What to Gain For Your Brain

Elizabeth is the Senior Director of Community Impact & Policy and the Government Relations Director for the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association, as well as a Pomona College alumnus. In this episode we discuss where life took her after college, her many years working in various labs at Yale, staying true to herself while seeking opportunities after graduating, and what it’s like working with non-profits and corporate partners. We also talk about how she helped get In-N-Out to sell milk and why, how to get people to maintain long-term change, and the intersections between structural racism and health.

Dr. Zak is the Chief Immersion Officer and Founder of Immersion, a neuroscience platform that turns signals from the peripheral nervous system and the brain into algorithms to accurately predict individual decisions and market outcomes. Additionally, he is the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics, Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. In this episode, we discuss his over 20 years of peer-reviewed research with funding from the CIA and The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate the role that the neurochemical oxytocin has on human behavior and how the platform Immersion works. We also discuss taking neuroscience outside of the lab, the reliability of self-reporting, why studying neurochemicals is important, and the biological basis for the golden rule, “If you’re nice to me, I’m nice to you.”

Immersion (getimmersion.com) 

Dr. Zheng is currently a research scientist at Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare in Pomona, CA as well as the chief science officer for a precision medicine startup called Strain Genie which uses your DNA to inform you on health and wellness tips. Her current research focuses on using neuromodulatory interventions such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and neurofeedback to understand the recovery of language and cognitive function after stroke. In this episode, we discuss why the cerebellum should be getting more credit, her work in creating more individualized rehabilitation for stroke patients, how to tackle confounding factors as a researcher, what to be careful about with vitamin D supplementation, life advice you won’t hear anywhere else, and how Strain Genie uses your DNA to recommend strains of cannabis.

Strain Genie (https://straingenie.com/)

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (https://maps.org/)

Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/research/psychedelics-research.html)

Ly et al. (2018) Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neuroplasticity (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082376/)

At the University of Michigan, Dr. Langa is the Cyrus Sturgis Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Institute for Social Research, a Research Scientist in the Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical Management Research, and an Associate Director of the Institute of Gerontology. In this episode, we discuss how being diagnosed with a brain tumor before college garnered his interest in medicine and the brain and how cardiovascular disease is a central issue in the pathology of cognitive decline. Additionally, we discuss his 2015 article, “Trajectory of Cognitive Decline After Incident Stroke,” his 2020 cohort study, “Comparison of Health Outcomes Among High- and Low-Income Adults Aged 55 to 64 Years in the US vs England,” the social and economic impacts of stroke recovery, dealing with confounding factors of measuring vitamin D, and the brain health advice he gives to his patients.

At Boston University, Dr. Holick is the Director of the General Clinical Research Unit, a Professor of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Nutrition, and Weight Management, the Director of the Vitamin D, Skin, and Bone Research Laboratory, a Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, and a Member of the Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research. He is the author of both the 2004 book The UV Advantage and the 2010 book The Vitamin D Solution. He was rated Boston Magazine’s 2020 Top Doc, Expertscape’s 2019 #1 Worldwide Expert in Sunlight, and Expertscape’s 2019 #1 Worldwide Expert in Vitamin D Deficiency. In this episode, we discuss his discovery of both the major bioactive and hormonally active forms of vitamin D, sunlight and the evolution of vertebrates, vitamin D with both COVID-19 and cardiovascular risks, confounding factors for measuring vitamin D, the controversy and drama over fortified foods worldwide, and his recommendations for supplementation and maintaining adequate levels of vitamin D.

Dr. Holick’s Vitamin D App (http://dminder.ontometrics.com/)

The New York Times 2018 "Vitamin D, the Sunshine Supplement, Has Shadowy Money Behind It"(https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/business/vitamin-d-michael-holick.html)

Dr. Samudrala is a Board-Certified Neurosurgeon who specializes in spine surgery and practices at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona, California as well as Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, California. In this episode, we discuss working as a neurosurgeon during COVID-19, the metaphysical concept of how the brain takes external stimuli and codes it electrically to create our realities, and the importance of maintaining proper cardiovascular health. We also talk about early and long-term complications of stroke, how implementing small daily lifestyle changes such as maintaining adequate levels of vitamin D can produce beneficial long-term results, and how we could introduce these beneficial changes into larger communities.