Dr. Matthew MacDougall

Sponsors: HVMN, Levels, Thesis

Brain Function & Injury; Brain Tumor Treatment

Frontal Lobe Filter; Sleep Deprivation

Neuroplasticity, Pharmacology & Machines

Neuralink, Neural Implants & Injury, Robotics & Surgery

Sponsor: AG1 (Athletic Greens)

Neocortex vs. Deep Brain

Decoding Brain Signals

“Confidence Test” & Electrical Stimulation; RFID Implants

Bluetooth Headphones & Electromagnetic Fields; Heat

Brain Augmentation & Paralysis

Sponsor: InsideTracker

Brain Implants & Peripheral Devices

Brain Machine Interface (BMI), Neurofeedback; Video Games

Improving Animal Experimentation, Pigs

Skull & Injury, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Brain Health, Alcohol

Neuroplasticity, Brain Lesions & Redundancy

Car Accidents & Driver Alertness

Future Possibilities in Brain Augmentation & BMI; Neuralink

Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Momentous, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter

The Huberman Lab Podcast features a discussion with Dr. Matthew McDougall, head neurosurgeon at Neuralink, about the company's mission to develop technologies to improve brain function and communication between humans and machines. The podcast covers topics such as brain function, plasticity, and the potential for brain augmentation through implanted devices and AI. Neuralink's first goal is to help quadriplegics regain agency over their movements, and the company is developing a system to stimulate the spinal cord and bypass damaged areas to reconnect the brain to the body. The podcast is sponsored by various companies offering products related to cognitive performance and health. The episode also includes information about brain surgery, the use of psychedelics to open up neuroplasticity, and the use of video games as a training environment for people to get better at controlling assistive devices. The podcast encourages mechanical engineers, software engineers, and robotics engineers to apply for jobs at Neuralink.

- The Huberman Lab Podcast discusses science and science-based tools for everyday life.
- Dr. Matthew McDougall, head neurosurgeon at Neuralink, is a guest on the podcast.
- Neuralink aims to develop technologies to improve brain function and communication between humans and machines.
- Dr. McDougall discusses his own experience with implanted devices and the experiments happening at Neuralink.
- The podcast provides insight into how human brains work and how they can be improved through robotics and engineering.

- The podcast is separate from the speaker's teaching and research roles at Stanford.
- The podcast aims to provide free information about science and science-related tools to the general public.
- The episode is sponsored by HVMN Ketone IQ, LEVELS, and Thesis, which offer products related to cognitive performance and health.
- HVMN Ketone IQ increases blood ketones, which are the brain's preferred fuel, and can benefit cognitive work even if one is not following a ketogenic diet.
- LEVELS is a program that uses a continuous glucose monitor to give real-time feedback on how different foods and activities affect blood glucose levels.
- Thesis makes custom nootropics designed to place the brain and body into a specific state ideal for a particular type of work or physical effort.

- The speaker is a brain surgeon who uses Bluetooth headphones and is not worried about EMF fields across the skull.
- The energy levels involved in Bluetooth headphones are tiny and not in the range of ionizing radiation that causes tumors.
- The speaker stopped using earbuds due to misplacing them and concerns about ventilation through the sinus systems.
- Heat and neural tissue are not friends, but the body has a distributed fluid cooling system that carries heat away from any area of the body that's focused heating.

- Neuralink's first goal is to help quadriplegics regain agency over their movements.
- They are developing a system to stimulate the spinal cord and bypass damaged areas to reconnect the brain to the body.
- Basic research by academic pioneers in neuroscience paved the way for Neuralink's work.
- The company owes a debt of gratitude to these researchers for their selfless hard work.

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- Blood work is important to monitor hormone markers, lipids, metabolic factors, etc. that impact immediate and long-term health.
- InsideTracker has a personalized dashboard to address nutrition-based, behavior-based, and supplement-based approaches to move values into optimal ranges.
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- Neuralink has lofty ideas for augmentation, including electrical stimulation of the hippocampus for greater memory abilities and the ability to hear each other's thoughts through implanted chips in the brain.
- The technology for nonverbal communication through implanted devices already exists, but refinement is needed for more natural speech.
- Peripheral devices, such as tactile gloves, have a lower barrier to entry and adoption compared to brain surgery requiring devices.
- Bit rate is a useful metric for measuring the efficacy of assistive devices in conveying useful information into and out of the brain.
- The ceiling for Neuralink's technology is high, with the potential to interface with millions of neurons for a high bandwidth brain interface.

- People who are blind have used canes for a long time to navigate the world by translating visual cues into somatosensory cues.
- Neuralink is trying to achieve a similar goal by inserting chips and robotics into the nervous system to help people navigate more safely through the world.
- The role of AI and machine learning in this type of work is to take a crude software intelligence and couple it with human intelligence to allow the two to learn from each other.
- Video games can be used as a training environment for people to get better at controlling these devices, and some studies have shown that they can make people more proficient at learning and motor execution.
- Surgeons who play video games are better at their job.

- Neuralink has been open about their goals and progress, including holding online symposia to share their discoveries in animal experimentation.
- The company uses pigs as a biological platform to study the safety of their implant devices, as their skulls are close enough in size and shape to humans.
- The animals used in Neuralink's research are treated humanely, with no deprivation or adverse stimuli used to motivate them.
- Pigs are commonly used in medical device research, particularly in the cardiac area, as their hearts are similar to human hearts.
- Monkeys are used to validate the functional level of the implant devices, as they are able to signal that they have seen or sensed something.

- The skull is a good adaptation for protecting the brain, but has some vulnerabilities.
- The temporal region of the skull has thin bone and a large artery, making it susceptible to fractures and blood clots.
- The fluid sheath around the brain provides protection against traumatic brain injury.
- Most traumatic brain injuries occur from accidents like car crashes or falls, not just sports.
- Helmets do not always cover the temporal region close to the eyes, but this area is not usually the site of sports-related injuries.

- Alcohol consumption is the most common source of brain damage, causing atrophy and thinning of the gray matter cortex.
- Studies show a near-linear relationship between the amount of alcohol consumed and brain atrophy.
- Amphetamine use, such as Adderall and Ritalin, is on the rise and its effects on the brain are not well understood.

- The discussion is about neuroplasticity and the ability to stimulate brain areas to invoke plasticity.
- Experiments have shown that stimulating certain brain areas can lead to massive plasticity, but lesion experiments have also shown that there is no one critical area of the cortex.
- The ability of the brain to overcome deficits caused by lesions depends on species, age, and redundancy of circuits.
- Adult humans are vulnerable to losing small parts of their brains and losing discrete functions.

- The author suggests that cars could benefit from a sensor that detects whether a driver is alert or sleepy.
- This could help prevent accidents caused by decreased alertness, which is responsible for approximately a third of accidents between vehicles.
- The author speculates that Tesla cars may already have a simple eye tracking program to detect whether a driver is looking at the road.
- The program is not strict and can be bypassed by wearing sunglasses or taping over the camera.
- The author is impressed by the rapid development of electric cars and brain-machine interfaces.

- The brain is a collection of functional modules that can fail in isolation.
- Damage to the brain can affect any function, from hormone control to muscle movement.
- Neurosurgery is high stakes, but can lead to satisfying results, such as using a laser to eliminate tumors with minimal damage to surrounding brain tissue.
- This modern approach to surgery can lead to better clinical outcomes with fewer side effects.

- The speaker is excited about the possibilities of brain augmentation and brain-machine interface.
- They want to tackle malfunctions of the brain such as addiction, depression, suicide, and obesity.
- They envision full human expansion of cognition into AI and unrestricted communication with anyone.
- They encourage mechanical engineers, software engineers, and robotics engineers to apply for jobs at Neuralink.
- They thank the interviewee for their public-facing stance and mission to help patients.

- The text is a thank you message for a discussion about the human brain and Neuralink's efforts to overcome brain and nervous system diseases and augment brain function.
- Links to learn more about the work are provided in the show notes.
- The podcast can be supported by subscribing to the YouTube channel, leaving a review on Spotify and Apple, and checking out the sponsors mentioned.
- The Huberman Lab podcast discusses supplements and has partnered with Momentus Supplements.
- The Huberman Lab can be followed on social media for related content.
- The Neural Network newsletter is a monthly newsletter with podcast episode summaries and toolkits for optimizing various aspects of health, which can be accessed for free on the Huberman Lab website.

- The conversation is about the basic information about brain function that can be learned from clinical approaches of lesions, strokes, and stimulation.
- The frontal lobes act as a filter, controlling impulses and calming the rest of the brain down from acting on every possible impulse.
- Sleep deprivation has broad effects all over the brain, affecting visual cortex and motor coordination. It is not clear if one part of the brain is more affected than another.

- Neuroplasticity is the ability of the nervous system to change its wiring and strengthen or weaken connections.
- Classical psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin can open up neuroplasticity through the release of neuromodulators like serotonin.
- Plasticity decreases in older brains, making it harder for them to learn new things or change behavior.
- While machines like implanted electrodes and computers can potentially increase plasticity, pharmacologic agents like psychedelics have a broader impact.
- Plasticity research will likely be most effective when focusing on pharmacologic agents.

- Neuralink is developing a neural implant that can be inserted into the brain using a robotic insertion device.
- The first goal is to implant the device into the motor cortex of quadriplegic patients to help them control a computer and regain digital freedom.
- The robotic insertion device is necessary because the electrodes are too small and the blood vessels too densely packed for a human hand to place them accurately.
- The mission of Neuralink is to reduce human suffering, with a focus on people with terrible medical problems that have no options right now.
- Eventually, there is hope to bring AI as a tool embedded in the brain to augment human capabilities.

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- The outer portions of the brain consist of neocortex, while deeper regions control mood, hormone output, and sleep.
- Deeper parts of the brain tend to have more predictable functions, while the outer surface is more varied between species.
- The neocortex's function is still unclear, and there is a lot of unexplored brain real estate.
- Gelastic seizures, or uncontrollable fits of laughter, can be caused by a small population of neurons deep in the brain, such as in cases of tumors in the hypothalamus.

- There are two approaches to augmenting the brain: pharmacology and micro electrodes.
- Neuralink is currently solely focused on decoding the brain through electrical stimulation and recording.
- In the immediate future, the goal is to have patients control electronic devices with their motor intentions alone.
- Neuralink is using smarter algorithms to decode motor intentions out of the brain and has been successful in monkeys.
- The transformation of electrical signals from motor cortex to a mouse or robot arm is not a trivial problem.
- There are multitudes of useful signals in each area of the brain that can be decoded.

1. Scientists have a long history of experimenting on themselves to understand how intention and awareness of goals can shape outcomes in biology.
2. The Neuralink technology is being developed to reverse paralysis, but it currently wouldn't make sense for an able-bodied person to get one.
3. The small lump on Dr. McDougall's hand is a writable RFID tag that can unlock doors and store data.
4. The RFID chip is passive and coated in biocompatible glass, and can last the rest of a person's life.
5. The procedure to implant the RFID chip is a simple outpatient procedure that can be done with a lidocaine injection or without any anesthetic.

Dr. Matthew MacDougall: Neuralink & Technologies to Enhance Human Brains | Huberman Lab Podcast