why do we repeat certain patterns — and how can we change them?

in this episode, we explore the hidden mental maps that shape our decisions, habits, and learning. our guest, Mona Garvert, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, shares how the brain builds and updates these maps — and what happens when they get outdated.

we talk about memory, anxiety, and how reshaping your inner map can help you navigate life with more clarity and ease.

what do you really know about dopamine? that it’s the hormone of pleasure and happiness? that when it’s low, we lose motivation? or that we should cut out “fast dopamine” to enjoy life more? these are all popular claims spreading online — and I got curious: how much of it is actually true? do I need a dopamine detox? and does that even exist?

to find out, I spoke with Dr. Talia Lerner, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies how dopamine shapes motivation, learning, and habits. Talia has a deep research background — she studied at Yale, did her PhD at UCSF, and later worked at Stanford, where she explored how different dopamine pathways drive different behaviors.

Have you ever stopped to think that only humans are truly capable of self-awareness? The ability to reflect, notice our mistakes and successes, assess our skills, and have an inner dialogue — these are uniquely human traits. But how do they actually work?

That’s exactly what today’s guest studies. Professor Stephen Fleming is Principal Investigator at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, where he leads the Metacognition Group. He’s also the author of Know Thyself, a book about the science of self-awareness.

In this episode, we talk about why overconfidence can be misleading, how being too self-critical can hold us back, and how stress and anxiety affect our ability to notice mistakes and build real confidence in our decisions.

how often have you been absolutely sure you saw someone or something, only to realize you were mistaken? 

that’s definitely my friend! or here comes my bus!

only for it to turn out to be a complete stranger, and the "bus" was actually a tram. these little moments remind us just how fragile the boundary between reality and imagination can be.

I explored this question with Dr. Nadine Dijkstra, who is the Principal Investigator of the Imagine Reality Lab at the Institute of Neurology at University College London, UK. we discussed:

• why imagination and reality can easily blend and how that shapes our perception of the world
• how subjective our experience of reality is
• how emotions and imagination influence our decisions and behavior