October 13, 2024 • 27 mins
Unlock the secrets of brain optimization and unearth the real culprits behind common brain-related symptoms like depression and anxiety. Journey with us as we bring in the expertise of Drs. Rob Melillo and Peter Scire, leading specialists in brain development, who guide us through the pivotal role of inflammation in chronic diseases. Together, we challenge the misconception that these symptoms are strictly diseases and instead explore how they often stem from dysfunction. Gain insights into how enhancing the brain's biochemical environment and plasticity can revolutionize cognitive and emotional health.
Embark on a fascinating exploration of early childhood development as we showcase the incredible progression of motor skills in newborns. Discover how the seemingly random movements of infants are crucial for brain maturation, setting the stage for complex abilities like language and social interaction. We delve into the significance of primitive reflexes, those automatic responses that play vital roles in early brain development and can impact individuals long into adulthood when retained. Learn how the early coordination of eye, head, and body movements is foundational for brain growth and higher cognitive functions.
Finally, we emphasize the importance of functional medicine in naturally supporting health and wellness, while reminding listeners of the educational nature of our content. Our podcast aims to arm you with knowledge, but it's crucial to consult healthcare professionals for personalized medical advice. By understanding the neurological aspects of health, you can make informed choices to improve your quality of life. Join us in this enlightening episode to rethink brain health and uncover strategies for overcoming brain imbalances and enhancing overall well-being.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey everyone, welcome to the Inflammation Nation
podcast.
I'm your host, Dr SteveNoseworthy.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
One of the greatest obstacles to crafting health and
wellness is identifying andcontrolling inflammation.
It's at the core of all complexand chronic diseases and it's
the driving mechanism thatunderlies the most common
symptoms that people like youstruggle to overcome.
Join us as we explore cuttingedge science and research to
give you the information andtools you need to create the
(00:28):
quality of life you want anddeserve.
And now here is the host ofInflammation Nation, dr Stephen
Nosworthy.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast.
It's nice to be back behind themicrophone and talking to all
of you guys again.
Today's episode is it's goingto serve as an introduction to a
multi-part interview seriesthat I'm currently doing with
world-renowned brain developmentspecialist Drs Rob Melillo and
(00:58):
Peter Skier, and I originallyrecorded the first two parts of
the interview for my otherpodcast, the Funkbed Nation, and
that's the one that's designedfor healthcare practitioners.
But the content of thediscussion, while a little bit
deeper on the science side, isso valuable that I decided to
(01:18):
air it here on the InflammationNation as well.
But before I do that, I wantedto do at least one, probably two
, introduction episodes, which Iguess could stand alone, but
there's two episodes are goingto lay some groundwork so that
you don't get lost, because,honestly, the three of us start
(01:39):
to geek out on brain functionand functional neurology right
from the jump, right Now.
Having said that, I don't thinkyou should shy away from being
exposed to information thatmight be a little bit more
technical or scientific thanyou're used to, because there's
always something that you cantake away from conversations
like that, even if it's just abetter understanding, in the
(02:01):
general sense, of how the brainworks and what can cause it to
go sideways.
So to that end, I want tointroduce you to what I call the
better brain equation.
I may have talked about this ayear or two ago in one of the
other episodes, but the betterbrain equation essentially says
that you can take any brain andmake it better by doing one or
(02:24):
both of two things.
And the first thing is tooptimize the biochemical
environment in which the brainlives and works, and honestly, a
lot of the content that I talkabout here on the Inflammation
Nation is geared towards that,whether that is controlling
inflammation or stabilizingblood sugar, or dealing with
stress and adrenal dysfunctionor gut health and so on.
(02:45):
So the first part of the betterbrain equation is optimized
biochemistry.
The second part of the equationis to stimulate the brain, to
cause it to adapt and createwhat is called plasticity and
I'm sure you've heard of that,but basically plasticity.
In a nutshell, because it'smuch more complicated than this,
(03:06):
plasticity is how the brainactually changes structurally
and functionally to improveefficiency of function.
For example, it's how you learnto ride a bike or play the
violin.
Now one of the issues that westruggle with is the fact that
very few doctors understand thebrain, especially from the
(03:29):
perspective of function.
Sure, in medicine, in modernmedicine, we have the
subspecialty of neurology, butmedical neurologists are trained
in brain disease or pathology.
They're not trained in brainfunction or brain optimization.
And while those things aredifferent, they both have value
(03:53):
and, to be clear, we needmedical neurologists and perhaps
more specifically, we needbrain surgeons who are trained
to manage things like injuriesand disease or tumors that are
well beyond the scope of simplyimproving function.
But the vast majority of brainsymptoms that people complain
(04:14):
about that are rooted indysfunction are not disease
processes per se, processes perse, and those things are
depression, anxiety, maybe OCD,certainly poor focus and
concentration, bad short-termmemory and the ever-present
brain fog that people hear andpeople talk about all the time.
(04:38):
And more than likely some ofyou listening have had things
like head injuries in the past.
Some of you may have beenlabeled as attention deficit or
ADHD as kids and probably havegrown out of it, but some of you
who were in that category mightstill have remnants of some of
(05:00):
those early problems that arestill present today.
But I want you to consider thateven other issues that you
wouldn't think the brain isinvolved, but things like gut
problems or sleep issues oftenhave a neurological component
that won't completely respond todiet changes or nutritional
supplements until you dosomething about the brain.
(05:22):
And what's worse is thatbecause we as a community don't
understand the brain well, wesee altered brain function and
attribute it to eitherpersonality or perhaps aging.
For example, somebody might saysomething like you know, I'm so
clumsy, I've been a klutz mywhole life.
(05:43):
Or they might think or sayabout themselves you know, I've
just never really been good atsports.
And both of these imply apoorly developed or perhaps
injured balance and equilibriumsystem, because that's what's
required for you to be able tocatch a ball or run at a certain
cadence, with a certain rhythmor play more complicated sports
(06:05):
Right.
Someone else might say well,you know, I'm just I've never
been good at math, and they justassume it's part of who they
are, rather than seeing it as adeficiency of how the you know,
like the quote unquote math partof the brain developed and
functions.
Or I should something else,like perhaps art.
And so we can spot troubleareas in the brain by looking at
(06:35):
what you're not good at or bylooking at what you're very good
at, especially if those thingsseem to be present from birth.
People who are considered to be,say, musical or scientific
geniuses often show thesepropensities at a very young age
.
But they're almost always verychallenged in other areas of
(06:58):
brain function and quite oftenthat falls into the categories
of things like interpersonalrelationships or communication
skills, or just simple socialgraces and social skills In an
ideal world graces and socialskills.
In an ideal world, all parts ofyour brain will develop equally
well and we would be good ateverything, and the left side of
(07:18):
the brain is capable andefficient or just as capable and
(07:41):
efficient as the right side ofyour brain.
But that isn't the commonexperience, right?
And the truth is that weactually expect the brain to be
a little bit imetry and acertain amount of asymmetry.
Brain asymmetry is part of whatmakes us who we are.
That's why we're all the same,in the sense that we all have
the same human brain with thesame general neurological
(08:06):
pathways, and lobes of the brainare pretty much the same, but
they all develop in differentrates and ways, and so there's a
mixture within that commonalitythat is unique to you and me.
Now it's perfectly fine to be alittle bit more logical and
scientific versus artsy ormusical, or vice versa.
It's great if you have amixture of those things, but
(08:28):
when the difference between howthe left and the right brains
function goes beyond a certainreasonable limit, we start to
see either deficits of functionon one side or greatly
exaggerated function on theother, or some combination of
those two things.
And since the brain controlseverything, these imbalances can
(08:48):
create not just those commonbrain symptoms that we just
talked about, but also changesin how our hormonal systems work
or how the internal organs work, even your immune system and
your autonomic nervous system.
In other words, when the brainis imbalanced, everything can be
affected to some degree, whichis why kids with attention
(09:09):
deficit or hyperactivitydisorders or if they're on the
autistic spectrum, always havegut issues.
They always have immunechallenges, and it's also why we
see constellations of othernon-neurological metabolic
complaints with brainsymptomatology in an adult.
And while these upcominginterviews with Drs Malolo and
(09:32):
Skyer, the conversation startswith the new edition of his book
that he published I think itwas 2004, called Disconnected
Kids.
That book is about why kids getautism and how to fix that.
The principles in the bookapply to you as an adult as well
, because you simply have anadult brain, and maybe this is a
(09:53):
great time to remind you thatthe brain exerts control over
pretty much every aspect ofhuman function.
Right, your brain is how youexperience life, how you move
through and explore yourenvironment.
It's how you set goals and makedecisions and take actions to
make things happen.
You set goals and makedecisions and take actions to
make things happen.
Before Google Maps and Siri,your brain was how you made your
(10:14):
way to your grandma's house orto your friend's house.
It's also where you feel loveand joy and fear and rage, and
why you can appreciate art andmusic or love science and learn
how to read, write and do math.
Your brain is what lets youwalk and talk, it's how you run
and jump, it's how you learn toride a bike and it's where you
(10:35):
feel pleasure and pain,experience grief and hope.
It's where you fall in love and, in short, you can't experience
life to its fullest without ahealthy brain.
It's simply impossible.
But for most of us, our brainsare simply a mysterious black
box.
We know stuff happens there,but we don't know exactly what
(10:56):
or how.
We don't really think about ourbrains being affected by our
diet or our lifestyle choices orthe environment we live in, and
we may not make connectionsbetween what we experience as
adults and how our brainsdevelop when we were young.
In short, the brain is amystery for most of us, and that
includes your doctors.
(11:17):
So let me start to demystifyyour brain by talking about how
your brain develops when you'reborn, and then we'll eventually
talk about what can go wrong.
The first thing I want you toknow is that when you're born,
you have more neurons in yourbrain than at any other point in
your life.
From the moment you're born,you start to lose neurons, but
(11:38):
the main difference between youradult brain and the brain you
had when you were born is that,while your baby brain had more
neurons, it had very fewconnections, and your adult
brain has way more connections,even though it doesn't have as
many neurons, and connectivityis what gives function.
It's not about how big yourbrain is or how many neurons you
(12:01):
have.
It's more about how thoseneurons you do have connect and
communicate together.
So again, despite having moreneurons, as a baby you couldn't
speak a language.
You couldn't even pick yourhead up to look around or let
alone sit or walk, as obviouslya newborn.
So babies are born with a hugeneural mass but very few
(12:22):
connections.
And the connections they dohave are all geared towards one
thing and that is survival.
So the infant brain is veryprimitive in that sense.
It's all about survival and notabout sophistication.
And that's why babies cry whenthey're hungry or they're tired,
or they're wet or they're inpain.
And in fact crying is thenewborn's only form of
(12:44):
communication that somethingisn't right and something needs
to be fixed.
Now, if you have children or ifyou've been around newborns, you
will know that they are capableof movement, but their little
arms and legs flail about justin a very random, almost spastic
manner.
And that's because they comeinto this world with a primitive
motor cortex that's whatcontrols muscles which creates
(13:09):
these spontaneous musclecontractions that are unrefined,
they're random, they're veryuncoordinated, but as the weeks
and the months go by, you seethese movements becoming less
random, they become morecoordinated and more purposeful,
and it's always a moment ofgreat joy for a parent when
their baby grabs a raisin forthe first time and pops it into
(13:29):
their mouth.
Baby grabs a raisin for thefirst time and pops it into
their mouth.
So as these newborn babiesflail around.
All that movement is actuallyused to help the brain develop.
In fact, you can't move a joint, contract or stretch a muscle
without a sensory signal comingfrom and going to the brain.
So while these initial movementpatterns are completely random
(13:51):
and uncontrolled, the sensoryinput into the brain that comes
from these infantile movementsare used by the developing brain
to create plasticity, whichthen allows the brain to control
the very joints and musclesthat are moving around in that
spastic manner.
And again, you might havenoticed pretty much without
exception, that control of themotor system precedes all other
(14:14):
functions.
Generally, kids don't speakuntil after they learn how to
walk.
There's a reason for that.
And of course they don't orthey shouldn't walk before they
crawl and they can't crawlbefore they learn to sit up, and
they can't sit up until theycan roll from their back to
their stomach.
And because all of this happensor I should say before all of
(14:36):
this happens, the very firstthing that you as a baby learn
to control is your eyes.
Newborn babies can't focustheir eyes and can't control and
coordinate eye movementcertainly with head position
until they're a few months old.
But the progression happensearly and it happens like this
First comes the ability for thebaby to fix their eyes on a
(14:59):
targeted interest and that mightbe their mother's face.
But in the beginning that's verytransient.
They can't focus for very longbefore their eyes are roving off
to look at something else.
But over time they can fixatefor longer and longer.
So the more they practicefixating for short periods of
(15:20):
time, the longer that periodbecomes and the more control
they have over being able tostare and look at one thing.
As they gain control over theireyeballs they then start to
coordinate their eye positionand movements with the muscles
in their neck so that they canturn their head or lift it up to
look at something thatinterests them.
But of course their tiny littleneck muscles are not very
(15:41):
strong, so their head kind ofcomically bobs up and down until
weeks later they can pick uptheir head, and then they can.
So their head kind of comicallybobs up and down until weeks
later they can pick up theirhead and then they can turn
their head and their eyestowards things they see and
sounds that they hear, thingsthat catch their attention, in a
coordinated pattern of movementthat yokes or connects their
eyes and their head together.
And so the ability to controlthe muscles of the eyes and
(16:06):
coordinate that with thestabilization and strength of
the neck forms the foundation ofspinal stability that
eventually allows them to sit,crawl, stand and then walk, and
all of that sets the foundationfor higher brain functions, like
the acquisition of language andthe development of social
skills, awareness of theirselves.
(16:28):
Now, when you get to theinterviews with Drs Miller, lowe
and Skyer, we will at somepoint during that interview be
talking about something calledprimitive reflexes, and this is
not something many people knowabout.
So let me explain those briefly.
Primitive reflexes areautomatic movements that support
the birthing process and thatset the stage for early
(16:50):
development of the brain afterbirth.
And some of these primitivereflexes are present in utero
and they help the baby positionitself so that the baby can do
his or her part of going throughthe birth canal during the
birthing process.
But once the baby's born, thenewborn has other primitive
reflexes that, for example, willhelp it latch onto a breast to
(17:15):
feed or to respond to differentstimuli that comes from touch or
sound or movement, and theseprimitive reflexes again happen
automatically.
That's what a reflex is.
It's an automatic response tosome kind of a stimulus and as
these reflexes activate, theyessentially feed brain
development.
Remember that when you moveyour body or send some kind of a
(17:39):
sensory input into it, saythrough light or sound, you feed
your brain.
Light or sound, you feed yourbrain.
And as you feed the brain byincreasing these sensory inputs
into it, whether that ismovement or light or sound, or
touch or pressure or temperaturechanges and more, the brain
responds by increasing itsactivation, which helps it
develop and become more stableand more capable.
(18:00):
Now, these primitive reflexesare designed to be present only
until the brain develops past acertain point, and then those
reflexes should go away.
And this is where the brainstarts to shift away from.
Its only interest is survivalto now sophistication.
And so these reflexes go away.
As the brain develops, it gainsthe capacity to inhibit those
(18:22):
survival-based reflexes, andthat's why most of us as adults,
you know, like we don't crywhen we got hungry, we don't cry
if we get wet, for example, wemight complain a little bit, but
we don't cry like a baby does.
But what happens when the babyor when, as the baby, grows?
What happens when the braindoesn't develop the ability to
inhibit these more primitivereflexes?
(18:44):
And we call those retainedprimitive reflexes and they can
affect how the brain developsand matures over the next
several years.
And listen, this is not sometheoretical junk made up by
fringe doctors.
50 years ago or so,pediatricians routinely examined
growing infants for theseprimitive reflexes to make sure
(19:04):
that kids were hitting theirdevelopmental milestones.
But over time the focus inpediatrics shifted away from
healthy development and by thatI mean healthy neurological
development to making sure kidsstick to their vaccine schedules
and taking care of recurrentair infections.
So in the modern functionalneurology field again, where
(19:27):
we're focused on function andnot disease per se, well-trained
doctors are examining kids forthese retained primitive
reflexes.
They're looking at adults withlong histories of things like
depression or anxiety or poorcognitive function or balance
and emotion issues, and checkingto make sure that part of the
problem is or is not a retainedprimitive reflex that should
(19:48):
have gone away decades beforebut didn't.
The other thing that we lookfor in functional neurology is
to determine if one side of thebrain has developed faster or
better than the other and todecide if a relative brain
imbalance is part of the causeof their health complaints.
While the right and the lefthalves of your brain certainly
(20:09):
work together, there is acertain degree of competition
where one side of the brainkeeps the other side in check,
and this is part of theconversation, or this part of
the conversation can get verycomplex very quickly.
So I just want to summarize afew things for you very quickly.
So I just want to summarize afew things for you.
(20:29):
I guess I'll probably wind downthis episode and tell you what
we're going to talk about in thenext one.
Otherwise I'll talk for another30 minutes.
But as you will learn in theupcoming interviews, the right
side of the brain develops morethan the left side of the brain
in the first three years of life, between the ages of three to
six, the left brain starts todevelop faster than the right
(20:50):
and after six years developmentkind of flips and flops back and
forth until development hasstopped somewhere.
In the second decade it's goingto vary from male to female.
It's going to vary from personto person, right.
So there's a range.
In many cases, differentfunctions are housed in what we
call distributed networks of thebrain that may have components
(21:13):
on both sides of the brain andthis distribution allows the
brain to have more control overfunctionality and it allows
different systems to integrateand communicate with each other.
So, for example, the rightbrain is where we feel anxiety
or fear or anger, let's saynegative emotions, whereas the
left side of the brain is wherewe have positivity, and it's
(21:36):
this balance between positiveand negative emotions on both
sides that allow us to controlour emotionality so that we can
be happy and positive when weneed to, or we can be fearful or
anxious if the situation callsfor it, and thus we we stay even
keeled emotionally and ouremotional output and outlook is
(21:56):
dependent on the circumstancethat we're in.
If there is a developmentalissue or perhaps an injury, say,
to the left side of the brain,and we lose that positivity,
people tend to get veryemotional and they can have
episodes of anxiety, they canhave outright panic attacks or
they can become very fearful orangry or have spontaneous crying
(22:18):
spells.
And part of helping people likethis is to help them increase
the activity of the left brain,to balance out and help control
the emotional side, which is onthe right side.
So the bottom line is thisSometimes the root cause of
developmentally challenged kidsis in retained primitive
reflexes and an atypicaldevelopment process that creates
(22:42):
imbalances in right and leftbrain function, and sometimes
these developmental issuesextend into adulthood and, if
not directly causative, cancertainly be an obstacle to
improvement in adults withbrain-based complaints,
especially if they've had thosecomplaints for a very long time.
It's a different situation if a45-year-old all of a sudden
(23:03):
becomes anxious.
I would look at that perhapsdifferently than somebody who is
45-year-old who says I don'tremember ever not being anxious,
even as a child.
So I want you to consider that,whatever your complaints are,
whatever complaints you'reseeking solutions for, think
about your brain.
Think about how your brainmight be involved, and that's
(23:26):
more likely to be true thelonger you've had brain symptoms
and especially if you know,looking back, that you had
developmental delays or thingsthat were very accelerated.
Or maybe you were a kid thatgot labeled with attention
deficit or ADHD or somethinglike that.
So I'm going to close thisepisode.
In the next one, which will bethe final introduction to this
(23:49):
interview series, I'll talk alittle bit more detail about how
bad brains are created and howthey're fixed, and we'll come
back and we'll revisit this ideaof the better brain equation.
I'll see you right back here atthe inflammation nation.
Better brain equation.
I'll see you right back here atthe inflammation nation.
(24:12):
This podcast is for generalinformational and educational
purposes only and does notconstitute the practice of
medicine in any form or capacity.
No doctor patient relationshipis formed.
The use of the information inthis podcast or any materials
associated with or linked to thepodcast is at the listener's
own risk.
The content of this podcast isnot intended to be a substitute
for professional andpersonalized medical advice,
(24:34):
diagnosis or treatment, andlisteners should not disregard
or delay obtaining propermedical advice when a health
condition exists and warrantsthat.
And finally, functionalmedicine is not intended or
designed to treat disease, butrather is a natural approach to
support restoring health andwellness.
The use of diet and lifestylemodifications and nutritional
(24:57):
supplementation is supportivefor adjunctive care.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Inflammation Nation
podcast.
I'm your host, Dr SteveNoseworthy.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
One of the greatest obstacles to crafting health and
wellness is identifying andcontrolling inflammation.
It's at the core of all complexand chronic diseases and it's
the driving mechanism thatunderlies the most common
symptoms that people like youstruggle to overcome.
Join us as we explore cuttingedge science and research to
give you the information andtools you need to create the
(00:28):
quality of life you want anddeserve.
And now here is the host ofInflammation Nation, dr Stephen
Nosworthy.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast.
It's nice to be back behind themicrophone and talking to all
of you guys again.
Today's episode is it's goingto serve as an introduction to a
multi-part interview seriesthat I'm currently doing with
world-renowned brain developmentspecialist Drs Rob Melillo and
(00:58):
Peter Skier, and I originallyrecorded the first two parts of
the interview for my otherpodcast, the Funkbed Nation, and
that's the one that's designedfor healthcare practitioners.
But the content of thediscussion, while a little bit
deeper on the science side, isso valuable that I decided to
(01:18):
air it here on the InflammationNation as well.
But before I do that, I wantedto do at least one, probably two
, introduction episodes, which Iguess could stand alone, but
there's two episodes are goingto lay some groundwork so that
you don't get lost, because,honestly, the three of us start
(01:39):
to geek out on brain functionand functional neurology right
from the jump, right Now.
Having said that, I don't thinkyou should shy away from being
exposed to information thatmight be a little bit more
technical or scientific thanyou're used to, because there's
always something that you cantake away from conversations
like that, even if it's just abetter understanding, in the
(02:01):
general sense, of how the brainworks and what can cause it to
go sideways.
So to that end, I want tointroduce you to what I call the
better brain equation.
I may have talked about this ayear or two ago in one of the
other episodes, but the betterbrain equation essentially says
that you can take any brain andmake it better by doing one or
(02:24):
both of two things.
And the first thing is tooptimize the biochemical
environment in which the brainlives and works, and honestly, a
lot of the content that I talkabout here on the Inflammation
Nation is geared towards that,whether that is controlling
inflammation or stabilizingblood sugar, or dealing with
stress and adrenal dysfunctionor gut health and so on.
(02:45):
So the first part of the betterbrain equation is optimized
biochemistry.
The second part of the equationis to stimulate the brain, to
cause it to adapt and createwhat is called plasticity and
I'm sure you've heard of that,but basically plasticity.
In a nutshell, because it'smuch more complicated than this,
(03:06):
plasticity is how the brainactually changes structurally
and functionally to improveefficiency of function.
For example, it's how you learnto ride a bike or play the
violin.
Now one of the issues that westruggle with is the fact that
very few doctors understand thebrain, especially from the
(03:29):
perspective of function.
Sure, in medicine, in modernmedicine, we have the
subspecialty of neurology, butmedical neurologists are trained
in brain disease or pathology.
They're not trained in brainfunction or brain optimization.
And while those things aredifferent, they both have value
(03:53):
and, to be clear, we needmedical neurologists and perhaps
more specifically, we needbrain surgeons who are trained
to manage things like injuriesand disease or tumors that are
well beyond the scope of simplyimproving function.
But the vast majority of brainsymptoms that people complain
(04:14):
about that are rooted indysfunction are not disease
processes per se, processes perse, and those things are
depression, anxiety, maybe OCD,certainly poor focus and
concentration, bad short-termmemory and the ever-present
brain fog that people hear andpeople talk about all the time.
(04:38):
And more than likely some ofyou listening have had things
like head injuries in the past.
Some of you may have beenlabeled as attention deficit or
ADHD as kids and probably havegrown out of it, but some of you
who were in that category mightstill have remnants of some of
(05:00):
those early problems that arestill present today.
But I want you to consider thateven other issues that you
wouldn't think the brain isinvolved, but things like gut
problems or sleep issues oftenhave a neurological component
that won't completely respond todiet changes or nutritional
supplements until you dosomething about the brain.
(05:22):
And what's worse is thatbecause we as a community don't
understand the brain well, wesee altered brain function and
attribute it to eitherpersonality or perhaps aging.
For example, somebody might saysomething like you know, I'm so
clumsy, I've been a klutz mywhole life.
(05:43):
Or they might think or sayabout themselves you know, I've
just never really been good atsports.
And both of these imply apoorly developed or perhaps
injured balance and equilibriumsystem, because that's what's
required for you to be able tocatch a ball or run at a certain
cadence, with a certain rhythmor play more complicated sports
(06:05):
Right.
Someone else might say well,you know, I'm just I've never
been good at math, and they justassume it's part of who they
are, rather than seeing it as adeficiency of how the you know,
like the quote unquote math partof the brain developed and
functions.
Or I should something else,like perhaps art.
And so we can spot troubleareas in the brain by looking at
(06:35):
what you're not good at or bylooking at what you're very good
at, especially if those thingsseem to be present from birth.
People who are considered to be,say, musical or scientific
geniuses often show thesepropensities at a very young age
.
But they're almost always verychallenged in other areas of
(06:58):
brain function and quite oftenthat falls into the categories
of things like interpersonalrelationships or communication
skills, or just simple socialgraces and social skills In an
ideal world graces and socialskills.
In an ideal world, all parts ofyour brain will develop equally
well and we would be good ateverything, and the left side of
(07:18):
the brain is capable andefficient or just as capable and
(07:41):
efficient as the right side ofyour brain.
But that isn't the commonexperience, right?
And the truth is that weactually expect the brain to be
a little bit imetry and acertain amount of asymmetry.
Brain asymmetry is part of whatmakes us who we are.
That's why we're all the same,in the sense that we all have
the same human brain with thesame general neurological
(08:06):
pathways, and lobes of the brainare pretty much the same, but
they all develop in differentrates and ways, and so there's a
mixture within that commonalitythat is unique to you and me.
Now it's perfectly fine to be alittle bit more logical and
scientific versus artsy ormusical, or vice versa.
It's great if you have amixture of those things, but
(08:28):
when the difference between howthe left and the right brains
function goes beyond a certainreasonable limit, we start to
see either deficits of functionon one side or greatly
exaggerated function on theother, or some combination of
those two things.
And since the brain controlseverything, these imbalances can
(08:48):
create not just those commonbrain symptoms that we just
talked about, but also changesin how our hormonal systems work
or how the internal organs work, even your immune system and
your autonomic nervous system.
In other words, when the brainis imbalanced, everything can be
affected to some degree, whichis why kids with attention
(09:09):
deficit or hyperactivitydisorders or if they're on the
autistic spectrum, always havegut issues.
They always have immunechallenges, and it's also why we
see constellations of othernon-neurological metabolic
complaints with brainsymptomatology in an adult.
And while these upcominginterviews with Drs Malolo and
(09:32):
Skyer, the conversation startswith the new edition of his book
that he published I think itwas 2004, called Disconnected
Kids.
That book is about why kids getautism and how to fix that.
The principles in the bookapply to you as an adult as well
, because you simply have anadult brain, and maybe this is a
(09:53):
great time to remind you thatthe brain exerts control over
pretty much every aspect ofhuman function.
Right, your brain is how youexperience life, how you move
through and explore yourenvironment.
It's how you set goals and makedecisions and take actions to
make things happen.
You set goals and makedecisions and take actions to
make things happen.
Before Google Maps and Siri,your brain was how you made your
(10:14):
way to your grandma's house orto your friend's house.
It's also where you feel loveand joy and fear and rage, and
why you can appreciate art andmusic or love science and learn
how to read, write and do math.
Your brain is what lets youwalk and talk, it's how you run
and jump, it's how you learn toride a bike and it's where you
(10:35):
feel pleasure and pain,experience grief and hope.
It's where you fall in love and, in short, you can't experience
life to its fullest without ahealthy brain.
It's simply impossible.
But for most of us, our brainsare simply a mysterious black
box.
We know stuff happens there,but we don't know exactly what
(10:56):
or how.
We don't really think about ourbrains being affected by our
diet or our lifestyle choices orthe environment we live in, and
we may not make connectionsbetween what we experience as
adults and how our brainsdevelop when we were young.
In short, the brain is amystery for most of us, and that
includes your doctors.
(11:17):
So let me start to demystifyyour brain by talking about how
your brain develops when you'reborn, and then we'll eventually
talk about what can go wrong.
The first thing I want you toknow is that when you're born,
you have more neurons in yourbrain than at any other point in
your life.
From the moment you're born,you start to lose neurons, but
(11:38):
the main difference between youradult brain and the brain you
had when you were born is that,while your baby brain had more
neurons, it had very fewconnections, and your adult
brain has way more connections,even though it doesn't have as
many neurons, and connectivityis what gives function.
It's not about how big yourbrain is or how many neurons you
(12:01):
have.
It's more about how thoseneurons you do have connect and
communicate together.
So again, despite having moreneurons, as a baby you couldn't
speak a language.
You couldn't even pick yourhead up to look around or let
alone sit or walk, as obviouslya newborn.
So babies are born with a hugeneural mass but very few
(12:22):
connections.
And the connections they dohave are all geared towards one
thing and that is survival.
So the infant brain is veryprimitive in that sense.
It's all about survival and notabout sophistication.
And that's why babies cry whenthey're hungry or they're tired,
or they're wet or they're inpain.
And in fact crying is thenewborn's only form of
(12:44):
communication that somethingisn't right and something needs
to be fixed.
Now, if you have children or ifyou've been around newborns, you
will know that they are capableof movement, but their little
arms and legs flail about justin a very random, almost spastic
manner.
And that's because they comeinto this world with a primitive
motor cortex that's whatcontrols muscles which creates
(13:09):
these spontaneous musclecontractions that are unrefined,
they're random, they're veryuncoordinated, but as the weeks
and the months go by, you seethese movements becoming less
random, they become morecoordinated and more purposeful,
and it's always a moment ofgreat joy for a parent when
their baby grabs a raisin forthe first time and pops it into
(13:29):
their mouth.
Baby grabs a raisin for thefirst time and pops it into
their mouth.
So as these newborn babiesflail around.
All that movement is actuallyused to help the brain develop.
In fact, you can't move a joint, contract or stretch a muscle
without a sensory signal comingfrom and going to the brain.
So while these initial movementpatterns are completely random
(13:51):
and uncontrolled, the sensoryinput into the brain that comes
from these infantile movementsare used by the developing brain
to create plasticity, whichthen allows the brain to control
the very joints and musclesthat are moving around in that
spastic manner.
And again, you might havenoticed pretty much without
exception, that control of themotor system precedes all other
(14:14):
functions.
Generally, kids don't speakuntil after they learn how to
walk.
There's a reason for that.
And of course they don't orthey shouldn't walk before they
crawl and they can't crawlbefore they learn to sit up, and
they can't sit up until theycan roll from their back to
their stomach.
And because all of this happensor I should say before all of
(14:36):
this happens, the very firstthing that you as a baby learn
to control is your eyes.
Newborn babies can't focustheir eyes and can't control and
coordinate eye movementcertainly with head position
until they're a few months old.
But the progression happensearly and it happens like this
First comes the ability for thebaby to fix their eyes on a
(14:59):
targeted interest and that mightbe their mother's face.
But in the beginning that's verytransient.
They can't focus for very longbefore their eyes are roving off
to look at something else.
But over time they can fixatefor longer and longer.
So the more they practicefixating for short periods of
(15:20):
time, the longer that periodbecomes and the more control
they have over being able tostare and look at one thing.
As they gain control over theireyeballs they then start to
coordinate their eye positionand movements with the muscles
in their neck so that they canturn their head or lift it up to
look at something thatinterests them.
But of course their tiny littleneck muscles are not very
(15:41):
strong, so their head kind ofcomically bobs up and down until
weeks later they can pick uptheir head, and then they can.
So their head kind of comicallybobs up and down until weeks
later they can pick up theirhead and then they can turn
their head and their eyestowards things they see and
sounds that they hear, thingsthat catch their attention, in a
coordinated pattern of movementthat yokes or connects their
eyes and their head together.
And so the ability to controlthe muscles of the eyes and
(16:06):
coordinate that with thestabilization and strength of
the neck forms the foundation ofspinal stability that
eventually allows them to sit,crawl, stand and then walk, and
all of that sets the foundationfor higher brain functions, like
the acquisition of language andthe development of social
skills, awareness of theirselves.
(16:28):
Now, when you get to theinterviews with Drs Miller, lowe
and Skyer, we will at somepoint during that interview be
talking about something calledprimitive reflexes, and this is
not something many people knowabout.
So let me explain those briefly.
Primitive reflexes areautomatic movements that support
the birthing process and thatset the stage for early
(16:50):
development of the brain afterbirth.
And some of these primitivereflexes are present in utero
and they help the baby positionitself so that the baby can do
his or her part of going throughthe birth canal during the
birthing process.
But once the baby's born, thenewborn has other primitive
reflexes that, for example, willhelp it latch onto a breast to
(17:15):
feed or to respond to differentstimuli that comes from touch or
sound or movement, and theseprimitive reflexes again happen
automatically.
That's what a reflex is.
It's an automatic response tosome kind of a stimulus and as
these reflexes activate, theyessentially feed brain
development.
Remember that when you moveyour body or send some kind of a
(17:39):
sensory input into it, saythrough light or sound, you feed
your brain.
Light or sound, you feed yourbrain.
And as you feed the brain byincreasing these sensory inputs
into it, whether that ismovement or light or sound, or
touch or pressure or temperaturechanges and more, the brain
responds by increasing itsactivation, which helps it
develop and become more stableand more capable.
(18:00):
Now, these primitive reflexesare designed to be present only
until the brain develops past acertain point, and then those
reflexes should go away.
And this is where the brainstarts to shift away from.
Its only interest is survivalto now sophistication.
And so these reflexes go away.
As the brain develops, it gainsthe capacity to inhibit those
(18:22):
survival-based reflexes, andthat's why most of us as adults,
you know, like we don't crywhen we got hungry, we don't cry
if we get wet, for example, wemight complain a little bit, but
we don't cry like a baby does.
But what happens when the babyor when, as the baby, grows?
What happens when the braindoesn't develop the ability to
inhibit these more primitivereflexes?
(18:44):
And we call those retainedprimitive reflexes and they can
affect how the brain developsand matures over the next
several years.
And listen, this is not sometheoretical junk made up by
fringe doctors.
50 years ago or so,pediatricians routinely examined
growing infants for theseprimitive reflexes to make sure
(19:04):
that kids were hitting theirdevelopmental milestones.
But over time the focus inpediatrics shifted away from
healthy development and by thatI mean healthy neurological
development to making sure kidsstick to their vaccine schedules
and taking care of recurrentair infections.
So in the modern functionalneurology field again, where
(19:27):
we're focused on function andnot disease per se, well-trained
doctors are examining kids forthese retained primitive
reflexes.
They're looking at adults withlong histories of things like
depression or anxiety or poorcognitive function or balance
and emotion issues, and checkingto make sure that part of the
problem is or is not a retainedprimitive reflex that should
(19:48):
have gone away decades beforebut didn't.
The other thing that we lookfor in functional neurology is
to determine if one side of thebrain has developed faster or
better than the other and todecide if a relative brain
imbalance is part of the causeof their health complaints.
While the right and the lefthalves of your brain certainly
(20:09):
work together, there is acertain degree of competition
where one side of the brainkeeps the other side in check,
and this is part of theconversation, or this part of
the conversation can get verycomplex very quickly.
So I just want to summarize afew things for you very quickly.
So I just want to summarize afew things for you.
(20:29):
I guess I'll probably wind downthis episode and tell you what
we're going to talk about in thenext one.
Otherwise I'll talk for another30 minutes.
But as you will learn in theupcoming interviews, the right
side of the brain develops morethan the left side of the brain
in the first three years of life, between the ages of three to
six, the left brain starts todevelop faster than the right
(20:50):
and after six years developmentkind of flips and flops back and
forth until development hasstopped somewhere.
In the second decade it's goingto vary from male to female.
It's going to vary from personto person, right.
So there's a range.
In many cases, differentfunctions are housed in what we
call distributed networks of thebrain that may have components
(21:13):
on both sides of the brain andthis distribution allows the
brain to have more control overfunctionality and it allows
different systems to integrateand communicate with each other.
So, for example, the rightbrain is where we feel anxiety
or fear or anger, let's saynegative emotions, whereas the
left side of the brain is wherewe have positivity, and it's
(21:36):
this balance between positiveand negative emotions on both
sides that allow us to controlour emotionality so that we can
be happy and positive when weneed to, or we can be fearful or
anxious if the situation callsfor it, and thus we we stay even
keeled emotionally and ouremotional output and outlook is
(21:56):
dependent on the circumstancethat we're in.
If there is a developmentalissue or perhaps an injury, say,
to the left side of the brain,and we lose that positivity,
people tend to get veryemotional and they can have
episodes of anxiety, they canhave outright panic attacks or
they can become very fearful orangry or have spontaneous crying
(22:18):
spells.
And part of helping people likethis is to help them increase
the activity of the left brain,to balance out and help control
the emotional side, which is onthe right side.
So the bottom line is thisSometimes the root cause of
developmentally challenged kidsis in retained primitive
reflexes and an atypicaldevelopment process that creates
(22:42):
imbalances in right and leftbrain function, and sometimes
these developmental issuesextend into adulthood and, if
not directly causative, cancertainly be an obstacle to
improvement in adults withbrain-based complaints,
especially if they've had thosecomplaints for a very long time.
It's a different situation if a45-year-old all of a sudden
(23:03):
becomes anxious.
I would look at that perhapsdifferently than somebody who is
45-year-old who says I don'tremember ever not being anxious,
even as a child.
So I want you to consider that,whatever your complaints are,
whatever complaints you'reseeking solutions for, think
about your brain.
Think about how your brainmight be involved, and that's
(23:26):
more likely to be true thelonger you've had brain symptoms
and especially if you know,looking back, that you had
developmental delays or thingsthat were very accelerated.
Or maybe you were a kid thatgot labeled with attention
deficit or ADHD or somethinglike that.
So I'm going to close thisepisode.
In the next one, which will bethe final introduction to this
(23:49):
interview series, I'll talk alittle bit more detail about how
bad brains are created and howthey're fixed, and we'll come
back and we'll revisit this ideaof the better brain equation.
I'll see you right back here atthe inflammation nation.
Better brain equation.
I'll see you right back here atthe inflammation nation.
(24:12):
This podcast is for generalinformational and educational
purposes only and does notconstitute the practice of
medicine in any form or capacity.
No doctor patient relationshipis formed.
The use of the information inthis podcast or any materials
associated with or linked to thepodcast is at the listener's
own risk.
The content of this podcast isnot intended to be a substitute
for professional andpersonalized medical advice,
(24:34):
diagnosis or treatment, andlisteners should not disregard
or delay obtaining propermedical advice when a health
condition exists and warrantsthat.
And finally, functionalmedicine is not intended or
designed to treat disease, butrather is a natural approach to
support restoring health andwellness.
The use of diet and lifestylemodifications and nutritional
(24:57):
supplementation is supportivefor adjunctive care.
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