The Empowering Neurologist Podcast

Why Your Brain Feels Broken: The Metabolic Truth Behind Burnout and Depression with Dr. Robin Berzin | E217

🧠 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

The Laws of Thought: What AI Reveals About the Human Brain with Tom Griffiths, PhD | E216

🧠 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 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 - Introduction00:46 - A New Way to Think About Brain Health: Brain Defenders05:27 - Welcoming Cognitive Scientist Tom Griffiths06:04 - The Great Mystery: Can Math Explain How We Think?08:23 - Three Threads of Cognitive Science: Rules, Networks, Probability10:17 - Why AI Needs 10,000x More Data Than a Child12:27 - Intuition Decoded: How Neural Networks Mirror Implicit Learning15:03 - The Creativity Gap: Why AI Can't Think Outside the Box18:06 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline20:07 - Inductive Bias: The Evolutionary Head Start of the Human Brain22:41 - Mental Health Through Three Levels of Analysis25:25 - Resource Rationality: Why Humans Aren't Actually Irrational29:33 - Free Will Through the Lens of the Laws of Thought31:35 - Rethinking Education With Cognitive Science34:33 - Evolutionary Mismatch: The Mind Meets Modern Technology37:23 - AI as Alien Intelligence: A New Mental Model38:04 - Personalized Brain Health: 3X4 Genetics39:55 - Uncertainty: The Hidden Engine of Human Cognition43:34 - Bayesian Inference: The Math of "Best Guessing"44:37 - The Biggest Misconceptions About Intelligence47:14 - Algorithms to Live By: Optimizing Daily Decisions49:22 - Five Years From Now: The AI Forecast51:33 - The Calculator Effect: What Happens When We Outsource Thinking53:56 - Metacognition: Becoming the Manager of AI55:34 - Closing Thoughts====Instagram:   / davidperlmutter  Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/Subscribe to our channel:   / @davidperlmuttermd 

Is Psychiatry Looking in the Wrong Place? A Radical Rethink of Brain Health with Dr. Daniel Amen | E215

🧠 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.====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 - Introduction01:42 - Psychiatry's Missing Link: The Organ of Treatment03:22 - The Divergence of Neurology and Psychiatry05:18 - Beyond Symptoms: Patterns of Brain Health08:34 - Machine Learning and Autism Insights10:45 - The Role of the Cerebellum in Thought Coordination12:46 - The Impact of Undiagnosed Traumatic Brain Injury14:58 - Reversing Damage: NFL Brain Study Results16:26 - What SPECT Imaging Reveals About Metabolic Activity17:38 - COVID-19 and Infectious Causes of Psychiatric Issues22:11 - Neuroplasticity: Growing a Healthier Brain at Any Age25:54 - New Technologies: 40 Hz Light and Sound Stimulation28:27 - Metabolic Health: How Weight Affects Brain Volume30:25 - Chronic Stress and the Overactive Limbic Brain31:38 - Predicting Suicide Risk Through Imaging33:41 - Volunteering and the Default Mode Network35:01 - Concerns Over Psilocybin and Marijuana Scans40:12 - 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

Rewiring Connection: How Friendship Shapes the Brain and Heals the Mind with Barnet Bain | E214

🧠 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.====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.====00:00 Intro02:58 Why Friendship Matters for Health and Resilience06:24 From Columbia to the Practice of Presence10:41 Friendship as Non-Transactional Love14:20 The Childhood Stories That Shape the Self21:39 Ad: Optoceutics23:39 Projection, Parenting, and Conditional Love30:08 Friendship as a Crucible for Self-Awareness35:42 Why Connection Feels Harder in Modern Life39:03 Safety, Self-Knowledge, and the Ground of Friendship41:34 Ad: 3X4 Genetics44:34 Boundaries, Values, and the Meaning of Honor49:16 Friendship, Self-Forgiveness, and Inner Change56:25 Presence as the Greatest Gift58:34 Why Feeling Is Harder Than Doing====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.___________________________Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidperlmutter/Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/Subscribe to our channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDRl_UAXxbHyOOjklnA0dxQ/?sub_confirmation=1

You’ve Been Pooping All Wrong (And It’s Affecting Your Brain) with Dr. Trischa Pasricha | E213

🧠 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.====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.====00:00 Intro03:05 Why We Need to Talk About Pooping07:17 The Stigma Around Bowel Symptoms09:31 Why Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer Is Rising12:11 Should Screening Start Earlier?14:59 Colonoscopy vs. Stool and Blood Tests18:34 Ad: Optoceutics20:35 Why Colonoscopy Still Matters Most31:00 What “Leaky Gut” Really Means34:42 What Worsens Intestinal Permeability36:10 Ad: 3X4 Genetics38:09 Gut Permeability, Inflammation, and Brain Disease48:45 Could Fecal Transplants Help Parkinson’s?56:52 The Different Causes of Constipation1:02:23 The Myth of One Bowel Movement a Day1:05:42 Final Takeaways on Gut and Brain Health=====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.___________________________Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidperlmutter/Website: https://www.drperlmutter.com/Subscribe to our channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDRl_UAXxbHyOOjklnA0dxQ/?sub_confirmation=1