Brains Byte Back

In today's episode, we will be sharing an interview of Brains Byte Back host, Sam Brake Guia, on the podcast Psychology After Dark, where they discuss the moral and ethical implications of dark web markets.

If the name Psychology After Dark sounds familiar, the show's hosts Dr. Jessica Micono and Dr. David Morelos joined us on our previous Brains Byte Back episode “The Psychology of Conspiracy Theory Beliefs.”

In this episode of their show title “Silk Road,” they discuss what is crypto-anarchism, the philosophical underpinnings of dark web markets, and how dark web markets impact everyone even if they are not actively buying or selling goods or services. Sam also shares his thoughts on the case of Ross Ulbricht.

Creativity is a skill that so many corporations and businesses aspire to foster and harness. However, businesses often struggle to create a conducive environment for this, especially in workplaces riddled with dull meetings and never-ending PowerPoint presentations.

Many businesses place great importance on intelligence but forget the fun, and that is what our guests today are trying to change in the corporate world.

In this episode of the podcast, we are joined by Kenny White, Chief Creativity Architect and Co-Founder of Funworks, a creative agency using neuroscience research to bring fun into the corporate setting, allowing businesses and their employees to achieve their creative potential.

Alongside White, we are also joined by Erica Fortescue, neuroscience expert, and the former Creativity Architect at Funworks.

In the episode, White explains how a road trip from Alaska to Costa Rica led him to become a co-founder of the company and how the company created "(fun)workshops" in business environments, based on the founder's experience of writing in sketch comedy groups.

He highlights how the company uses sketch comedians alongside graphic illustrators to record ideas in image form to create an environment of fun and laughter to produce content.

Fortescue also explains how her work, alongside some of the most pre-eminent neuroscientists and psychologists in the world, allowed her to optimize Funwork's creative process.

You will learn what the phrase "Neurons that fire together, wire together" means, how we get stuck in thinking loops that stifle our creativity, and how to get out of these loops. Hint, it involves driving through a house (metaphorically).

She also shares with our listeners what fMRI and EEG studies tell us about how our unconscious produces creative ideas, and how we bring them to the surface.

The pair also give examples of unique work environments they produced to help come up with ideas -- like how they rented out the Swedish American Hall and sat in Viking chairs to come up with a new promotional video for the game "Assassin's Creed Valhalla," which became the best selling game in the franchise's history, with 1.7 million copies sold at launch.

And finally, Fortescue explains how open-ended questions can lead to better ideas. And even though this sounds straightforward, Fortescue provides an example that highlights how Funworks takes an unconventional, yet effective approach to this.

We now have access to more information at our fingertips than ever before. YouTube videos, podcasts, audiobooks -- all of these forms of media have allowed us to consume information faster than ever, but we still face the challenge of retaining this information.

In this episode, we will break down scientifically proven methods to retain more information and improve recall. To do this we are joined by two memory specialists.

The first is Scott Crabtree, the Chief Happiness Officer at Happy Brain Science, a company that strives to improve happiness for professionals and organizations using neuroscience.

In addition to Crabtree, we are also joined by Marissa Blaszko, a polyglot that speaks 6 languages and the founder of the website Relearn a Language.

Crabtree specializes in the science of learning, memory, and happiness. He shares with us the reason why we forget what we are looking for when passing from one room to another, why emotions are important to recall information, and how chocolate can help with memory.

From our discussion with Blaszko, you will learn the two secret weapons of polyglots, some of the most out-of-date myths about language learning that annoy her the most, and how you can create your own memory palace to store information.

Moreover, Blaszko also explains what are Memory Championships and how listeners can apply the techniques of champions in their own lives.

Imagine seeing someone you fancy but you don't have the courage to ask them out and then someone else does, or not going to a party, only to see numerous pictures of all your friends having fun there later on, on social media.

Now imagine this, but instead of a party or a date, you lost out on thousands of dollars. That is the crushing feeling of fear of missing out, or FOMO as it is more commonly know, and the feeling many are probably having at this very moment due to Bitcoin.

In today's episode, we will explore how this FOMO, alongside other psychological factors, influences the price of Bitcoin. You will learn, what are the biological mechanisms that happen when we are having FOMO, how the news influences public opinion of Bitcoin, and the different types of Bitcoin investors, and what separates them psychologically.

Joining us on the show is Federico De Faveri, a full-stack software engineer and Bitcoin fanatic who has closely watched this space since 2014. We discuss how "Pump and Dump" scams work in the crypto world, how trading bots with stop losses create a domino effect that can lead to price dips or rallies, and the best ways to find trustworthy Bitcoin news.

But before our chat with Faveri, we take a step back to briefly understand how Bitcoin works, how it is mined, and the technical factors that influence its price. To do this, we are joined by Nick Hansen, CEO of Luxor Technology, the largest Bitcoin mining pool in North America. Hansen shares with us an analogy to better understand how Bitcoin works, how Bitcoins are mined, and what a Bitcoin halving is.

And stay tuned to the end where we ask both these Bitcoin experts what their predictions are for Bitcoin's price in 2021.

As Elon Musk's Neuralink and other implantable brain-machine interfaces continue to advance, it seems like we will soon be living in a world where our mind can control everything.

But before we reach this future, it is important for us to first understand our own minds, how they work, and how to control them. In this episode, we will explore the power and importance of our inner voice.

To better understand the chatter in our heads, we are joined by Ethan Kross, an award-winning professor at the Psychology department of the University of Michigan. He is also the author of the new book CHATTER: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, which comes out today.

In this episode, we discuss the TED talk "Mind Control: How to win the war in your head" and why our inner voice can often be very negative. We also look at how we can change this, shaping our inner dialogue to become more positive, thus creating the basis of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).

In addition to this, you will learn how meditation influences our inner voice, his work relating to social media and well-being, why using our name when talking with ourselves can help us overcome difficult situations. Kross also explains how he uses mental time travel to put problems into perspective.

Sam Brake Guia, the host of Brains Byte Back, featured on a handful of podcasts as a guest last year, however, on today’s episode, we share a special interview that is likely to be of interest for listeners of Brains Byte Back. Sam was invited onto the podcast “‎Don't Worry, We'll Talk It Out” hosted by Randon Heim  And if you're a longtime listener of Brains Byte Back, you might remember Randon as he was a guest on the episode “Cancel Culture: A digital witch hunt.”  In this episode, titled “Social Media and our Psychology” we discuss the effects of social media, political polarization, conspiracy theories, information overload, and ways to form a healthy relationship with technology and social media.

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku once said, “The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10,000 other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.”

Our brain is undeniably an incredibly complex and impressive object, and this is best demonstrated with brain plasticity, a term that refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt as a result of experience.

Listen to this podcast on Spotify, Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, Listen Notes, PodBean, and Radio Public.

To better understand how the brain does this and the processes that take place when we learn new skills, we spoke with Alicia Walf, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and a senior lecturer in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer.

Walf studies the brain mechanisms of stress and reproductive hormones as they relate to behavior and cognition, brain plasticity, and brain health over the lifespan. Her specific areas of expertise are memory, emotions, and social interactions and how these functions not only arise from the brain but change the brain itself.

In this episode, Walf explains how the job of London cab drivers impacts their hippocampus (the area of the brain responsible for memory), how capable we are to retrain in tech jobs relating to cyber and coding at a later age, and what studies on frequent video game players vs novices show us about brain plasticity. She also discusses how the olfactory sense can help us better understand dementia and memory.

Imagine being at your computer, busy with work and on the brink of burnout, when you receive a message that tells you to relax and take the rest of your day off, for the benefit of your mental health. This is the goal for Erudit, a software company that uses algorithms to predict and prevent employee burnout.

In the same way that Netflix strives to understand each individual user and offers them options tailored for them, Erudit wants to do the same to reduce employee burnout, understanding what they need to stay mentally healthy and well.

To understand how this software works and how it was created, we are joined by Ricardo Michel Reyes, Erudit AI co-founder and AI director, alongside Pablo Gil Torres, the CPO of Erudit.

In this episode you will learn the differences in difficulty when identifying meaning between Germanic languages such as German, English, Dutch, and Romance languages, such as Spanish, French, Italian, etc). You will also learn about the origins of how they created their natural language processing algorithm and how their software advises companies when an employee is close to burnout.

In addition to this Pablo and Ricardo explain how they developed their own psychological theory named Semantic Analysis, based on math and linguistics.

As 2020 finally comes to an end, on today’s episode we take a look back at some of the best and most insightful episodes of the year. Episodes include: 

How to Become an Effective Critical Thinker

Neuromarketing: Psychology That Influences Consumer Behavior

‘The Psychedelic Renaissance’ with the former VP of content at High Times

Sex Robots, INCELs and Porn Addiction with a Neuroscientist Researching Human Sexual Behavior

The science behind learning soft skills and hard skills, with Neuroscience specialist Todd Maddox, Ph.D.

According to The Guardian, lockdown measures significantly increased levels of stress, anxiety, and depression in the UK. And according to the American Psychological Society, Americans across the pond also felt the stress of living in lockdown. It has been a stressful year for many of us.

In light of this, we want to dedicate this episode to happiness and explore what makes us happy, along with actions we can take to improve our levels of happiness in our everyday lives, based on psychological research.

Today we are joined by Dr. Alan Chu, an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology Program at the University of Wisconsin.

He joins us on the show to discuss research relating to happiness based on positive psychology, the PERMA model (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment), and how to implement practices based on this model in our everyday lives.

In this episode, you will learn Dr. Chu's four steps and how to incorporate these happiness practices in your daily life.

In addition to Dr. Chu, we are joined by Dr. Mike Rucker, Chief Digital Officer for Active Wellness, a company that delivers wellness services to inspire people toward a healthy, active life. He is also the author of The Fun Habit that will be coming out next year.

He joins us to discuss why he believes traditional psychological research into happiness is inaccurate, and what we should aim to achieve in order to obtain a greater level of happiness in our everyday lives.