Today, I spoke with Dr Douglas Fields, who is a neuroscientist and author of numerous books and articles about the brain. We discussed his excellent and important book, Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain, which focuses on the neuroscience that triggers rage and violence. It turns out, evolution has endowed every single one of us with nine neural pathways that, when activated, will lead to a violent and oftentimes involuntary and non-conscious response. During our chat, Doug explained these circuits—captured in the mnemonic LIFEMORTS—and how they relate to many important issues, including: their applicability to our interpersonal relationships; origins in threat detection; their unconscious nature and subsequent voluntary expression; impact of social media and technology; disproportionate effect of stress; power of genes and the environment; manifestations of violence in different genders; utility in peacebuilding; training of responses; role in PTSD and, perhaps most-importantly, geopolitics and war.
Several previous episodes that link to the topics we discussed include:
Role of the environment:
Geopolitics:
PTSD and trauma
I also mentioned an article I recently published on the state of Western democracy, grey zone warfare by authoritarian states and how social media is contributing to a build-up of tension in our societies. You can view the article here.
----
Full show notes:
My guest today is Dr Douglas Fields, who is a neuroscientist and author of numerous books and articles about the brain. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, University of Maryland adjunct professor, and Chief of the Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section at the National Institutes of Health. He received advanced degrees at UC Berkeley, San Jose State University, UC San Diego, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford and Yale University.
He writes about science for Scientific American, Quanta, Outside Magazine, Huffington Post, Undark Magazine, Psychology Today, and similar prestigious outlets. His neuroscience research has been featured on national television, radio, NPR, the National Geographic and others, and he speaks about neuroscience for the general public on mediums like NPR, World Science Festival, TEDex and Google Talks.
He is the author of three books about neuroscience for the general reader, The Other Brain, about glia, which are brain cells that communicate without electricity, Why We Snap, about the neuroscience of rage, and his new award-winning book, Electric Brain, about brainwaves, brain-computer interface, and brain stimulation. Some of the topics we discussed today include:
91. Dr Greta Uehling - Understanding the Donbas: Identity, People, and its role in the Russia-Ukraine War
90. Dr David Kilcullen - Decoding Geopolitics and the emerging Multipolar World
89. Ambassador Robert ‘Bob’ Bowker - Understanding the Middle East: Lessons from Five Decades of Life and Work in the Region
88. Will Storr - The Status Game: Understanding Its Significance, Implications, and Why We Play It
87. Special Release: Robert Hartley - From War Zone to Ketamine: A Veteran’s Journey Through Trauma and Healing
85. Dr Elizabeth Boulton - Tackling the Climate Change Hyperthreat: Plan E, Entangled Security and harnessing a Hyper-response
84. Amos Fox - Beyond the illusion of manoeuvre: Navigating the clash between intentions and reality in modern warfare
83. Dr Alison Broinowski - How Australia goes to war and the prospect of war powers reform
82. Dr Samir Puri - Decoding the echoes of empire: how imperial legacies shape today’s geopolitics
81. Professor Greg Barton - Understanding radicalisation, extremism and terrorism
80. Dr Alex Lim - On veterans’ mental health: the good, the bad and the promising
79. Announcement of a significant change to The Voices Of War
78. Ye-Min Wu - Multilateral negotiations: on the trials and tribulations of building peace
77. Special Release: Natalia Konstantinova - How Russians view the invasion of Ukraine
76. Andrew Quilty - ’August in Kabul’ and the return of the Taliban
75. Dr Pauline Shanks Kaurin - On obedience and the fine line between hero and villain
74. Special Release: Jasmin Mujanovic - On the unfolding constitutional crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Part 2
73. Special Release: Jasmin Mujanovic - On the unfolding constitutional crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Part 1
72. Special Release: Wolfgang Sporrer - On diplomacy alongside combat operations in Ukraine
71. Dr Alexander Bellamy - R2P, Just War and prospects of World Peace - Part 2
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Just Dumb Enough Podcast
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL