Mind & Matter

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About the guest: Caetano Reis e Sousa, DPhil is an immunologist and Principal Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London. His lab studies immune system function, including its ability to fight infection and cancer.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Reis e Sousa discuss: dendritic cells & innate immunity; how the immune system recognizes pathogens, damaged cells, and cancer cells; gut microbiome & non-pathogenic bacteria; inflammation; vitamin D & gut-immune interactions; cancer; and more.

Related episode:

• Ketogenic Diet, Cancer, Microbiome, Nutrition & the Immune System | Maayan Levy | #72

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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About the guest: Robert Barton, PhD is an evolutionary anthropologist and Professor at Durham University. He studies the evolution of the brain and behavior across species, including humans.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Barton discuss: mammalian brain evolution; how brain and body size scale across mammals; how metabolism relates to brain size and function; the evolution of the neocortex & cerebellum in primates & humans; the concept of “intelligence” and whether it relates to brain size; and more.

Related episodes:

• Evolution of Complex Behavior, Perception, Cognition, Consciousness & the Brain | Paul Cisek | #107
• Organisms, Cities, Companies & the Science of Scale | Geoffrey West | #12

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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About the guest: Melissa Herman, PhD is a neuroscientist and associate professor at the University of North Carolina. Her lab studies the effects of drugs on the brain and behavior in rodents.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Herman discuss: sex differences in the brain between males and females; behavioral variability among individuals; the effects of psychedelics like psilocybin on the amygdala and hypothalamus; effects of alcohol and vaporized nicotine; and more.

Related episode:

• Sex Differences in the Brain, Endocannabinoid Biology, Purpose of Juvenile Play Behavior, Cannabis & Pregnancy | Margaret McCarthy | #81

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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About the guest: Giulia Santoni, PhD is a neuroscientist who obtained her PhD at the EPFL in Switzerland, where she studied epigenetic influences on memory formation.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Santoni discuss: transcription & gene regulation; synaptic plasticity; learning & associative memory; epigenetics, histones, DNA methylation, and mechanisms of gene regulation; chromatin plasticity & the neural basis of memory formation; and more.

Related episodes:

• Emotion, Cognition, Consciousness, Behavior & Brain Evolution | Joseph LeDoux | #73
• Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Flexibility & Control, Attention, Working Memory, Multitasking & Behavior | Tobias Egner | #130

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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About the guest: Luis de Lecea, PhD is a neurobiologist whose lab at Stanford University studies the neural basis of sleep & wakefulness in animals.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. de Lecea discuss: the neural basis of sleep; sleep architecture & sleep phases (NREM vs. REM sleep); orexin/hypocretin neurons & the lateral hypothalamus; cortisol & stress; circadian rhythms; neuromodulators (norepinephrine, dopamine, etc); sleep across animal species; sleep drugs; ultrasound technology; and more.

Related episodes:

• Sleep, Dreaming, Deep Neural Networks, Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence, Overfitted Brain Hypothesis, Evolution of Fiction & Art | Erik Hoel | #43
• Consciousness, Anesthesia, Coma, Vegetative States, Sleep Pills (Ambien), Ketamine, AI & ChatGPT | Alex Proekt | #101

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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About the guest: Iain Oswald, PhD is an organic chemist and Director of Research & Development at Abstrax Tech.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Oswald discuss: plant chemistry; marijuana strains and their aroma; the chemical basis of cannabis aroma; terpenes vs. non-terpene volatile organic compounds; and more.

Related episodes:

• Marijuana, Plant Chemistry, Terpenes, Volatile Sulfur Compounds, Cannabis Industry, What Pungent Weed Smells Like & Why | Iain Oswald | #114
• Endocannabinoids, Stress, Exercise, Cortisol, Anxiety, Cannabis & Effects of Marijuana on Brain Development | Matthew Hill | #123

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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About the guest: Rudyard Lynch is a history and anthropology scholar and host of the popular YouTube channel, whatifalthist.

Episode summary: Nick and Rudyard discuss: history of agriculture, diet & food; population density, social structure, and social behavior; the rise and fall of civilizations; history and future of religion & spirituality; and more.

Episodes in this podcast sub-series are available on Substack, YouTube, and elsewhere.

Related episodes:

• Organisms, Cities, Companies & the Science of Scale | Geoffrey West
• Psychedelics, Civilization, Religion, Death & Plant Medicine | Brian Muraresku

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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About the guest: Michael Lynch, PhD is an evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University who studies the origins of genomic and cellular complexity.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Lynch discuss: natural selection vs. genetic drift; genetic mutations & the speed of evolution; origin of life; the evolution of cellular complexity; epigenetics & the inheritance of acquired characteristics; and more.

Related episodes:

• Evolution & Animal Development: How Nature Builds & Changes Bodies | Sean B. Carroll | #138
• Evolution, Language, Domestication, Symbolic Cognition, AI & Large Language Models | Terrence Deacon | #141

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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About the guest: Richard Bazinet, PhD is neurochemist and nutritional scientist at the University of Toronto. His lab studies brain lipid metabolism in health and disease.

Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Bazinet discuss: lipid metabolism in the liver and brain; dietary fatty acids (saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated); fatty acids in brain health & disease; endocannabinoids; omega-3 PUFAs, seed oils & diet; and more.

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

Support the show

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• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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About the guest: Tucker Goodrich is an independent researcher and self-described “seed oil zealot” who credits many of his own health improvements with minimizing his consumption of industrial seed oils. He runs a Substack page, and provides interesting commentary about scientific research on seed oils, metabolic health, and related topics.

Episode summary: Nick and Tucker discuss: what seed oils are and their history; differences between omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs); seed oils, sunburn, and oxidative stress; Seventh Day Adventism and the relationship between religion, ideology, and diet; paleobiology of human diet; and more.

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

Support the show

Support my work:

• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
• Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.

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