with that, because I'm just

481
00:38:44.559 --> 00:38:51.280
curious about the schizophrenic brain and their
reality versus our reality is and I said

482
00:38:51.280 --> 00:38:55.920
this with quotations for those of you
even just listening is And I'm circling back

483
00:38:55.920 --> 00:39:01.440
to what you commented on earlier about
dreams, because people who are schizophrenic see

484
00:39:01.480 --> 00:39:06.719
things that aren't necessarily I'm saying this
with quotations. Again, they're not necessarily

485
00:39:06.760 --> 00:39:12.280
there is that because that there's a
possibility of their gradient between the dream world

486
00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:16.880
and the waking world is that that
veils a little bit thinner, So it's

487
00:39:16.880 --> 00:39:24.519
almost like they're dreaming in reality.
So I think we have to put dreams

488
00:39:24.559 --> 00:39:31.079
and delusions in slightly different categories just
because the neural circuitry that we study for

489
00:39:31.159 --> 00:39:35.880
both this is slightly different. So
I would think of it, I would

490
00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:39.719
think of the hallucis the hallucinations and
delusions that they experience more in terms of

491
00:39:40.039 --> 00:39:43.719
in the conscious mind. Right,
we're not conscious when we're dreaming, so

492
00:39:43.760 --> 00:39:46.360
that's a little that's a different state. But in the conscious mind, I

493
00:39:46.360 --> 00:39:51.519
would think of them more as just
different representations of the same reality, just

494
00:39:51.559 --> 00:39:54.760
that their inputs they are different and
they're coming up with a different story and

495
00:39:54.840 --> 00:40:00.559
they can go down different trajectories because
of it, which are often are more

496
00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:04.880
interesting. So they're interpreting the same
data, they still have the same data.

497
00:40:04.960 --> 00:40:07.800
Like I'm looking at a tree,
they're looking at a dragon. So

498
00:40:07.840 --> 00:40:10.840
their brain takes the green and they
think that's the color of the dragon.

499
00:40:10.960 --> 00:40:14.920
They take the leaves and those are
the dragon's scales. They take the shape

500
00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:16.519
of the tree, and it could
be the dragon's neck because that how like

501
00:40:16.840 --> 00:40:21.599
because their brain, we're all taking
in the same information, but they're reprocessing

502
00:40:21.639 --> 00:40:23.480
it differently, and that's where the
delusion comes from. Is that correct?

503
00:40:24.280 --> 00:40:29.679
So what I would say, they're
not taking in the information in the same

504
00:40:29.719 --> 00:40:34.599
way that you are, which would
lead to these types of delusions. Even

505
00:40:34.599 --> 00:40:37.599
though it looks on the outset that
like they're looking at the same tree you

506
00:40:37.639 --> 00:40:39.239
are, they might not be perceiving
the same tree. You are right,

507
00:40:39.280 --> 00:40:43.639
they might instead be perceiving this dragon. If they perceive a dragon, then

508
00:40:43.760 --> 00:40:47.719
like they're going off on a totally
different place in storyline, then you would

509
00:40:47.719 --> 00:40:51.400
be walking through a park, right, there might be a little bit more

510
00:40:51.480 --> 00:40:58.599
challenge on their adventure in an afternoon, But in terms of kind of thinking

511
00:40:58.639 --> 00:41:07.800
about how they're brain might also be
structured to support that interpretation. There's there's

512
00:41:07.039 --> 00:41:13.760
something called loose associations that takes place
in the brain of people who have schizophrenia,

513
00:41:13.880 --> 00:41:17.760
which allows them to make connections between
things that we wouldn't normally make connections

514
00:41:17.840 --> 00:41:22.719
to and can lead them to I
guess when you think about it from a

515
00:41:22.760 --> 00:41:27.000
neural perspective, you want to think
about it as like we have a certain

516
00:41:27.039 --> 00:41:31.079
group of neurons that are pretty predictably
going to be activated when we experience certain

517
00:41:31.119 --> 00:41:35.599
things. Theres take a totally different
path, and so they're bringing in all

518
00:41:35.679 --> 00:41:39.199
kinds of other information while also taking
in the information from the outside world that

519
00:41:39.239 --> 00:41:45.159
we are, but they're adding a
lot more to it and therefore perceiving something

520
00:41:45.519 --> 00:41:50.639
very different. Wow, because there
I don't know more creative way that's almost

521
00:41:50.719 --> 00:41:55.760
kind of beautiful it's it's so strange
to think about just how complicated the brain

522
00:41:55.920 --> 00:42:04.320
is, and that even kind of
makes me think about the I don't know

523
00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:07.840
where I was going with this,
but just all the different brain types out

524
00:42:07.840 --> 00:42:12.519
there, and how somebody might have
sort of like a superpower, like I've

525
00:42:12.559 --> 00:42:16.559
seen the sixty Minutes documentary where there
was the super recognizers. They never forget

526
00:42:16.599 --> 00:42:22.320
a face, and they can see
a face of an old person and a

527
00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:24.400
baby and be and have a whole
bunch of them and they can match those.

528
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:29.800
Yet those people's brains would do something
like that where it just takes in

529
00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:34.440
that information different than my face or
different than my brain, and they can

530
00:42:34.480 --> 00:42:37.880
pinpoint the face to the age every
time. Or people who have face blindness,

531
00:42:37.880 --> 00:42:40.480
they're not taking in that information.
They can't see a face at all

532
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:46.199
exactly. And I would say that
there's another component there to consider, which

533
00:42:46.239 --> 00:42:51.320
is that that type of the situation
and that type of the superpower is often

534
00:42:51.480 --> 00:42:54.360
both a blessing and a curse.
Because we have this brain, we have

535
00:42:54.400 --> 00:43:00.400
a finite amount of compute power,
is probably the best way to think about

536
00:43:00.400 --> 00:43:04.280
it. And you can spend that
cup in any way, shape or form

537
00:43:04.320 --> 00:43:07.039
you want. But if you do
vote a lot of power to one area,

538
00:43:07.440 --> 00:43:14.400
it's often because you're losing it from
somewhere else. And so that's another

539
00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:17.440
principle that you can think about when
you think about savant behavior, which is

540
00:43:17.440 --> 00:43:22.400
a very small portion of folks that
are on the autism spectrum, but they

541
00:43:22.440 --> 00:43:29.000
have these superpowers and they're able to
do things that most humans can't, but

542
00:43:29.039 --> 00:43:35.000
they often really struggle in other areas
of their life because of it. Yeah,

543
00:43:35.079 --> 00:43:39.559
the savant thing is super interesting.
So if we so we've pretty much

544
00:43:39.599 --> 00:43:43.480
proven that that's real, Like,
uh, you know, the five year

545
00:43:43.480 --> 00:43:46.760
old that can learn how to play
the saxophone and master it like that happens.

546
00:43:49.079 --> 00:43:52.679
Wow, that's amazing. It wasn't
Mozart considered to be a savant because

547
00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:54.960
he was playing full symphonies by the
time he was seven. I don't know,

548
00:43:55.079 --> 00:43:59.840
but I would not be surprised.
Yeah. I one of my favorite

549
00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:01.840
movie these about him as the movie
Amadeis, and that came out so long

550
00:44:01.880 --> 00:44:06.039
ago, I think in the eighties. But it's such an interesting story about

551
00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:09.159
how his life was and because he
was a child prodigy, he grew up

552
00:44:09.159 --> 00:44:13.599
to be kind of a messed up
adult who was not very well adjusted because

553
00:44:13.639 --> 00:44:15.519
he was only good at one thing, and that was writing music and playing

554
00:44:15.519 --> 00:44:23.760
symphonies and it's function in society in
other ways. Yeah, so let's talk

555
00:44:23.800 --> 00:44:30.480
a little bit more about total recall. Given our current understanding of how we

556
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:37.239
can implant memories are not, do
you think we're on a trajectory to be

557
00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:45.840
able to do this a little bit
more? I think we probably could.

558
00:44:46.079 --> 00:44:52.239
I think we probably won't because I
think that right now, the next revolution

559
00:44:52.400 --> 00:44:59.679
and technology is really this like machine
learning in AI space, and that really,

560
00:45:00.039 --> 00:45:05.079
I think is the next frontier of
a big push that also has its

561
00:45:05.119 --> 00:45:07.679
ethical considerations, right, and people
are already kind of nervous about that.

562
00:45:08.119 --> 00:45:15.719
And that's just a computer. I
can only imagine the pushback that you would

563
00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:19.800
get if you really went down this
path in humans. And I'm not even

564
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:22.159
sure how you would be able to
go about it, right, because it

565
00:45:22.159 --> 00:45:31.800
seems unfair to target patients who are
experiencing troubling scenarios with these experimental like memory

566
00:45:31.880 --> 00:45:36.920
manipulation techniques. So there are some
ethics to be considered there, like is

567
00:45:36.960 --> 00:45:39.760
it fair to do this to them? But you also couldn't really do it

568
00:45:39.800 --> 00:45:45.679
in someone who's not experiencing any complications
with their memory, because you couldn't really

569
00:45:45.719 --> 00:45:54.920
justify it, like why so unless
people just like voluntarily which forgetting his name,

570
00:45:54.960 --> 00:46:01.880
but this guy who was informed that
he voluntarily gave Arnold's character. Unless

571
00:46:01.880 --> 00:46:07.760
people did something like that and really
opted in for science, I don't see

572
00:46:07.800 --> 00:46:13.119
it like becoming a reality or certainly
not an ethical one. Maybe this is

573
00:46:13.119 --> 00:46:17.000
happening in like a basin underground somewhere, or another country that may not care

574
00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:21.960
about ethics the same way. Who
knows, or of more other other I

575
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:23.440
don't. I don't even want to
say developed countries, but other countries I

576
00:46:23.480 --> 00:46:29.719
know some have stronger ethics committees and
some have looser ethics committees. We could

577
00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:35.199
say it that way. So is
there anything else you want to talk about

578
00:46:35.360 --> 00:46:43.039
with memories fear memory implantation before we
get to our reality check moment? I

579
00:46:43.039 --> 00:46:46.519
don't think so. I think we've
covered a lot of really interesting stuff and

580
00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:52.239
this has been really fun for me. So if you have any other questions,

581
00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:55.400
I mean, I'd be happy to
keep in touch and help out.

582
00:46:57.119 --> 00:46:59.760
Yeah. Well, I think the
only other thing that I could talk about

583
00:47:00.360 --> 00:47:04.960
forever is dreams. But I am
sure I will find someone who will do

584
00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:07.760
a whole episode on inception. We
can talk correct, do we still the

585
00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:13.440
cows come home? Then? So
here's on reality check moment on a scale

586
00:47:13.480 --> 00:47:17.280
of one to five, going from
pure fiction, speculative science, fringe reality,

587
00:47:17.320 --> 00:47:23.079
emerging fact, and science fact,
how plausible is for us to implant

588
00:47:23.079 --> 00:47:29.039
memories in the same way that we
did in total recall. So I'm gonna

589
00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:32.159
have to go with emerging fact here, which I think is before on that

590
00:47:32.199 --> 00:47:37.360
scale if I haven't graded in out
re correction. And the reason for that

591
00:47:37.519 --> 00:47:42.159
is like, we have a foundation
of understanding from a neuroscience perspective to understand

592
00:47:42.199 --> 00:47:45.679
how quite a few pieces of this
puzzle work and be able to play with

593
00:47:45.760 --> 00:47:52.800
it enough to be dangerous enough to
have people question our ethics. So I

594
00:47:52.800 --> 00:47:57.880
think the potential is there. Whether
or not it's feasible to implement to a

595
00:47:57.960 --> 00:48:02.280
point where it would reach what we
thought recall is another question. But I

596
00:48:02.320 --> 00:48:06.599
do think there's quite a bit of
feasibility, and I hope that we've successfully

597
00:48:06.639 --> 00:48:12.400
demonstrated that. Wow, that's amazing, and you know this is just the

598
00:48:12.480 --> 00:48:15.719
running joke. Now. I have
not had an episode yet where we haven't

599
00:48:15.760 --> 00:48:20.880
brought up Uncle Ben from Spider Man, And with great power comes great responsibility,

600
00:48:21.039 --> 00:48:27.400
And there's just this really demand in
the scientific community to remain ethical and

601
00:48:27.480 --> 00:48:30.400
responsible in the practices that we're doing. Because it's like you said, Yeah,

602
00:48:30.440 --> 00:48:36.079
we could use this for good and
we could help people with dramatic memories

603
00:48:36.199 --> 00:48:38.199
or someone like me where it's even
a simple thing where I just don't want

604
00:48:38.199 --> 00:48:43.280
to be scared on airplanes anymore.
Or we could help people go on lovely

605
00:48:43.400 --> 00:48:46.159
vacations without leaving the comfort of their
home. That could be really fun for

606
00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:52.000
somebody who maybe isn't physically able to
do or experience certain things. So those

607
00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:54.519
are really cool, positive things that
we could do. But on the other

608
00:48:54.599 --> 00:48:59.960
hand, we saw on total Recall
just how terrifying and horrible this could go.

609
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:02.840
Oh. So it's just a reminder, Uncle Ben, with great power

610
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:07.559
comes great responsibility, and we just
hope that the scientific community continues to do

611
00:49:08.920 --> 00:49:15.000
good as we move forward. So, Doctor Wright, if they're we're going

612
00:49:15.079 --> 00:49:20.559
to be wrapping up here now,
is there any if you want people to

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contact you or not contact you,
or follow up on any of the research

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that we talked about or concepts that
we talked about. Do you have recommendations

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00:49:27.480 --> 00:49:30.360
for books, blogs, et cetera
for people to follow up on with some

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of the concepts we talked about that
books and blade but see probably. Oh

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actually, there's one book called The
Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Deutsge,

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and I have been tuning the horn
of this book for many, many years

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now, and for people who are
really interested in getting a digestible but like

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sophisticated enough understanding of how the brain
works and how you can really change your

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brain, I think that's a great
book to read and you learn about things

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that you really didn't think were possible
and are pretty mind blowing in a medical

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setting. So definitely check that out. And I of course open if anybody

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has questions after this or wants to
bring anything new to my attention. Since

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I left my lad bench two years
ago, I'm always happy to learn new

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00:50:28.239 --> 00:50:32.719
things and ye with you. Well, we'll leave your contact information in the

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description below, and thank you so
much everybody. This has been another episode

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of reality Check Check