🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱 Thank you to our sponsors:EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter and the code perlmutter26 will be auto-applied to your order to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free). 3x4 Genetics - https://3x4genetics.com/DrPerlmutterfor a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.====Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com. ====We dig into why 94% of US adults have some metabolic dysfunction, how the body can enter a full stress response with no psychological trigger, why GABA supplements work for some people and not others, and what that reveals about gut health. 00:00 - Introduction00:06 - The Sympathetic Spiral of Doom01:04 - Brain Defenders: A New Way to Think About Brain Health03:25 - Welcoming Dr. Scott Sherr04:42 - Why Stress Has a Metabolic Component Most People Overlook06:00 - 94% of Adults Have Metabolic Dysfunction07:00 - Mitochondria 101: Why Some Cells Have Thousands and One Has None07:58 - Insulin Resistance08:50 - Toxins, Infections, and Other Roads to Metabolic Breakdown09:28 - How Mitochondrial Stress Triggers a Stress Hormone Spiral10:47 - The Cell Danger Response13:49 - Brain Defenders: How Mitochondrial Dysfunction Polarizes Microglia15:22 - Stress Without a Stressor: How Metabolism Alone Can Trigger Fight-or-Flight16:01 - Straws on the Camel's Back: Situational vs. Metabolic Stress17:01 - GABA, the Brain's Brake Pedal, and Why Oral GABA Doesn't Work18:20 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline21:00 - GABA vs. Glutamate: The Balance Behind 80% of Brain Signaling22:17 - The Depression-Serotonin Myth and the Real Role of GABA23:04 - Why GABA Supplements Stop Working Once You Heal Your Gut24:18 - Kava, CBD, and the Amanita Mushroom Compound That Calms the Brain25:06 - How to Know You're in Sympathetic Overdrive Without a Wearable26:16 - 70,000 vs. 120,000 Thoughts a Day: The Stress Math27:33 - Recovery Is the Real Marker of Resilience28:05 - Heart Rate Variability Explained29:22 - Why Going From the Gym Straight to a Cold Plunge Backfires30:07 - How to Actually Use Your HRV Data (Trends, Not Absolutes)31:21 - 3X4 Genetics: Your DNA Isn't a Verdict33:16 - Why Dr. Perlmutter Quit Drinking Wine34:13 - The Apollo Device and Its Impact on HRV35:20 - Blue Light, Melatonin, and the Sleep Routine That Actually Moves the Needle35:46 - Turn Off the News: How Constant Stimulation Feeds the Sympathetic Spiral39:22 - Interleukin 6, AMP Kinase, and the Inflammatory Signals You Actually Need39:29 - Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and Mitochondrial Biogenesis42:00 - Why Timing and Sequencing Matter More Than "More Is Better" With HBOT43:08 - The Aviv Clinic Research on Oxygen Delta and Blood Vessel Growth44:01 - Methylene Blue: The Redox Cycler That Boosts Energy Without the Crash45:14 - Why Liquid Supplements Fall Short and What to Use Instead46:20 - The Problem With Relying on Coffee for Energy47:00 - Methylene Blue as a Historic Antimicrobial: From Malaria to WWII48:09 - Glyphosate, Rotenone, and the Environmental Toxins Destroying Complex One49:14 - The Gut-Brain Connection and Sympathetic Activation50:09 - The Gut-Brain Connection and the "Soft Kiss" Typo Story53:08 - Why Sitting Down to Eat Actually Matters53:52 - Healing the Gut First: The Fastest Path to Calming the Brain54:37 - Psychedelics as a Tool to Break the Sympathetic Spiral57:06 - Mitochondrial Medicine as the Common Denominator58:14 - Closing Thoughts ___________________________Instagram: / davidperlmutter Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/ Subscribe to our channel: / @davidperlmuttermd

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter's newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱====Dr. Perlmutter's groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.What if everything you've been told about Alzheimer's, that it's caused by sticky plaque building up in your brain, is missing the real story? In this episode, Dr. David Perlmutter makes the case that the true driver of neurodegeneration isn't plaque at all. It's your own brain's immune cells turning against you.For decades the field blamed beta-amyloid protein for Alzheimer's. Perlmutter walks through a mechanism reshaping the science: the dysregulation of microglia, the immune cells that can either protect your brain or actively destroy it depending on how you live.We dig into the chilling Parkinson's case where contaminated heroin froze patients like statues and revealed immune cells still attacking the brain decades later, why the same self-perpetuating inflammation shows up in CTE, long COVID, and PTSD, how your gut and blood sugar flip these cells into attack mode, the 14 metabolic risk factors that could prevent up to half of dementia cases, and the MIT-pioneered 40 Hz light and sound therapy that slowed cognitive decline and stabilized brain volume in human trials.00:00 - Introduction00:22 - The Plaque Theory and Why It's Incomplete00:32 - Meet the Microglia: Your Brain's Immune System00:57 - Supportive vs. Threatening: The M1/M2 Switch01:43 - Why This Underlies Nearly Every Neurodegenerative Disease02:35 - The Frozen Patients: A Parkinson's Mystery at Stanford03:06 - Contaminated Heroin and the MPTP Discovery04:09 - How a Mitochondrial Toxin Destroys Dopamine Cells05:46 - Microglia Still Attacking Decades Later06:27 - The Self-Perpetuating Inflammatory Cycle07:21 - The Same Pattern in CTE, Long COVID, and PTSD08:08 - Paraquat, Pesticides, and Parkinson's Risk10:45 - What Flips Your Cells Into Attack Mode11:57 - Leaky Gut, the Microbiome, and Your Brain13:59 - Imaging Threatening Cells in Living People15:44 - Immunometabolism: Why Brain Cells Change Function18:05 - 14 Risk Factors That Could Prevent Half of Dementia18:41 - The Breakthrough: Reprogramming Your Microglia21:19 - Don't Wait for Symptoms: Intervene Early22:56 - The Toolkit: Diet, Exercise, Fasting, Sleep, and More25:26 - 40 Hz Gamma Frequency: MIT's Pioneering Technology26:20 - Light Flicker Studies and Beta-Amyloid Reduction27:38 - Human Trials: Slowing Cognitive Decline30:28 - Stabilizing Brain Volume on MRI31:10 - Conclusion: You Are the Architect of Your BrainDr. David Perlmutter, MD is a board-certified neurologist and Fellow of the American College of Nutrition whose work sits at the intersection of neurology, nutrition, and preventive medicine. He received his M.D. from the University of Miami School of Medicine and completed his neurology residency there before entering private practice in Naples, Florida. He serves as Director of Neuroscience Research at Bryan Therapeutics and sits on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. A six-time New York Times bestselling author published in more than 30 languages, his books include the #1 bestseller Grain Brain, Brain Maker, The Grain Brain Whole Life Plan, Brain Wash, and Drop Acid. His next book, Brain Defenders: Harness the Power of Your Immune Cells to Protect Your Brain for Life (Avery / Penguin), focuses on microglia and is scheduled for publication in August 2026.___________________________Instagram: / davidperlmutterWebsite: https://www.drperlmutter.com/Subscribe to our channel:/ @davidperlmuttermd

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱 Thank you to our sponsors:EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter and the code perlmutter26 will be auto-applied to your order to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free). 3x4 Genetics - https://3x4genetics.com/DrPerlmutterfor a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations. ====

Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com. ====What if the gene you've been told to fear isn't actually a verdict on your future, and the disease you're racing to treat has already been silently progressing for two to three decades before anyone notices? In this episode, Dr. Jonathan Fellows joins me to challenge how we think about Alzheimer's risk, diagnosis, and treatment, making the case that early detection and lifestyle intervention matter more than the medications most people pin their hope on.

Dr. Jonathan Fellows is a neurologist with more than 25 years of clinical experience and serves as the Director of the Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorder Center at the Michigan Institute for Neurological Disorders, part of Corewell Health in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the largest private practice neurology group in the state. 00:00 - Introduction00:39 - Brain Defenders: A New Way to Think About Brain Health02:59 - Welcoming Dr. Jonathan Fellows03:51 - Why Neurology School Doesn't Teach Prevention05:27 - Inside the Michigan Institute for Neurological Disorders07:44 - Starting the Conversation When a Family Gets the Alzheimer's Diagnosis08:00 - Apraxia and the Real Warning Signs of Cognitive Decline09:00 - Why Amyloid Alone Doesn't Equal an Alzheimer's Diagnosis09:55 - The Centiloid Score: Measuring Amyloid in the Brain11:21 - Blood-Based Biomarkers and the Rise of P-tau 21713:19 - Elevated P-tau 217 at 40: A Wake-Up Call You Can't Ignore13:32 - Habits in Your 30s and 40s vs. Disease in Your 60s and 70s16:53 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline18:53 - Why Not Every Amyloid-Positive Patient Should Get Anti-Amyloid Drugs21:00 - Alzheimer's Drug Therapy Today vs. Where MS Treatment Stood in the 90s23:59 - Why Early and Presymptomatic Detection Matters25:21 - Will Anti-Amyloid Drugs Be Pushed to Presymptomatic Patients?25:39 - What We Know for a Fact About Lifestyle and Disease Progression26:27 - A Real Patient Case: When to Say No to Anti-Amyloid Drugs28:30 - APOE Explained: The Gene That Changes Your Alzheimer's Risk31:49 - 3X4 Genetics: Your DNA Isn't a Verdict33:47 - How Exercise Can Offset APOE4 Risk34:10 - APOE4 Is Not Deterministic — and Saying Otherwise Is Malpractice34:51 - Down Syndrome, Presenilin, and the Truly Deterministic Cases35:42 - ARIA Risk and Why Europe Restricts Anti-Amyloid Drugs for APOE4 Carriers38:00 - Where Anti-Amyloid Drugs Still Fit in Treatment39:14 - Current Clinical Trials at the Michigan Institute39:49 - Programmable Microglia: The Brain's Immune System Explained41:01 - Good Twin, Bad Twin: How Microglia Switch From Protector to Threat42:09 - Beta-Amyloid as an Antimicrobial Defender? Rethinking the Enemy Narrative42:49 - Insulin Resistance and the Brain-Metabolism Connection43:41 - The Diabetes Epidemic Hiding in Plain Sight43:58 - The Rainbow Lunchbox: A Preschooler Who Got It Wrong and Right44:49 - Why a Third of Americans Are Pre-Diabetic and Don't Know It46:30 - Closing Thoughts ___________________________Instagram: / davidperlmutter Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/ Subscribe to our channel: / @davidperlmuttermd

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====

Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.

====

What if Parkinson's isn't the genetic lottery we've been told it is, but a largely man-made disease driven by what we breathe, eat, and walk through every day? In this episode, Dr. Ray Dorsey returns to the podcast for his third conversation, this time to make the case that Parkinson's, ALS, Alzheimer's, and the rising tide of brain diseases sweeping the modern world are not inevitable inheritances but environmental consequences we have the power to change. Dr. Ray Dorsey is the Director of the Center for the Brain and the Environment at the Atria Health and Research Institute, where the mission is to identify the root causes of brain diseases from autism to Alzheimer's so they can be prevented. He is the co-author of Ending Parkinson's Disease and author of the new New York Times bestseller The Parkinson's Plan, which lays out a new path to preventing and treating one of the world's fastest growing diseases.

00:00 - Introduction: The Smoking Gun of Modern Brain Disease

00:42 - A New Way to Think About Brain Health: Brain Defenders

03:03 - Why Parkinson's Is Pretty Much Preventable

03:21 - Welcoming Dr. Ray Dorsey

04:36 - The Big Thesis: Parkinson's Is a Man-Made Disease

05:24 - What Defines a Man-Made Disease

05:59 - From 6 Cases in 1817 to 11.8 Million Today

06:53 - The Lung Cancer Parallel

07:22 - The PD GENEration Study: 87% Have No Genetic Cause

08:35 - Why Rising Cases Prove It's Environmental

09:55 - TCE and Perc: The Dry Cleaning Chemicals Linked to Parkinson's

11:08 - Glyphosate, Paraquat, and Mitochondrial Damage

15:13 - Practical Steps to Lower Your Exposure

16:58 - Sponsor: 40 Hz Light Therapy with EVY Light

18:58 - The South Dakota Cluster: Living Next to Cornfields

20:25 - Paraquat: Banned in 70 Countries, Still Used in the US

22:54 - Chlorpyrifos and the IQ Drop in Children

25:38 - The Audacity: Why 1 in 31 Kids Have Autism

26:10 - Pesticides in Breast Milk and Across the Placenta

30:00 - Misfolded Proteins and Loss of Smell as Early Warning

32:25 - Air Pollution: The Hidden Driver of Neurodegeneration

33:46 - The $50 Billion Economic Burden of Brain Disease

35:00 - Dr. Langston's MPTP Discovery: The First Environmental Cause

37:00 - Microglia, Mitochondria, and the Inflammation Cascade

40:30 - The Diabetes-Parkinson's Connection

42:00 - The Parkinson's 25: Practical Steps in the Book

47:30 - Carl's Story: Parkinson's at Age 17 from a Golf Course

50:00 - Why Golf Courses Could Spray Less

51:30 - Secondhand Exposure: You Don't Have to Apply It

53:00 - Soccer Players, ALS, and Heading the Ball

55:50 - Michael J. Fox, CTE, and the Multiple-Hit Hypothesis

57:30 - Resources: Environmental Working Group and Non-Toxic Neighborhoods

1:00:30 - The Mission of Neurology: Asking Why

1:01:30 - The Rising Tide of Brain Disease

1:03:30 - The Lancet Report on Modifiable Risk Factors

1:04:43 - Closing Thoughts

___________________________

Instagram:   / davidperlmutter  

Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/

Subscribe to our channel:

   / @davidperlmuttermd  

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

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for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.

====

What if the future of medicine isn't a smarter doctor, but a thinking partner that can hold your entire biology in mind at once? In this episode, Dr. Don Brown joins me to make the case that AI in medicine isn't a replacement for the clinician. It's an ally capable of seeing patterns no human brain could hold together on its own.

Dr. Don Brown is a physician, computer scientist, and serial entrepreneur whose last software company sold for $1.4 billion in 2016. He returned to graduate school in his mid-50s to study biotechnology at Johns Hopkins, founded Lifeomic in 2017, and now leads Bioscope, a platform that uses AI to integrate a patient's entire biological picture into one dynamic view of health.

We dig into why fragmented medicine fails at prevention, how Bioscope ingests the whole genome, microbiome, epigenome, and medical records into a single synoptic view, the real case where AI flagged arsenic toxicity in a patient misdiagnosed with restless leg syndrome, and what it looks like when AI personas begin guiding patients through their own protocols in real time.

00:00 - Introduction 

00:53 - A New Way to Think About Brain Health: Brain Defenders 

03:18 - Welcoming Dr. Don Brown 

06:46 - From Physics to MD to Software Entrepreneur 

09:01 - Back to Grad School at Johns Hopkins 

10:35 - The Lifeomic Years: Cancer Care in the Cloud 

12:34 - The Spark Behind Bioscope 

15:27 - Building the Ultra-Secure Health Data Repository 

16:26 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline 

18:26 - The Epigenome: Why Your Genes Aren't Your Destiny 

19:32 - Decoding the Microbiome and Mitochondrial Genetics 

22:25 - What AI Actually Does With Your Health Data 

23:39 - The Synoptic View: Borrowing From Aviation

26:36 - The 15 Dimensions of Health 

29:23 - Why the Patient History Still Matters 

30:23 - Inside the Bioscope Interface 

31:38 - A Real Case: AI Catches Arsenic Toxicity 

33:13 - Personalized Brain Health: 3X4 Genetics 

35:10 - The Driverless Car Moment for Medicine 

37:07 - Marketing to Concierge Physicians 

40:33 - How Patient Data Gets Into the System 

42:30 - Image Analysis and Specialized AI Partners 

45:33 - The Biggest Misconception Patients Have About AI 

47:14 - Meet Lumina: The Physician's AI Persona 

48:00 - Cairo and the Future of AI Health Coaching 

50:13 - Different AI Personas for Patients and Physicians 

51:39 - Why Concierge Doctors Are Mobbing the Booth 

55:00 - Closing Thoughts

___________________________

Instagram:   / davidperlmutter  

Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/

Subscribe to our channel:

   / @davidperlmuttermd  

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱Thank you to our sponsors:EVY - Go to https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free). 3x4 Genetics - https://3x4genetics.com/DrPerlmutterfor a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.====Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.====What if your anxiety, brain fog, and burnout aren't mental health problems, but metabolic ones?In this episode, Dr. Robin Berzin joins Dr. David Perlmutter to make the case that the brain and body are not separate systems, and that treating them as if they are is costing millions of people their health.====00:00 - Introduction00:46 - Brain Defenders: A New Framework for Brain Health03:00 - Welcoming Dr. Robin Berzin05:23 - Why Smart, Motivated People Still Feel Terrible08:37 - From Columbia Med to Founding Parsley Health12:15 - The Problem With 15-Minute Appointments and Stacks of Prescriptions14:37 - What Is Functional Medicine, Actually?17:07 - Precision Medicine: Treating the N of One19:45 - How AI Is Changing the Doctor's Ability to Connect the Dots22:41 - State Change: Shifting Your Mind Through Your Body25:35 - Why Anxiety and Depression Start in the Body27:09 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline29:43 - Exercise, Sugar, and Nutrient Deficiencies as Mental Health Levers32:30 - SSRIs as a Tow Truck, Not a Destination34:16 - Psychedelics and Trauma: Tools in the Toolkit36:01 - Metabolic Flexibility and Why Losing It Wrecks Your Hormones38:04 - Sleep, Wearables, and the One Night That Breaks Your Metabolism40:37 - Continuous Glucose Monitors as a Mirror for Your Choices42:19 - 3X4 Genetics: Your DNA Is a Roadmap, Not a Verdict44:37 - Alzheimer's as Type 3 Diabetes: The Metabolic Brain Connection46:21 - The Lab Work Your Doctor Isn't Ordering49:22 - Fasting Insulin, Heavy Metals, and the Tests That Actually Matter51:14 - What's Next: AI, Wearables, and the Future of Functional Medicine53:56 - If You Feel Stuck: Own Your Biological Data55:34 - Closing Thoughts====Dr. Robin Berzin, MD is a functional medicine physician and health tech entrepreneur leading the push to bring root-cause, precision medicine into mainstream healthcare. She earned her MD at Columbia, completed internal medicine residency at Mount Sinai, and trained in functional medicine under the field's top practitioners. Before medicine, she produced the Oprah and Friends Dr. Oz Radio Show, and she later worked in health tech during med school, sharpening her understanding of how digital platforms could expand access to personalized care.Today, she is founder and CEO of Parsley Health, the only national functional and longevity medicine clinic in the U.S., delivering virtual care across all 50 states plus physical clinics in NYC and LA. Under her leadership, Parsley has grown to nearly 30 clinicians and 40 health coaches and nurses, treated over 50,000 patients, and built a team-based, insurance-accessible model that puts functional medicine within reach beyond the wealthy. She also sits on the medical advisory board of Whoop.She is the author of State Change, which challenges the divide between mental and metabolic health and offers a practical framework for transforming mood, energy, and cognition through the body. Her work is widely featured across major health and wellness media, and she is recognized as a defining voice in the future of preventive, personalized medicine.====Instagram: / davidperlmutterWebsite: https://www.drperlmutter.com/Subscribe to our channel:/ @davidperlmuttermd

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

====

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY -  Go to https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter  to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free). 

3x4 Genetics - https://3x4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.====

What if AI isn't on a path to become a better human — but a fundamentally different kind of mind altogether? In this episode, Tom Griffiths joins me to challenge how we think about intelligence itself — and to make a compelling case that AI systems are best understood not as smarter or dumber than humans, but as "alien organisms" solving problems in ways our brains never could.

Tom Griffiths is a cognitive scientist, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Psychology and Computer Science at Princeton University, and head of Princeton's AI Lab. He is the co-author of the international bestseller Algorithms to Live By and author of the new book The Laws of Thought — an ambitious survey of three centuries of attempts to capture human thinking in mathematics.

We dig into the three mathematical frameworks scientists use to model thought, why a human toddler can learn language from a fraction of the data a large language model requires, what "resource rationality" reveals about mental health and decision-making, and what we stand to lose — and gain — as we increasingly outsource our thinking to machines.

====

00:00 - Introduction

00:46 - A New Way to Think About Brain Health: Brain Defenders

05:27 - Welcoming Cognitive Scientist Tom Griffiths

06:04 - The Great Mystery: Can Math Explain How We Think?

08:23 - Three Threads of Cognitive Science: Rules, Networks, Probability

10:17 - Why AI Needs 10,000x More Data Than a Child

12:27 - Intuition Decoded: How Neural Networks Mirror Implicit Learning

15:03 - The Creativity Gap: Why AI Can't Think Outside the Box

18:06 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline

20:07 - Inductive Bias: The Evolutionary Head Start of the Human Brain

22:41 - Mental Health Through Three Levels of Analysis

25:25 - Resource Rationality: Why Humans Aren't Actually Irrational

29:33 - Free Will Through the Lens of the Laws of Thought

31:35 - Rethinking Education With Cognitive Science

34:33 - Evolutionary Mismatch: The Mind Meets Modern Technology

37:23 - AI as Alien Intelligence: A New Mental Model

38:04 - Personalized Brain Health: 3X4 Genetics

39:55 - Uncertainty: The Hidden Engine of Human Cognition

43:34 - Bayesian Inference: The Math of "Best Guessing"

44:37 - The Biggest Misconceptions About Intelligence

47:14 - Algorithms to Live By: Optimizing Daily Decisions

49:22 - Five Years From Now: The AI Forecast

51:33 - The Calculator Effect: What Happens When We Outsource Thinking

53:56 - Metacognition: Becoming the Manager of AI

55:34 - Closing Thoughts

====

Instagram:   / davidperlmutter  

Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/

Subscribe to our channel:

   / @davidperlmuttermd 

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

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3x4 Genetics - https://3x4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.

====

Why is psychiatry the only medical specialty that doesn't look at the organ it treats? In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen joins me to challenge how mental health is diagnosed and treated — and to make a compelling case that "depression" is as vague a diagnosis as "chest pain."

Dr. Amen is a double-board-certified psychiatrist, 18-time New York Times bestselling author, and founder of Amen Clinics, where his team has performed nearly 300,000 SPECT brain scans — the largest functional brain imaging database in the world.

We dig into what these scans actually reveal: hidden traumatic brain injuries patients never reported, the inflammatory aftermath of COVID, why SSRIs work for some and fail for others, and why the brain you have today is not the brain you're stuck with.

====

00:00 - Introduction

01:42 - Psychiatry's Missing Link: The Organ of Treatment

03:22 - The Divergence of Neurology and Psychiatry

05:18 - Beyond Symptoms: Patterns of Brain Health

08:34 - Machine Learning and Autism Insights

10:45 - The Role of the Cerebellum in Thought Coordination

12:46 - The Impact of Undiagnosed Traumatic Brain Injury

14:58 - Reversing Damage: NFL Brain Study Results

16:26 - What SPECT Imaging Reveals About Metabolic Activity

17:38 - COVID-19 and Infectious Causes of Psychiatric Issues

22:11 - Neuroplasticity: Growing a Healthier Brain at Any Age

25:54 - New Technologies: 40 Hz Light and Sound Stimulation

28:27 - Metabolic Health: How Weight Affects Brain Volume

30:25 - Chronic Stress and the Overactive Limbic Brain

31:38 - Predicting Suicide Risk Through Imaging

33:41 - Volunteering and the Default Mode Network

35:01 - Concerns Over Psilocybin and Marijuana Scans

40:12 - Chronic Pain: Breaking the "Doom Loop"

43:12 - Lightning Round: Daily Habits for a Better Brain

====

Daniel G. Amen, MD is a double board-certified psychiatrist, clinical neuroscientist, and brain imaging specialist whose pioneering clinical use of SPECT (single-photon emission computed tomography) has built the world's largest functional brain imaging database, with nearly 300,000 scans on patients from 155 countries. A graduate of Southern California College (now Vanguard University), Dr. Amen earned his medical degree from Oral Roberts University School of Medicine. His training includes a general psychiatric residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. Currently, Dr. Amen serves as founder and CEO of Amen Clinics, with eleven locations across the United States, and is the founder of BrainMD and Amen University.

He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a multiple-time New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into 50 languages, and the lead researcher on the world's largest brain imaging and rehabilitation study on professional football players. His work has been published in Molecular Psychiatry, Translational Psychiatry, PLOS One, and the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.

___________________________

Instagram: / davidperlmutter

Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/

Subscribe to our channel:

/ @davidperlmuttermd

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter

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3x4 Genetics - https://3x4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.

====

Loneliness is no longer a private struggle, it’s a public-health issue that we’ve discussed quite a bit in my recent books. Research increasingly links social isolation to cognitive decline, depression, cardiovascular disease, and shortened lifespan. Yet despite these findings, we rarely explore how to build and sustain meaningful connection in a modern world designed for distraction.

That’s why I invited Barnet Bain to join me on The Empowering Neurologist podcast.

Barnet is a filmmaker, author, and educator whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and lived human experience. You may recognize his work from films such as What Dreams May Come or Milton’s Secret, but his newest contribution may be his most relevant yet.

His book, How to Be a Friend (In an Unfriendly World), is not about social performance or personality traits. It’s about safety, presence, listening, and emotional responsibility, qualities that directly influence nervous-system regulation and mental health.

What makes this work especially important is that it reframes friendship as a skill set rather than a personality trait. Bain shows how fear, shame, unresolved trauma, and cultural conditioning quietly erode our relationships, and how conscious awareness can restore them.

From a neurological perspective, this matters deeply. The brain is a social organ. Connection shapes stress responses, inflammation, cognition, and emotional regulation. Friendship isn’t a luxury, it’s foundational.

This conversation isn’t about having more friends. It’s about being a better one. To others. And to yourself. In a world that feels increasingly fast, cold, and fragmented, this is a conversation worth having.

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00:00 Intro

02:58 Why Friendship Matters for Health and Resilience

06:24 From Columbia to the Practice of Presence

10:41 Friendship as Non-Transactional Love

14:20 The Childhood Stories That Shape the Self

21:39 Ad: Optoceutics

23:39 Projection, Parenting, and Conditional Love

30:08 Friendship as a Crucible for Self-Awareness

35:42 Why Connection Feels Harder in Modern Life

39:03 Safety, Self-Knowledge, and the Ground of Friendship

41:34 Ad: 3X4 Genetics

44:34 Boundaries, Values, and the Meaning of Honor

49:16 Friendship, Self-Forgiveness, and Inner Change

56:25 Presence as the Greatest Gift

58:34 Why Feeling Is Harder Than Doing

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Barnet Bain is a Canadian filmmaker, author, and educator. His film credits include “Milton’s Secret” (director, writer), Oscar winner “What Dreams May Come” (producer), Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding TV Movie “Homeless to Harvard” (executive producer), “The Celestine Prophecy” (writer, producer), and “Jesus,” translated into more than 2,245 languages and often cited as the most widely seen film in history by The New York Times.

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Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.

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On this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, I spend time with Dr. Trisha Pasricha, gastroenterologist and author of the provocative and important new book, You’ve Been Pooping All Wrong. Yes, the title makes you smile, but the science inside should make all of us pay attention.

Dr. Pasricha is part of a new generation of neurogastroenterologists exploring one of the most fascinating frontiers in medicine: the deep, bidirectional communication between the brain and the gut. Raised as the daughter of renowned gastroenterologist Dr. Pankaj “Jay” Pasricha and trained at Johns Hopkins, she brings both personal insight and rigorous science to a topic that too often lives in the shadows.

What makes this book so important is that it dismantles myths we’ve carried since childhood. For example, at one point in the book she describes how students taking an oral exam nearly doubled their intestinal permeability, simply from psychological stress. That single experiment powerfully illustrates how the brain can alter gut biology in real time.

And in another unforgettable section, she shares her early research showing that when subjects lied, their stomach’s electrical rhythm shifted into chaos, an arrhythmic pattern detectable on electrogastrogram. The stomach as a lie detector! That’s not just fascinating, it underscores how emotionally and neurologically integrated our digestive system truly is.

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00:00 Intro

03:05 Why We Need to Talk About Pooping

07:17 The Stigma Around Bowel Symptoms

09:31 Why Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer Is Rising

12:11 Should Screening Start Earlier?

14:59 Colonoscopy vs. Stool and Blood Tests

18:34 Ad: Optoceutics

20:35 Why Colonoscopy Still Matters Most

31:00 What “Leaky Gut” Really Means

34:42 What Worsens Intestinal Permeability

36:10 Ad: 3X4 Genetics

38:09 Gut Permeability, Inflammation, and Brain Disease

48:45 Could Fecal Transplants Help Parkinson’s?

56:52 The Different Causes of Constipation

1:02:23 The Myth of One Bowel Movement a Day

1:05:42 Final Takeaways on Gut and Brain Health

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Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH is an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the “Ask A Doctor” columnist for The Washington Post where she translates complex medical topics into must-read insights—with a touch of humor—for millions each week. A graduate of Harvard College, Dr. Pasricha earned her medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her training includes an internal medicine residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and gastroenterology and motility fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital. Currently, Dr. Pasricha serves as director of the Institute for Gut-Brain Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, leading an NIH-funded research laboratory at the forefront of gut-brain science. Her work has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Network Open, and Nature Reviews.

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