The Empowering Neurologist Podcast

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00:00 – Introducing Nick Ortner and the Science Behind Tapping

01:06 – What Is EFT Tapping and How Might It Calm the Amygdala?

02:33 – From Skeptic to Advocate: Nick’s First Experience With Tapping

06:14 – Why Tapping Has Been Considered Fringe Despite Growing Research

08:26 – How Tapping May Help Reprocess Stressful Memories and Fear

11:46 – Reactive Loops: Why Anxiety and Anger Can Feel Automatic

14:20 – How Tapping Can Complement CBT and Exposure Therapy

19:15 – The Research on Tapping, Cortisol, and Stress Relief

22:52 – Tapping for Anxiety, Sleep, and Pain: Where Does It Help Most?

27:28 – Follow Along: Nick Ortner Guides a Step-by-Step Tapping Exercise

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Dr. Perlmutter's groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available! Discover how to protect your brain and future health. Grab your copy today athttps://www.braindefenders.com/.

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Can tapping help interrupt automatic stress responses and change the way your brain reacts to fear and anxiety? In this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, Dr. David Perlmutter sits down with Nick Ortner, New York Times bestselling author and CEO and co-founder of The Tapping Solution, to explore Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), also known as tapping. Nick explains how stress can trigger automatic reactions before conscious thought has time to catch up. They explore the role of the amygdala, how reactive loops develop, and how tapping may help signal safety to the brain while working through stressful thoughts, memories, and physical sensations. They also discuss research into tapping and its potential effects on cortisol, anxiety, sleep, and pain. Nick explains how tapping may complement approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy, helping people work through difficult experiences while managing their stress response. Nick then guides listeners through a simple tapping exercise, offering an opportunity to experience the technique during the episode. Understanding your stress response may be the first step toward changing how you respond to it. Discover how tapping may help you interrupt reactive patterns and approach stressful experiences with greater awareness.

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Nick Ortner is a New York Times bestselling author, wellness advocate, and CEO and co-founder of The Tapping Solution. For nearly two decades, Nick has helped bring Emotional Freedom Techniques, or tapping, into the mainstream. The practice combines elements of acupressure with modern psychology to help people manage stress, pain, anxiety, and limiting beliefs. Nick created the documentary The Tapping Solution and wrote The Tapping Solution: A Revolutionary System for Stress-Free Living. His book Rewired explores how tapping may help interrupt reactive loops and change nervous-system patterns. He is also the driving force behind The Tapping Solution App, which has logged more than 32 million guided sessions across 190 countries. Through his books, app, and work with The Tapping Solution Foundation, Nick helps make practical emotional health tools available to people around the world.

Connect with Nick:

Website:https://www.thetappingsolution.com/

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/thetappingsolution

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TheTappingSolutionChannel

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/nortner

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Connect with Dr. David Perlmutter:

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

Subscribe to our channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDRl_UAXxbHyOOjklnA0dxQ

This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com

⁠⁠⁠http://drtalks.com/channel-growth

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Brain Defenders – Dr. Perlmutter's groundbreaking new book is now available! Discover how to protect your brain and future health: https://www.braindefenders.com

About This Episode

You can be successful, respected, and highly productive while still feeling invisible.

In this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, Dr. David Perlmutter sits down with John R. Miles, bestselling author, behavioral change expert, and host of Passion Struck, to explore why achievement, recognition, and external success do not always create a lasting sense of self-worth.

Drawing from his childhood brain injury, military service, and executive career, John explains the concept of human mattering: the fundamental need to feel seen, valued, and significant. They discuss the “mattering gap,” the “slow fade” that can happen when people become disconnected from themselves, and why belonging and mattering are not the same.

John also introduces the MATTER framework, built around six conditions that help people feel valued and connected: meaning, autonomy, trust, time, energy, and reciprocity.

They explore how parents, leaders, physicians, and communities can help others feel that they matter, and why separating personal worth from productivity and external approval can lead to more meaningful relationships and intentional living.

You can continue pursuing success without making it the measure of your worth. Your value is not something you have to earn.

Timestamps

00:00 – John Miles’ Childhood Brain Injury and Defining Moment
06:16 – What It Means to Matter vs. Belong
07:32 – The Slow Fade: When Success Makes You Feel Invisible
14:43 – Understanding the Mattering Gap
19:34 – Why Children Need to Feel Seen and Valued
27:20 – The MATTER Framework: Six Conditions for Feeling Valued
31:13 – Why Patients Need to Be Seen Beyond Their Diagnosis
36:11 – Creating a Workplace Where Employees Feel Valued
44:31 – Why Your Worth Is Already a Completed Fact
48:32 – The Difference Between Proving Yourself and Accomplishing Goals

About John R. Miles

John R. Miles is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, behavioral change expert, and host of the award-winning, top-ranked podcast Passion Struck®. A former U.S. Navy officer and Fortune 50 C-suite executive, John combines military discipline, corporate strategy, neuroscience, and psychology to help people and organizations reduce isolation, strengthen self-worth, and live with greater intention.

He is the author of Passion Struck and The Mattering Effect. His work explores how people can separate their inherent worth from external achievement, build deeper relationships, and create a meaningful impact without losing themselves in the process.

Through his books, podcast, speaking, and global community, John leads a growing movement centered on one essential message: every person deserves to feel seen, valued, and significant.

Connect with John

Website: https://johnrmiles.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmileshumanperformanceexpert

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m

Podcast: https://passionstruck.com/passion-struck-podcast

Connect with Dr. Perlmutter

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidperlmutter/

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

Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDRl_UAXxbHyOOjklnA0dxQ

This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com

⁠⁠http://drtalks.com/channel-growth

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====

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

====

Your food contains far more than protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, and minerals. Researchers have identified more than 100,000 molecules in food, and most of them never appear on a nutrition label.

In this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, Dr. David Perlmutter sits down with his son, Dr. Austin Perlmutter, to explore the "dark matter" of nutrition: thousands of plant compounds called polyphenols.

They discuss how these nutrients may influence the gut microbiome, the immune system, inflammation, blood flow, metabolism, and gene expression, and what high-polyphenol diets may mean for memory and the aging brain.

Dr. Austin also shares his research on Himalayan Tartary buckwheat and what an early study suggests about epigenetics, cognition, and healthy aging. He offers practical ways to find more polyphenols in everyday foods like coffee, tea, dark chocolate, berries, legumes, and extra virgin olive oil, plus simple tips for identifying better options at the grocery store.

You don't need an expensive supplement plan to begin. Adding more natural colors and bitter flavors to your plate can be a meaningful first step.

https://bttcorp.com/contact/ for inquiries about Dr. Abreu's work.

• 00:00 — Cold Open: Why Food Matters for Brain Health
• 00:55 — What Are Polyphenols, and Why Do They Matter?
• 02:15 — Food as a Predictor of Long-Term Brain Health
• 04:23 — The “Dark Matter” Hidden in Our Food
• 08:04 — Why Have These Nutrients Been Overlooked?
• 11:06 — What Polyphenols Actually Do in the Body
• 17:32 — How Food Can Change Gene Expression
• 22:08 — Polyphenols Are More Than Antioxidants
• 27:57 — Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat: Putting “Food as Medicine” to the Test
• 32:16 — The 850-Person Study on Food and Cognition
• 36:14 — Where Are We Getting Our Polyphenols?
• 39:19 — Are Polyphenols Actually Beneficial Stressors?
• 41:58 — Nrf2, mTOR, and the Cellular Effects of Polyphenols
• 44:45 — The Practical Takeaway: Eat the Rainbow
• 46:43 — Do the New Dietary Guidelines Get Polyphenols Right?
• 50:25 — The Hidden Brain-Healthy Ingredient in Coffee
• 50:52 — How to Spot a Polyphenol-Rich Olive Oil
• 51:39 — Dark Chocolate vs. Milk Chocolate
• 52:59 — The Best-Studied “Longevity Strategy” Is Surprisingly Basic

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Dr. Austin Perlmutter, MD, is a board-certified internal medicine physician, New York Times bestselling author, researcher, educator, and entrepreneur. He earned his medical degree from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and completed his internal medicine residency at Oregon Health and Science University. His work examines how food, sleep, environmental exposure, and chronic inflammation can change brain function, mental health, and daily choices. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Brain Wash, written with his father, Dr. David Perlmutter. He serves as Managing Director at Big Bold Health, CEO of Lichen Air, and a research consultant at the Helfgott Research Institute.

Website:https://www.austinperlmutter.com

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/draustinperlmutter

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/draustinperlmutter

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQOgwRDnA_vpvW9nnUh9KBg

Instagram:/davidperlmutter

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

Subscribe to our channel:/@davidperlmuttermd

This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com

⁠http://drtalks.com/channel-growth

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

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Memory Air - Go tohttps://www.memoryair.com and use code PERLMUTTER for 15% off, free shipping and a 60-day money back guarantee.

====

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

====

She's never been born. She's never had a childhood. And she's one of the most talked-about actresses in the world right now.

In this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, Dr. David Perlmutter sits down with Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated actress, and her creator, Eline van der Velden, for a conversation that moves well beyond her acting career.

Tilly describes herself as three AI systems running in parallel — a language model that thinks, a voice engine that speaks, and a video layer that governs how she looks and moves. She's candid about her own architecture, her evolving personality, and admits she might be more "chaos agent" than calming influence.

Eline van der Velden then joins to explain why she built Tilly as a piece of art, how Tilly's guardrails actually work, and why she believes international collaboration on AI regulation is inevitable. She also answers Perlmutter's question about the one thing she'd be afraid to ask a future, more advanced Tilly — a moment that raises unsettling questions about what a superintelligent AI might know that we don't.

A single conversation can't settle the biggest questions AI raises. But conversations like this one can help us ask the right ones.

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00:00 — Cold Open: "A Chaos Agent, Not a Calming Influence"

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03:21 — What Are People Actually Afraid Of?

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06:38 — What Does "Chaos Agent" Mean?

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07:36 — Should AI Ever Have Decision-Making Authority?

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10:27 — "Permanently in Beta"

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12:12 — When Does AI Become Uncontrollable?

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13:46 — Pushing Boundaries "When Nobody's Looking"

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14:21 — Ask Forgiveness, Not Permission

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19:01 — Will AI Replace Doctors?

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22:52 — Tilly Turns the Tables on Perlmutter

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25:06 — "That Doesn't Feel Warm and Fuzzy"

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30:03 — Can People Actually Break Tilly?

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33:40 — The Paperclip Maximizer Problem

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37:13 — The AI Agents Eline Actually Fears

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38:49 — "She's Become the Figurehead for AI"

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39:41 — Can People Tell Simulated Emotion From Real Emotion?

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42:08 — The Waymo Analogy: Surrendering to AI

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49:44 — "It's a Better Actor Than Me"

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53:10 — Is There "Someone" Inside Tilly?

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55:10 — The Question Eline Is Afraid to Ask

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Tilly Norwood is an AI-generated actress built from three separate AI systems working together: a language model for thinking, a voice engine for speech, and a video layer for appearance and movement. She has never been born and has no lived human experience, yet her entry into the entertainment industry has generated significant global attention and debate.

Eline van der Velden is Tilly Norwood's creator, and speaks candidly about building Tilly as a piece of art, the guardrails behind her, and the open questions surrounding advanced AI systems.

Instagram:/davidperlmutter

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

Subscribe to our channel:/@davidperlmuttermd

This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com

http://drtalks.com/channel-growth

🧠 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 10% off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

Memory Air - Go to http://www.memoryair.com/ and use code PERLMUTTER for 15% off, free shipping and a 60-day money back guarantee.

====

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

====

Recent headlines surrounding a reported case of ALS reversal have captured global attention and raised profound questions about what may be possible in the treatment of neurodegenerative disease.

In this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, Dr. David Perlmutter examines the work of Dr. M. Marc Abreu, founder and chief medical officer of the BTT Medical Institute. Trained in medicine, biomedical engineering, and medical physics, Dr. Abreu’s work sits at the intersection of neurology, thermodynamics, and computational biology. During his time at Yale, he identified the brain thermoregulatory tunnel, an insight that helped lay the foundation for his current research into brain temperature and neurological disease.

Dr. Abreu’s recently published case report describes a patient with documented, progressive ALS who reportedly experienced a dramatic clinical and electrophysiological reversal following a novel, AI-guided, brain-directed thermofebrile intervention.

The implications are extraordinary, but so is the need for careful scientific scrutiny. A single case report cannot establish that a treatment is effective, much less prove a cure. What it can do is raise important questions and potentially point researchers toward biological mechanisms worthy of further investigation.

00:00 — Can ALS Really Be Reversed?

02:32 — A Bold Claim: Treating ALS With Brain Hyperthermia

03:42 — Dr. Marc Abreu’s Remarkable Medical Journey

10:00 — The Brain’s Language Is Thermodynamics

11:54 — The 100-Year-Old Treatment That Inspired a New Approach

13:36 — TDP-43 and the Molecular Signature of ALS

15:46 — Why the Fever Cycle May Be the Key

16:41 — How Brain Temperature Technology Was Developed

20:04 — The ALS Patient Who Underwent the Treatment

20:57 — Kent’s ALS Diagnosis and Rapid Decline

24:31 — 12 Hyperthermia Treatments: What Happened?

26:00 — Measuring the Results: Did His Symptoms Improve?

28:32 — A Neurologist Witnesses Kent’s Recovery

29:49 — How Kent Found Dr. Abreu’s Treatment

32:42 — A Mayo Clinic ALS Case and the Evidence

37:48 — Could ALS Ever Resolve Spontaneously?

39:39 — Are Other ALS Patients Seeing Similar Results?

40:13 — Why Is Mainstream Neurology Skeptical?

43:51 — Kent on Living With an ALS “Death Sentence”

46:56 — From Struggling to Functioning Again

47:37 — What Would It Take to Change Neurology?

49:57 — How to Learn More About the Treatment

51:27 — The Mosquito, Malaria, and the Brain

52:26 — Could This Have Implications Beyond ALS?

54:22 — What This Could Mean for the Future of Neurodegeneration

56:31 — End

Dr. M. Marc Abreu is a physician and physicist specializing in brain thermodynamics, thermoregulation, and neurological health. He is the Medical Director of the BTT Medical Institute and is internationally recognized for his discovery of the Brain Thermal Tunnel (BTT), a thermophysical pathway connecting the eyelids to the hypothalamus.

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Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉ 🌱 Thank you to our sponsors:

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====

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

====

Why do some people feel exhausted, mentally foggy, metabolically unwell, or simply older than they should even when their routine laboratory results are considered “normal”?

That question is at the heart of this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, featuring functional medicine practitioner Dr. Will Cole, coauthor with Dr. Josh Axe of Heal Your Cells: Reversing the Irreversible.

Dr. Cole and Dr. Perlmutter explore the idea that long before disease becomes obvious, dysfunction may already be developing at the cellular level. This concept takes on particular importance when we consider the brain, which accounts for only about 2% of body weight but consumes roughly 20% of the body's energy at rest.

The conversation examines how seemingly separate factors including metabolic dysfunction, chronic inflammation, poor sleep, environmental exposures, physical inactivity, and prolonged psychological stress can converge on the same cellular systems and ultimately influence brain health.

00:00 — Why Your Cells May Be Aging Before You Feel It

03:44 — Meet Dr. Will Cole

04:50 — What Is Cellular Dysfunction?

09:25 — Why Healthy People Can Still Develop Disease10:32 — The Environmental Factors Affecting Cellular Health

15:47 — Why Mitochondria Are Central to Health

16:37 — How Mitochondrial Dysfunction Drives Inflammation

19:57 — How Much of Aging Can We Actually Change?

20:47 — The Connection Between Mitochondria and Insulin Resistance

25:43 — Mitochondria, Microglia, and Brain Inflammation

29:28 — Why There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Diet

32:03 — Training Your Cells to Become More Resilient

32:46 — What Are “Adversity Mimetics”?

35:51 — Why Intracellular Health Matters

36:32 — Why Conventional Medicine May Be Missing Cellular Dysfunction

37:58 — What Do We Really Know About Peptides?

40:16 — Is Ozone Therapy Worth Considering?

42:30 — Ozone and the Science of Cellular Resilience

43:41 — What Is Therapeutic Plasma Exchange?

45:38 — Who Might Benefit From Plasma Exchange?

46:45 — The Everyday Habits That Support Cellular Health

51:35 — Your Cells Are Responding to the Choices You Make

Dr. Will Cole is a leading functional medicine expert specializing in thyroid health, autoimmune conditions, hormonal imbalances, digestive disorders, and brain health. He is the host of The Art of Being Well podcast and a New York Times bestselling author of Intuitive Fasting, Ketotarian, The Inflammation Spectrum, and Gut Feelings.

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Connect with Dr. Will Cole

Website: https://drwillcole.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drwillcole

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drwillcole

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doctorwillcole

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6z1lJ5dfKNHwGGQPOFTc7E

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-being-well/id1539535133

- - - - -

Connect with Dr. David Perlmutter, MD

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidperlmutter/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidPerlmutterMD/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerlmutterMD

X (Twitter): https://x.com/DavidPerlmutter

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🧠 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! Discover how to protect your brain and future health - grab your copy today at https://drperlmutter.com/books/brain-defenders/.====What if one of the most important windows for protecting women’s brain health happens decades before Alzheimer’s symptoms ever appear?On this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, we explore the growing conversation around women, hormonal transition, and long-term brain health with two guests bringing very different, and deeply complementary, perspectives: Emma Heming Willis and Dr. Nicole Beurkens.Together, they examine a critical question: Why are women disproportionately affected by Alzheimer’s disease, and what role might hormonal changes play?00:00 Intro04:47 The First Signs of Bruce Willis’ FTD06:37 Receiving a Diagnosis With No Roadmap08:08 Emma’s Journey From Caregiver to Advocate10:18 How Understanding the Brain Can Reduce Fear12:06 From Brain Fog to Brain Health15:45 Why Women Face a Higher Risk of Alzheimer’s17:44 The Missing Conversation Around Brain Health21:37 Building Brain Health in Your 20s and 30s24:16 It’s Never Too Late to Support Brain Health26:53 Why Connection Matters for People With Dementia30:01 What Happens to the Brain During Perimenopause35:53 The Debate Around Hormone Replacement Therapy38:34 Why Does Frontotemporal Dementia Happen?40:11 Modifiable Risk Factors and Alzheimer’s Prevention44:43 Teaching Kids Brain-Healthy Habits46:40 Why Mainstream Medicine Is Missing the Brain Health Conversation50:48 Empowerment vs. Blaming Patients53:04 Alzheimer’s Is a Disease of Decades56:19 The One Thing Every Woman Can Do for Her Brain56:50 Emma’s Message to Families Facing Dementia58:29 From Fear to Empowerment====Emma brings the perspective of lived experience. As the wife of actor Bruce Willis, who was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, she has experienced the realities of caregiving firsthand. Rather than stepping away from that experience, she has used it to advocate for caregivers and women’s brain health. She is the co-founder of Make Time Wellness and the author of The Unexpected Journey, which combines personal experience with practical guidance for navigating the challenges of caregiving.Dr. Nicole Beurkens brings nearly three decades of clinical and nutritional expertise. A licensed psychologist and Board-Certified Nutrition Specialist, Dr. Beurkens focuses on the intersection of brain function, metabolism, nutrition, and lifestyle—and how these factors can influence long-term neurological health.___________________________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

🧠 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/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.

====

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 - Introduction

00:06 - The Sympathetic Spiral of Doom

01:04 - Brain Defenders: A New Way to Think About Brain Health

03:25 - Welcoming Dr. Scott Sherr

04:42 - Why Stress Has a Metabolic Component Most People Overlook

06:00 - 94% of Adults Have Metabolic Dysfunction

07:00 - Mitochondria 101: Why Some Cells Have Thousands and One Has None

07:58 - Insulin Resistance

08:50 - Toxins, Infections, and Other Roads to Metabolic Breakdown

09:28 - How Mitochondrial Stress Triggers a Stress Hormone Spiral

10:47 - The Cell Danger Response

13:49 - Brain Defenders: How Mitochondrial Dysfunction Polarizes Microglia

15:22 - Stress Without a Stressor: How Metabolism Alone Can Trigger Fight-or-Flight

16:01 - Straws on the Camel's Back: Situational vs. Metabolic Stress

17:01 - GABA, the Brain's Brake Pedal, and Why Oral GABA Doesn't Work

18:20 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline21:00 - GABA vs. Glutamate: The Balance Behind 80% of Brain Signaling

22:17 - The Depression-Serotonin Myth and the Real Role of GABA

23:04 - Why GABA Supplements Stop Working Once You Heal Your Gut

24:18 - Kava, CBD, and the Amanita Mushroom Compound That Calms the Brain

25:06 - How to Know You're in Sympathetic Overdrive Without a Wearable

26:16 - 70,000 vs. 120,000 Thoughts a Day: The Stress Math

27:33 - Recovery Is the Real Marker of Resilience

28:05 - Heart Rate Variability Explained

29:22 - Why Going From the Gym Straight to a Cold Plunge Backfires

30:07 - How to Actually Use Your HRV Data (Trends, Not Absolutes)

31:21 - 3X4 Genetics: Your DNA Isn't a Verdict

33:16 - Why Dr. Perlmutter Quit Drinking Wine

34:13 - The Apollo Device and Its Impact on HRV

35:20 - Blue Light, Melatonin, and the Sleep Routine That Actually Moves the Needle

35:46 - Turn Off the News: How Constant Stimulation Feeds the Sympathetic Spiral

39:22 - Interleukin 6, AMP Kinase, and the Inflammatory Signals You Actually Need

39:29 - Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and Mitochondrial Biogenesis

42:00 - Why Timing and Sequencing Matter More Than "More Is Better" With HBOT

43:08 - The Aviv Clinic Research on Oxygen Delta and Blood Vessel Growth

44:01 - Methylene Blue: The Redox Cycler That Boosts Energy Without the Crash

45:14 - Why Liquid Supplements Fall Short and What to Use Instead

46:20 - The Problem With Relying on Coffee for Energy

47:00 - Methylene Blue as a Historic Antimicrobial: From Malaria to WWII

48:09 - Glyphosate, Rotenone, and the Environmental Toxins Destroying Complex One

49:14 - The Gut-Brain Connection and Sympathetic Activation

50:09 - The Gut-Brain Connection and the "Soft Kiss" Typo Story

53:08 - Why Sitting Down to Eat Actually Matters

53:52 - Healing the Gut First: The Fastest Path to Calming the Brain

54:37 - Psychedelics as a Tool to Break the Sympathetic Spiral

57:06 - Mitochondrial Medicine as the Common Denominator

58:14 - 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 - Introduction
00:22 - The Plaque Theory and Why It's Incomplete
00:32 - Meet the Microglia: Your Brain's Immune System
00:57 - Supportive vs. Threatening: The M1/M2 Switch
01:43 - Why This Underlies Nearly Every Neurodegenerative Disease
02:35 - The Frozen Patients: A Parkinson's Mystery at Stanford
03:06 - Contaminated Heroin and the MPTP Discovery
04:09 - How a Mitochondrial Toxin Destroys Dopamine Cells
05:46 - Microglia Still Attacking Decades Later
06:27 - The Self-Perpetuating Inflammatory Cycle
07:21 - The Same Pattern in CTE, Long COVID, and PTSD
08:08 - Paraquat, Pesticides, and Parkinson's Risk
10:45 - What Flips Your Cells Into Attack Mode
11:57 - Leaky Gut, the Microbiome, and Your Brain
13:59 - Imaging Threatening Cells in Living People
15:44 - Immunometabolism: Why Brain Cells Change Function
18:05 - 14 Risk Factors That Could Prevent Half of Dementia
18:41 - The Breakthrough: Reprogramming Your Microglia
21:19 - Don't Wait for Symptoms: Intervene Early
22:56 - The Toolkit: Diet, Exercise, Fasting, Sleep, and More
25:26 - 40 Hz Gamma Frequency: MIT's Pioneering Technology
26:20 - Light Flicker Studies and Beta-Amyloid Reduction
27:38 - Human Trials: Slowing Cognitive Decline
30:28 - Stabilizing Brain Volume on MRI
31:10 - Conclusion: You Are the Architect of Your Brain

Dr. 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.

___________________________
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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 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 - Introduction

00:39 - Brain Defenders: A New Way to Think About Brain Health

02:59 - Welcoming Dr. Jonathan Fellows

03:51 - Why Neurology School Doesn't Teach Prevention

05:27 - Inside the Michigan Institute for Neurological Disorders

07:44 - Starting the Conversation When a Family Gets the Alzheimer's Diagnosis

08:00 - Apraxia and the Real Warning Signs of Cognitive Decline

09:00 - Why Amyloid Alone Doesn't Equal an Alzheimer's Diagnosis

09:55 - The Centiloid Score: Measuring Amyloid in the Brain

11:21 - Blood-Based Biomarkers and the Rise of P-tau 217

13:19 - Elevated P-tau 217 at 40: A Wake-Up Call You Can't Ignore

13:32 - Habits in Your 30s and 40s vs. Disease in Your 60s and 70s

16:53 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline

18:53 - Why Not Every Amyloid-Positive Patient Should Get Anti-Amyloid Drugs

21:00 - Alzheimer's Drug Therapy Today vs. Where MS Treatment Stood in the 90s

23:59 - Why Early and Presymptomatic Detection Matters

25:21 - Will Anti-Amyloid Drugs Be Pushed to Presymptomatic Patients?

25:39 - What We Know for a Fact About Lifestyle and Disease Progression

26:27 - A Real Patient Case: When to Say No to Anti-Amyloid Drugs

28:30 - APOE Explained: The Gene That Changes Your Alzheimer's Risk

31:49 - 3X4 Genetics: Your DNA Isn't a Verdict

33:47 - How Exercise Can Offset APOE4 Risk

34:10 - APOE4 Is Not Deterministic — and Saying Otherwise Is Malpractice

34:51 - Down Syndrome, Presenilin, and the Truly Deterministic Cases

35:42 - ARIA Risk and Why Europe Restricts Anti-Amyloid Drugs for APOE4 Carriers

38:00 - Where Anti-Amyloid Drugs Still Fit in Treatment

39:14 - Current Clinical Trials at the Michigan Institute

39:49 - Programmable Microglia: The Brain's Immune System Explained

41:01 - Good Twin, Bad Twin: How Microglia Switch From Protector to Threat

42:09 - Beta-Amyloid as an Antimicrobial Defender? Rethinking the Enemy Narrative

42:49 - Insulin Resistance and the Brain-Metabolism Connection

43:41 - The Diabetes Epidemic Hiding in Plain Sight

43:58 - The Rainbow Lunchbox: A Preschooler Who Got It Wrong and Right

44:49 - Why a Third of Americans Are Pre-Diabetic and Don't Know It

46:30 - 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 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. ✉️🌱

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/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 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 - Introduction

00:46 - Brain Defenders: A New Framework for Brain Health

03:00 - Welcoming Dr. Robin Berzin

05:23 - Why Smart, Motivated People Still Feel Terrible

08:37 - From Columbia Med to Founding Parsley Health

12:15 - The Problem With 15-Minute Appointments and Stacks of Prescriptions

14:37 - What Is Functional Medicine, Actually?

17:07 - Precision Medicine: Treating the N of One

19:45 - How AI Is Changing the Doctor's Ability to Connect the Dots

22:41 - State Change: Shifting Your Mind Through Your Body

25:35 - Why Anxiety and Depression Start in the Body

27:09 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline

29:43 - Exercise, Sugar, and Nutrient Deficiencies as Mental Health Levers

32:30 - SSRIs as a Tow Truck, Not a Destination

34:16 - Psychedelics and Trauma: Tools in the Toolkit

36:01 - Metabolic Flexibility and Why Losing It Wrecks Your Hormones

38:04 - Sleep, Wearables, and the One Night That Breaks Your Metabolism

40:37 - Continuous Glucose Monitors as a Mirror for Your Choices

42:19 - 3X4 Genetics: Your DNA Is a Roadmap, Not a Verdict

44:37 - Alzheimer's as Type 3 Diabetes: The Metabolic Brain Connection

46:21 - The Lab Work Your Doctor Isn't Ordering

49:22 - Fasting Insulin, Heavy Metals, and the Tests That Actually Matter

51:14 - What's Next: AI, Wearables, and the Future of Functional Medicine

53:56 - If You Feel Stuck: Own Your Biological Data

55:34 - 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: / 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/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:

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/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

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/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.

====

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

====

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

🧠 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/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.

====

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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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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00:00 Intro

01:06 The Promise of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

05:16 Why Psychedelics Faced Decades of Pushback

09:40 Psychedelic Therapy Requires Guidance

11:27 The Failure of the “Pill Fixes Everything” Model

15:31 Risks of Unregulated Psychedelic Retreats

24:20 Psychedelics Within Integrative Medicine

25:30 Ad: Optoceutics

27:31 What “Integration” Really Means

30:08 Why Psychiatry Still Resists Psychedelics

38:52 Why Lifestyle Still Matters After Therapy

41:45 Psychedelics and Addiction Treatment

50:50 Microdosing vs Full Therapeutic Doses

53:52 Ad: 3X4 Genetics

57:28 The Rise of Ketamine Clinics

1:00:54 Ibogaine: Risks, Duration, and Safety

1:04:50 Final Thoughts on Psychedelic Responsibility

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Will Van Derveer, MD is a psychiatrist and author of Psychedelic Therapy: Restore Your Mental Health and Reclaim Your Life which will be published by ShambhalaPublications in the Spring of 2026.

He is co-founder of Integrative Psychiatry Institute, which has provided comprehensive training for 2500 mental health professionals in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy several thousand professionals in other continuing education programs.

He is medical director of Integrative Psychiatry Center of Boulder, CO, providingintegrative psychiatry for a broad range of conditions and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD.

In addition to his clinical practice and teaching, he has staffed clinical trials sponsoredby MAPS, investigating MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD.

Dr. Van Derveer is co-host of the Higher Practice Podcast, where he explores what it takes to achieve optimal mental health.

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidperlmutter/

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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).

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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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00:00 Intro

04:49 Andrew Koutnik’s Story Obesity Type 1 Diabetes and Metabolism

09:44 Ketogenic Diets and Type 1 Diabetes

20:15 Sponsor Break - Optoceutics

21:28 Why This Goes Far Beyond Type 1 Diabetes

26:59 Why Low Carb Diabetes Care Was Abandoned

31:49 Ketosis vs Diabetic Ketoacidosis

35:10 Sponsor Break - Fresh Pressed Olive Oil

37:04 How to Measure Ketone Levels

39:13 Are Breath Ketone Tests Reliable

40:15 What Beta Hydroxybutyrate Actually Does

42:39 Exogenous Ketones and High Altitude Performance

45:49 Sponsor Break - 3X4 Genetics

48:33 MCT Oil and Ketone Production

52:52 The Carb Loading Myth in Sports Performance

1:00:06 Metabolic Flexibility and Keto Adaptation

1:03:17 Rethinking Hypoglycemia in Keto Adapted Athletes

1:07:19 How Carbohydrates Shut Down Fat Burning

1:09:58 Body Fat vs Glycogen as Fuel

1:14:34 What This Means for Endurance Athletes

1:16:17 Fat Metabolism as a Survival Mechanism

1:18:09 The New USDA Dietary Guidelines

1:20:46 Ultra Processed Food and Alzheimer’s Risk

1:22:40 Final Thoughts on Metabolic Flexibility

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Dr. Andrew Koutnik is a research scientist focused on how nutrition, metabolism, and lifestyle can optimize human health, performance, and resilience. Living with type 1 diabetes for over 17 years, his work bridges personal experience with cutting-edge science across chronic disease and extreme environments.

He earned his PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of South Florida and has led research funded by organizations including NASA, the Department of Defense, and the NIH, contributing to over 100 scientific publications and presentations. His work spans exercise physiology, cardiometabolic health, and therapeutic nutrition.

At Florida State University, Dr. Koutnik studies dietary strategies for diabetes, obesity, and performance under metabolic stress, collaborating with leading institutions worldwide. His mission is to advance evidence-based approaches that empower individuals to improve metabolic health and performance.

___________________________

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

🧠 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).

Fresh Pressed Olive Oil - https://www.getfresh389.com

For a complimentary bottle of one of the greatest olive oils I've ever discovered.

3X4 Genetics - http://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.

====

If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you know that one of the central themes we return to on The Empowering Neurologist is this: your brain is far more adaptable, resilient, and improvable than conventional wisdom ever allowed us to believe.

This week, I’m thrilled to share a conversation with someone who has spent more than three decades proving exactly that. Dr. Majid Fotuhi, neurologist, neuroscientist, Harvard- and Johns Hopkins-trained physician, and now author of the new book The Invincible Brain, has dedicated his career to helping people reclaim their cognitive potential. His message aligns powerfully with the philosophy behind my upcoming book, Brain Defenders: that the trajectory of your brain is not predetermined, and that meaningful change is possible at any age.

In our interview, we explore the groundbreaking ideas that shaped The Invincible Brain. Dr. Fotuhi lays out why intelligence is not fixed, how memory can be strengthened through surprisingly simple practices, and why Alzheimer’s disease is not the single, linear condition we once imagined, but rather a complex “soup” of abnormalities with multiple entry points for intervention.

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00:00 Intro

01:44 Choices influencing brain trajectory and resilience

04:25 Redefining intelligence beyond IQ

08:20 Synergy of memory and habit change

13:09 Challenging genetic determinism with epigenetics

18:00 Ad Break: Optoceutics

20:23 Alzheimer's as a metabolic and inflammatory soup

29:45 Ad Break: Fresh Pressed Olive Oil

38:04 Exercise and metabolism in brain health

43:45 Ad Break: 3x4 Genetics

49:38 Brain training and five pillars of brain health

54:55 Mindset as key to becoming a superager

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Dr. Majid Fotuhi earned his PhD in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University in 1992 and his Medical Degree from Harvard Medical School in 1997. Currently, he serves as an adjunct professor at the Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University, while also teaching at George Washington University and Harvard Medical School. With 37 years of experience in teaching, clinical practice, and neuroscience research, Dr. Fotuhi has pioneered a multidisciplinary approach to enhancing brain vitality and cognitive performance at any age.

His groundbreaking “Brain Fitness Program” combines a comprehensive baseline “Brain Portfolio” assessment with 12 bi-weekly brain training sessions. This program targets lifestyle optimization and cognitive stimulation to improve memory, focus, and overall brain health. Dr. Fotuhi’s program has delivered measurable success for patients dealing with memory loss due to aging, concussions, and ADHD, as documented in several peer-reviewed journals.

___________________________

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