January 25, 2024 • 32 mins
In part two of an interview with Dr. Sofia Carozza, Dan, Catherine, and Sofia take a closer look at early childhood trauma and the brain. With the help of AI, Sofia spends her time at Harvard Medical researching how early experiences in life shape the brain structure and one's cognitive functions. What her research shows is that your brain can heal and that there is hope for those who have undergone early childhood trauma.
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Episode Transcript
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Catherine Hadro (00:00):
Welcome to Purposeful Lab, a Magistenter
podcast.
I'm Catherine Hadre, with DrDan Kebler, and this is the
season finale of season three ofour podcast and we'll be
bringing part two of ourinterview with Dr Sophia Carosa.
Dan Kuebler (00:13):
Yeah, we're going to look at particularly her
research A very fascinatingresearch she's doing and her
post-doctoral work that combineslooking at using the AI to look
at changes in the brain as theresult of early childhood trauma
and how that affects cognition.
So it's very, very fascinating.
We get into a lot of topicsabout brain plasticity and how
(00:34):
the brain can change and soforth.
Catherine Hadro (00:36):
She's a young woman by a really fascinating
and impressive background.
In resume she's a Catholicneuroscientist, currently a
research fellow at HarvardMedical School, where she
applies artificial intelligenceto the study of child brain
development.
So with that, here's part twoof our conversation with Dr
Sophia Carosa.
Dan Kuebler (00:54):
Yeah, that's right.
Your enthusiasm for yourresearch just comes through, and
so I want to delve into theresearch that you're doing in
your post-doc role work inparticularly looking at the
factors that affect early braindevelopment, and so maybe you
can just give a summary of whatyou're doing and we can follow
up with some questions.
Sure, yeah, I'd be happy to.
Sofia Carozza (01:18):
So I discovered.
Let me introduce you to why Istudy what I do, because that's
often the best mode of entry, Ithink.
So.
I study what I do because I hada profound experience when I
was 19 years old, of working atan orphanage in South America,
an orphanage in a school forunderprivileged children, many
of whom had been welcomed offthe slums of Asuncion in
(01:39):
Paraguay and they had grown upwithout robust relationships
around them, to say the least.
Many of them had alsoexperienced profound violence or
deprivation.
Some of them couldn't speak,others couldn't relate normally
to one another or to adults.
And yet, while I was there,faced with the gravity of this
(01:59):
suffering and my ownpowerlessness to change what
these children were facing, atthe same time I witnessed a
miracle that the religioussister was running this
orphanage.
The way that she loved them asa mother would her children
right.
This love transformed how theywere in the world.
It gave them a new lease onlife.
(02:20):
It enabled them to.
One of them in particular I sawabsolutely changed in the brief
months that I was there.
He had a new capacity forrelationship with others, a new
ability to play that.
He was almost like a new boy,and at that point I'd begun
studying the brain and I knewthat something had to be
(02:41):
happening in his nervous systemthat was dramatic and radical.
And when I looked in myneuroscience textbooks I
couldn't make sense of it.
How is it that a nervous systemthat's been so shaped by
experiences of violence anddeprivation can then begin again
, begin anew, as you were sayingabout plasticity earlier?
So because of this I decided togo to graduate school and to
(03:03):
really investigate how our earlyexperiences in life shape the
emergence of our brain networksand the communication highways
in the brain that support ourcognitive and psychological
functioning.
So that's what I researched.
My PhD was on, across species,in rodents and in humans, how
deprivation early in lifechanges the organization of our
(03:27):
brain, our brain structure.
And now I'm taking a moreinterdisciplinary, innovative
approach using machine learning,artificial intelligence, to try
to bridge the gap thatcurrently exists in the
literature between how thesebrain networks are organized and
how they support learning andmemory, which we see after
experiences of abuse and neglectin particular, but variations
(03:50):
in the early life environment ingeneral.
Those things tend to bedifferent later on.
For those kids.
Catherine Hadro (03:55):
They're the marks of what you've experienced
that remain in your ability tolearn, and when you're talking
early childhood, what time frameare you looking at?
Like zero to three?
Sofia Carozza (04:05):
Those are the most important years when it
comes to the relationallandscape of a child.
I am extending that windowbecause of what we said earlier
about lifetime plasticity.
I'm looking at experiences thatchildren have up until early to
mid adolescence, so eight to 12years old.
Catherine Hadro (04:22):
I think a lot of the areas will be perking up
at this topic because some kindof questions I have entering
into this conversation is A haseveryone experienced childhood
trauma?
Like, has every single humanexperienced childhood trauma?
But then, B, you look at, forexample, the story you just
shared of an orphan whoexperienced violence Maybe there
(04:46):
was hunger and food deprivationand so you hear these stories
of just extreme trauma.
Are there people and brainsthat are just, hmm, can withhold
more trauma than others?
Are there brains that are moresensitive and have a greater
(05:07):
reaction to a trauma that mightnot seem as profound?
Sofia Carozza (05:11):
Yeah, really good questions and certainly areas
that we're still investigating.
I would say, on the firstquestion about whether or not
we've all experienced trauma, Imean a theological answer is yes
, because of original sin, thatwe live in a world that's fallen
.
But in the brain we see this inthat there's no environment
that you can grow up in thatwon't shape you, for better or
(05:35):
for worse, into modes ofbehavior that are suited to that
environment, and this does notalways help you when you go
somewhere new.
And so, whether it's justidiosyncrasies of your family
culture or really is adeprivation of the kind of love
that you're meant to have, thereare going to be elements of
your environment that thenmanifest later on in difficulty
(05:56):
and in suffering.
This is a part of human lifeand again, it's, I think, a
place where we see that we're inneed of redemption and that we
can participate in that byloving one another with
compassion.
And toward your second question,I would say that there are
certainly elements of our bodiesand our brains that make us
more or less vulnerable totrauma.
(06:18):
So we see some kids whoexperienced what others would
look upon and, objectively, isjust horrific deprivation, but
have emerged in a senseunscathed or indistinguishable
from a child who hadn't beenthrough that, whereas others are
much more sensitive and theslightest environmental
perturbation can result in anexperience of mental illness or
(06:39):
a developmental difference.
Now, some of this is due todifferences in the wiring of our
brain and the expression ofcertain receptors for stress
hormones, and there are anynumber of epigenetic factors we
could talk about.
Some of it's also personality,but one of the most intriguing
factors for me is the role ofrelationship, so that, in other
(07:01):
words, a child who has a singlesupportive relationship with a
loving adult early in life canwithstand much more adversity
than a child who is left alone.
So, even if there's abuse andneglect in the home, if that
child has a grandmother or acoach or a pastor, someone who
looks upon him or her with justunconditional love, that
(07:22):
protects against the mentalhealth and even the
neurocognitive impact of some ofthe more difficult things that
child's facing.
Dan Kuebler (07:30):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, and you mentioned to meearlier about what you're sort
of finding, that there's not oneregion of the brain that's
divided, but it's this holistic,the whole organization might be
different, right.
Sofia Carozza (07:45):
Yeah.
Dan Kuebler (07:47):
And again goes back to the complexity the organ of
the brain is.
And does that make it thenharder, you think, to correct
these things?
Right, if it's a small changehere in the brain, but it seems
to be a global disorganizationthat these can trigger.
You could look at it that way.
Sofia Carozza (08:07):
You could also look at it in terms of well, if
our negative experiences affectnot just the prefrontal cortex
and the amygdala but reallyevery pathway throughout the
whole brain, so to our positiveexperiences don't just affect,
again, our hippocampus and ouramygdala but the whole brain is
taken up and implicated inexperiences of love and care and
(08:29):
abundance.
And so when we whether thechild belongs to you or not when
we care for children, the lovethat we communicate through
physical care, emotional care,education, really engages their
whole body and their whole brainin a way that can communicate
as I mentioned happened at thisorphanage the summer I was there
(08:49):
that can communicate a new lifeto them and so, yeah, so I
think it's beautiful how ourwhole biology is taken up in our
relationships with each other,even when it comes at the risk
of experiencing a violence orthe wound of sin from another
person.
Dan Kuebler (09:05):
And this reorganization shapes their
behavior to some extent.
So I just I've heard peopleargue well, that shows that we
don't have free will or freedom.
Like my experience, it was bad,it shaped my brain this way.
So I'm just, I am just, dealwith me.
How would you respond?
Sofia Carozza (09:27):
Well, I think, first of all, that's a
misunderstanding of what freedomis.
Freedom is not the capacity forunfettered choice in everything
that you do in life.
That wouldn't be freedom,that'd be complete arbitrariness
.
Freedom is something that takesplace within a context.
You have reasons for behaviorand it's not absolute.
It particularly because we'refallen.
(09:47):
There are constraints on ourfreedom.
So it can certainly be the casethat one's relational landscape
early in life limits theirfreedom to choose the good and
adhere to what's good for themlater on in life.
I don't that's true of me,that's true of everyone, right.
But it doesn't at all deny thecapacity that we have for agency
(10:09):
, for action, for something fromwithin that we're not compelled
to do but we choose out of ourown volition and thereby
participate in our fulfillment.
And so that possibility isnever taken away from a human
being, no matter what's happenedto them.
It can be very constrained, butit's never taken away
(10:30):
absolutely.
And I think you see this in thebrain that it doesn't make
sense.
The brain as an organ doesn'tmake sense if you ignore the
role of the agency of theorganism.
It's not like an artificialneural network where it carries
out what the engineer tells itto.
It really is.
(10:50):
It's a life right and it'sdirected.
There's an intrinsicpurposiveness to it that can't
be chalked up to externalinfluence and constraint.
Dan Kuebler (11:01):
Am I writing this so that you?
It's more difficult to dealwith this, the longer the brain
you do lose some of plasticityas you age, but you still house
the ability to form memories andchange the behavior.
Sofia Carozza (11:18):
Absolutely.
Dan Kuebler (11:21):
Is there a window where it really drops off, like,
is it the first five years,first 10, 20?
Catherine Hadro (11:26):
Yeah, I'm 32.
Dan Kuebler (11:30):
Well.
Sofia Carozza (11:30):
I'm 32.
Dan Kuebler (11:31):
No, no, no.
Sofia Carozza (11:32):
If you want to learn a language as a native
speaker, it is too late for you,which reflects that there are
different windows depending onthe domain.
So if a child, for example,grows up in an environment,
there's some tragic stories offeral children not those I mean
typically what you imagine is achild growing up with wolves,
but more often what happens isthe child is locked in a room or
(11:56):
a basement and not cared forfor sometimes a decade, 15 years
.
These truly tragic which we seefrom those children and from
studies in other animals, thatthere are windows of plasticity
that do shut for things likevisual experience and language
and even some forms ofsocializing, that you do need to
(12:18):
have some kind of experience inthat area if the plasticity is
going to work the way that itshould.
But those more extreme casesaside, there really is no set
time in development whenplasticity shuts off.
It gradually drops off over thecourse of childhood and we say
that the brain is generallyfinished maturing by your late
(12:40):
20s, a little bit later for menthan for women.
Dan Kuebler (12:43):
Of course.
Sofia Carozza (12:45):
But plasticity in most areas.
You can still pick up a newskill, you form new memories,
you can navigate newrelationships, and all of that
is in a sense because your brainremains plastic for the whole
of your lifespan.
Catherine Hadro (12:56):
So it's fascinating to how, I mean, the
brain really protects itself too.
If there are horrible memoriesas a child, can't your brain
kind of forget about it too andyou'll have repressed memories?
But I think one of the mostimportant things that you're
saying is this you maintainthroughout the rest of your life
the ability to heal and berepaired and you use that phrase
(13:18):
to begin anew.
What does that require?
Is it relationship?
Is that?
Sofia Carozza (13:24):
the key.
Yeah, I mean, I would say again, as a Christian grace, that you
need something to enter intoyour lice and break you out of
previous habits or to heal yourwounds and to give you a new
path to follow.
This is grace.
It's a gift freely given.
It doesn't come from you.
But on the level of the mindand the brain, what I would say
(13:46):
is exactly the way that oftentakes shape is through a
relationship that enters ontothe scene and through desire,
through a relationship awakeningyour desire to change, because
being open to change isfrightening and it's hard and it
demands often hard work andsustained effort.
And so if you're going to bemotivated to do that, you need
(14:06):
to have neuroscientists wouldsay recruitment of your reward
system.
You need to desire that changeand that newness of life that
alone is going to sustain thejourney and the work of
conversion or healing orwhatever the changes that's at
stake.
Catherine Hadro (14:22):
But again you have that agency.
Sofia Carozza (14:23):
Yes, your freedom needs to be involved.
Dan Kuebler (14:26):
Yeah, so in your research you have a relatively
large dataset you're workingwith of somewhere around 10,000
children and looking at that andcan you just I think you said
you're looking at brain imagesof those and sort of correlating
that with differentpsychological factors?
(14:49):
Is that?
Sofia Carozza (14:50):
Yeah, so I'm interested in how elements of
the early environment cometogether to shape the whole
brain, as you mentioned before,not just one region or two, but
really the whole brain isimplicated, and prior research
has taken a pretty narrowperspective on elements of the
early environment that arecontributing factors, looking
mainly just at, for example,household income or whether or
(15:14):
not you've experienced physicalabuse.
But I think anyone who's apersistent and observant, anyone
who's a persistent observer ofchildren will know that numerous
factors go into theirdevelopment.
It's how big is your family,it's what are your family
dynamics like, what is yourneighborhood like, and so I'm
(15:35):
taking data from this largepioneering cohort study called
the ABCD study Adolescent BrainCognitive Development, abcds and
they have data on 10,000children, again, as you
mentioned, brain imaging scans,but they also have
questionnaires that theirmothers filled out.
They have linked to censusinformation.
(15:56):
So this rich, detailed pictureof what the early life
environment looked like, becausewhere your parents married and
what was it like in terms of theconflicts you had in your home,
how supported did you feel,that kind of thing and what I'm
doing is using a data-drivenanalysis to identify which of
those elements of the early lifeenvironment predicts how much
(16:18):
white matter you have, which arethe communication pathways in
the brain, and how that whitematter is organized into
networks later on in life.
And then I'm using informationon these children's cognitive
abilities to try to say well,why do we care about the brain
at all?
Does it mediate, does itexplain some of this
relationship that so muchresearch has found between your
(16:40):
early life environment and yourlearning and memory later in
life?
So this is one analysis that I'mworking on at the moment and
I'm excited to find that again,as you mentioned before, there's
really a broad range of changesin the brain that we observe,
based as a function of yourearly life environment.
It's not limited to just thoseregions that you would expect
(17:01):
based on the literature of yourfrontal cortex, but really the
whole brain is involved withthese nuanced changes that do
seem to account for latercognitive differences.
So this is one main analysis,but I am, as you mentioned
before, also trying to usemachine learning and artificial
intelligence.
So I'm taking these brainnetworks and I'm using a newly
(17:24):
developed technology totransform them into recurrent
neural networks.
So this is a kind of artificialneural network that is sort of
similar to how brain networksprocess information and you can
train these networks oncognitive tasks.
I'm taking these biologicallyderived networks, training them
(17:46):
on a variety of differentdemands of learning and memory
and seeing whether or not thiscan account for computational
properties in the networks canaccount for what we see in
children later on in life.
Dan Kuebler (17:57):
So you're modeling the different organizations you
see in the ones that have thetrial and say, well, let's model
this and see, does it seem tobe dysfunctional?
Not dysfunctional, but leadingto different cognitive abilities
.
Sofia Carozza (18:12):
Yes, absolutely.
So, trying to really press onthat relationship between the
brain and cognition, can we useartificial intelligence and
machine learning to really saywell, why does it matter that
their brain networks areorganized differently?
Dan Kuebler (18:25):
Yeah, that's interesting and people follow
these people or these childrenfor many years and looking at
different, so it's alongitudinal study.
Sofia Carozza (18:34):
They're conducting ongoing follow-ups.
Catherine Hadro (18:37):
Yeah, I think a lot of people are weary of AI,
but this might be an instancewhere it can be really
beneficial hopefully.
Sofia Carozza (18:44):
Yes, I think a lot of the concern about AI in
my perspective is overblown,which is not to say that we
don't need careful and rigorouswork to demarcate ethical uses
of AI, but AI is built uponimitation of human intelligence
and it's a very powerful tool toleverage distinctively human
(19:07):
strengths and increase ourcapacity to turn those strengths
into the good of other people.
You see this in medicaldiagnostic imaging and I think
you see it in my capacity forresearch, and so, in general, I
think that when used withinethical limits, it can be a very
powerful tool for advancinghuman flourishing.
Catherine Hadro (19:28):
Coming back again to this concept of
plasticity and how that's reallyunique to the human brain and
our ability to again learn,change, repair and I'm thinking
of a listener or a viewer rightnow who maybe they're down on
themselves and thinking you know, I've really gotten into this
bad habit, bad routines, andthis is just what I'm destined
(19:49):
for.
And here we are saying you haveagency, you have the ability to
control your behavior andreally, through your behavior,
rewire your brain.
We often hear you know tochange a habit takes 30 days of
consistency.
What's your reaction to that?
And then any I don't know wordof encouragement or with done
(20:10):
for people who are trying tochange certain habits and
behaviors and what that willrequire from your perspective as
a neuroscientist.
Sofia Carozza (20:19):
Neuroscience has done remarkable work on
formation of habits, maintenanceof habits and breaking of
habits.
So this is one area in which Isee that the study of the brain
really can advance our selfunderstanding as a species.
So I would say that how longit's going to take you to change
a habit really varies based onhow long you've had the habit in
(20:39):
the first place, because thatreally determines how strong the
connections and the pathways inthe brain are that support that
behavior, but also what kind ofbehavior it is and how attached
to it you are.
So it varies based on thedomain.
So I wouldn't want to say lookfor results after 30 days and if
you don't see them, then giveup, because sometimes it takes
(20:59):
60 or 90 or a year.
But what the research shows isthat usually most of the time it
starts with very smallincremental changes, because the
brain generally tends to beresistant to rapid change.
But incremental change is a loteasier because you slowly
rewire the way that yournetworks are organized to
(21:21):
support a new behavior.
So if you can just create, ifthere's a difficult behavior you
don't want to be engaged in, ifyou can create a small gap
between yourself and thatbehavior, that you can then push
and make grow and grow and grow.
That's the path to freedom.
So if, for example, you don'twant to be eating ice cream
(21:43):
every single night, perhaps juststarting by decreasing your
portion size or waiting 20minutes after you finish dinner
and then having your ice creamnot expecting to go cold turkey,
but just creating a little bitof space of distance between you
and that stimulus that you canthen make grow slowly over time,
so that your freedom comes outagain and you're able to choose
(22:05):
whether or not you want that foryour good.
But I'll also say at the sametime that in the end it's a
grace.
Change is a grace and it happensall the time through
relationship of realization whatit is that you desire, and then
being in a context offriendship or love where you're
supported to adhere to that goodinstead of what you've been
(22:27):
following in the past.
And I think anyone who's livedin this world has had
experiences of this.
And so looking back at yourpersonal history and saying, oh,
you know what, through thisfriendship or through that
relationship, I've alreadychanged.
There's already been anexperience in my life of newness
or of new freedom or ofconversion or of healing, and so
(22:48):
that's a reason for hope, andthat's a reason to begin again
and to depend on thoserelationships and say, like I'm
starting again from what Ireally desire for my life and
not what my habits are right now, and to be patient with
yourself Absolutely, to bemerciful, to know that we're
fallen and, as we've said before, our freedom is constrained,
(23:09):
and so to not look at ourselveswith shame when we fail, but
rather in gratitude that everyday that we get up again is a
chance to begin again.
Dan Kuebler (23:20):
That's profound, that to change a person, to
change my person, a lot of timesanother person is really
essential for that.
And I think we've all hadexperiences of that and it makes
it much easier.
Catherine Hadro (23:33):
Final question that just came to my mind.
I'm curious again from yourperspective.
You have this neuroscience andtheology talking about the
ability to change, to overcomehabits, to overcome vice,
childhood adversity.
Do you look at certain saintsthat kind of stand out, or
saints you look at in your workwho have overcome early
childhood adversity, who haveovercome something in our
(23:56):
witnesses of doing just that?
Sofia Carozza (23:59):
So many of the saints Thank you for asking I
think of, when it comes tochildhood adversity, Margaret of
Castello, whose parents wereneglectful and abusive of her,
and she had physical handicapsand perhaps even intellectual
ones as well, but went on tobecome, in her simplicity and
(24:20):
poverty of spirit, a radiantexample and spiritual mother to
so many.
So she's a great undercessorfor those who've experienced any
kind of trauma in theirbackground.
But really any of the saints,Because if you look at I mean
from the great the patristics,if you look at St Augustine and
his journey of conversion thatwas such a struggle for so long
(24:41):
until that grace was given tohim of encountering Christ all
the way up until our day and age, and the saints who have
recently died, I think one who'sparticularly dear to me is
Chiara Corbella Petrillo, who'sa young Italian woman who was a
mother to several children andthen received a cancer diagnosis
(25:02):
during her third and firsthealthy pregnancy and chose to
carry the baby to term insteadof.
And if you look at her in theway that she gradually came to
this luminous vocation, I meanit was a journey of complete
ordinariness, of relationshipwith her boyfriend, and they
fought and broke up and got backtogether, and but she was just
(25:24):
faithful to the circumstancesthat were given to her.
That again, like I was sayingbefore, the greatest elements of
human life are the simplestones.
It's not the greataccomplishments that we have or
the moments of human glory, butthe beautiful relationships that
enable us to change andmanifest in our lives an
impossible life and love that isa witness of the resurrection.
(25:47):
And so all of these saints fromyou know, from the time of the
Lord to our own today, who hasembodied what it means to be
human, that it is a responsivelove to our creator and redeemer
that can then turn us into asource of life for other people.
What it means to be human is sosimple.
It's just that.
Catherine Hadro (26:09):
Dr Sophia Crow said thank you so much for your
time and your wisdom.
It's been a joy.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so grateful for the timethat Sophia took to sit down
with us and again so impressedin the fact that she has this
theology background andneuroscience Really fascinating
insights and how again it'sunitive, how she incorporates
(26:29):
both of them into her work.
Dan Kuebler (26:30):
Yeah, so you can look at the best of modern
neuroscience, which she's doing,and then step back and reflect
on what does this meantheologically, what does this
mean for her faith life, and youcan see how she integrates it.
There's no distinct differencebetween both.
It's integrated, yeah.
One thing that sort of reallystruck me with what she talked
about is how the brain is on acontinual journey.
(26:53):
You know, with neuroplasticityand the fact that your habits
can change the brain, that we'resort of striving for, you know,
this end goal, just like allcreation we talk about, all
creation is on a journey towardsits ultimate perfection, like
we are as well, and that'smimicked by the fact that our
brain is continually changing,trying to rewire and so forth,
(27:14):
to overcome bad habits and toimprove.
Catherine Hadro (27:19):
And even though there might be that more
plasticity, that term againearlier on in life.
It states there's the abilityto change and tell the day that
you die, which gives some hope,some hope right, exactly.
No, but that was fascinatingand again, especially when we
talked about evolution, to hearyour insights as well as a
biologist on the evolution ofthe brain, so really great to
speak with her.
Dan Kuebler (27:39):
No, it was wonderful opportunity.
Catherine Hadro (27:41):
And sets us up pretty perfectly, because this
is again the end of season three, but season four will be back
and focused on consciousness.
Dan Kuebler (27:47):
Yeah, so we've talked about human evolution and
now we just started to talkabout the human brain.
And now you know, for the newone level, what is consciousness
and what does that mean and howdo we understand it.
And so this sort of what we'vetalked about with the brain just
natural segue into season four,exactly.
Catherine Hadro (28:07):
And so with that, as season three begins to
come to a wrap, we can't end yetwithout going to the office
hour segment.
So here are the last questionsgiven to you for this season.
So Catholic News Agencyrecently reported that Brother
Robert Mackie, who's a Jesuitastronomer at the Vatican
Observatory because theyreported, because NASA turned to
(28:27):
him for help on an importantspace mission NASA was in need
of what's known as a picnometerI think I'm pronouncing that
correctly To measure the densityand porosity of asteroid
material taken from deep space.
And they typically buy thispart from companies, but none of
these picnometers fit thespecific criteria.
(28:49):
So Brother Robert Mackie custombuilt one for NASA, which again
was pivotal for their research.
And it's incredible, because ofthis one Jesuit, NASA is better
able to understand the originsof the solar system.
What are your thoughts when youheard this story?
Dan Kuebler (29:06):
Yeah, you know there's two thought.
One it's just wonderful thatyou can see how the church is
sort of interested in scientificdiscovery.
Here's a real, tangible proofof that, that the church is very
open and wants to understandthe natural world, you see, as
this Jesuit is playing acritical role in understanding
it.
And the other thing I thinkit's kind of interesting in what
they're looking at looking atasteroids and so forth, meteors
(29:30):
they're looking at what's there,and what you do find often is
these biological molecules thatshow up like amino acids.
So this is something we'vetalked about in the show how the
chemistry or the physics leadsto the chemistry and the
chemistry leads to life.
And one of the things thatthey're exploring is what
biological molecules might youfind, what amino acids and
things like this.
There's this naturalprogression.
(29:51):
So this research is actuallylooking at how the universe is
sort of moving towards life, oris it amenable to the brain
about life?
Catherine Hadro (30:00):
And it's always interesting to hear how the
Vatican Observatory is involvedin these major NASA projects as
well.
Dan Kuebler (30:07):
Exactly.
Catherine Hadro (30:08):
Okay, so totally different topic now, but
one that I think is reallysignificant with pop culture,
and I'm hearing a lot of buzzabout it.
One of the top stories fromthis past year is the surge in
popularity of what's calledsemi-glutide injections,
typically a treatment for typetwo diabetes, but there are
people including, most famously,a lot of celebrities who are
(30:30):
open about it who are takingthis now for weight loss.
So, to be clear, not asking youto give medical or health
advice to any listener, but howdo these medications work and is
it safe for people to be takingthese injectables long term as
a weight loss strategy?
Dan Kuebler (30:47):
Yeah, I'm not a doctor, but I just know when
they take them they are mainlyfor type two diabetics to help
them produce more insulin, butit also slows down digestion and
it also slows down and reducesyour appetite.
That's sort of the reasonpeople are taking these.
(31:08):
There are serious side effectsthat you can have with these the
pancreatitis and things likethat.
There are some people that areparticularly your stories of
people taking it off label.
You don't know what type ofpurity and what type of urine
you're getting, so there's a lotof risk associated with this.
But if you're taking thiswithout the advice of your
(31:28):
doctor, there are certainlyconcerns.
But it does.
It is known that it's effectivefor weight loss, but the side
effects are something that youshould be concerned about and
you should be doing this on yourown.
Catherine Hadro (31:41):
Some context on top of these celebrity
headlines that we're sayingabout this.
All right, well, that concludesseason three.
Dan Kuebler (31:48):
Another great season to be with you, dan, as
always it's wonderful and it isa season that I really enjoyed
talking about evolution, so myfavorite topic in terms of the
podcast.
Catherine Hadro (32:00):
I can tell Now I learned a lot and I hope that
you all did as well.
Just as a reminder, if you everwant to submit questions for
the office hour segment, you canemail info at magescentercom.
You can also give us a call.
Leave us a voice message.
You might be able to hear yourvoice right here on the podcast.
Just call 949-257-2436.
But until next time, when wesee you back here for season
(32:23):
four, make sure to subscribe toPurposeful Lab on your favorite
podcast platform and go tomagescentercom for the latest
updates and we'll see you withseason four.
Welcome to Purposeful Lab, a Magistenter
podcast.
I'm Catherine Hadre, with DrDan Kebler, and this is the
season finale of season three ofour podcast and we'll be
bringing part two of ourinterview with Dr Sophia Carosa.
Dan Kuebler (00:13):
Yeah, we're going to look at particularly her
research A very fascinatingresearch she's doing and her
post-doctoral work that combineslooking at using the AI to look
at changes in the brain as theresult of early childhood trauma
and how that affects cognition.
So it's very, very fascinating.
We get into a lot of topicsabout brain plasticity and how
(00:34):
the brain can change and soforth.
Catherine Hadro (00:36):
She's a young woman by a really fascinating
and impressive background.
In resume she's a Catholicneuroscientist, currently a
research fellow at HarvardMedical School, where she
applies artificial intelligenceto the study of child brain
development.
So with that, here's part twoof our conversation with Dr
Sophia Carosa.
Dan Kuebler (00:54):
Yeah, that's right.
Your enthusiasm for yourresearch just comes through, and
so I want to delve into theresearch that you're doing in
your post-doc role work inparticularly looking at the
factors that affect early braindevelopment, and so maybe you
can just give a summary of whatyou're doing and we can follow
up with some questions.
Sure, yeah, I'd be happy to.
Sofia Carozza (01:18):
So I discovered.
Let me introduce you to why Istudy what I do, because that's
often the best mode of entry, Ithink.
So.
I study what I do because I hada profound experience when I
was 19 years old, of working atan orphanage in South America,
an orphanage in a school forunderprivileged children, many
of whom had been welcomed offthe slums of Asuncion in
(01:39):
Paraguay and they had grown upwithout robust relationships
around them, to say the least.
Many of them had alsoexperienced profound violence or
deprivation.
Some of them couldn't speak,others couldn't relate normally
to one another or to adults.
And yet, while I was there,faced with the gravity of this
(01:59):
suffering and my ownpowerlessness to change what
these children were facing, atthe same time I witnessed a
miracle that the religioussister was running this
orphanage.
The way that she loved them asa mother would her children
right.
This love transformed how theywere in the world.
It gave them a new lease onlife.
(02:20):
It enabled them to.
One of them in particular I sawabsolutely changed in the brief
months that I was there.
He had a new capacity forrelationship with others, a new
ability to play that.
He was almost like a new boy,and at that point I'd begun
studying the brain and I knewthat something had to be
(02:41):
happening in his nervous systemthat was dramatic and radical.
And when I looked in myneuroscience textbooks I
couldn't make sense of it.
How is it that a nervous systemthat's been so shaped by
experiences of violence anddeprivation can then begin again
, begin anew, as you were sayingabout plasticity earlier?
So because of this I decided togo to graduate school and to
(03:03):
really investigate how our earlyexperiences in life shape the
emergence of our brain networksand the communication highways
in the brain that support ourcognitive and psychological
functioning.
So that's what I researched.
My PhD was on, across species,in rodents and in humans, how
deprivation early in lifechanges the organization of our
(03:27):
brain, our brain structure.
And now I'm taking a moreinterdisciplinary, innovative
approach using machine learning,artificial intelligence, to try
to bridge the gap thatcurrently exists in the
literature between how thesebrain networks are organized and
how they support learning andmemory, which we see after
experiences of abuse and neglectin particular, but variations
(03:50):
in the early life environment ingeneral.
Those things tend to bedifferent later on.
For those kids.
Catherine Hadro (03:55):
They're the marks of what you've experienced
that remain in your ability tolearn, and when you're talking
early childhood, what time frameare you looking at?
Like zero to three?
Sofia Carozza (04:05):
Those are the most important years when it
comes to the relationallandscape of a child.
I am extending that windowbecause of what we said earlier
about lifetime plasticity.
I'm looking at experiences thatchildren have up until early to
mid adolescence, so eight to 12years old.
Catherine Hadro (04:22):
I think a lot of the areas will be perking up
at this topic because some kindof questions I have entering
into this conversation is A haseveryone experienced childhood
trauma?
Like, has every single humanexperienced childhood trauma?
But then, B, you look at, forexample, the story you just
shared of an orphan whoexperienced violence Maybe there
(04:46):
was hunger and food deprivationand so you hear these stories
of just extreme trauma.
Are there people and brainsthat are just, hmm, can withhold
more trauma than others?
Are there brains that are moresensitive and have a greater
(05:07):
reaction to a trauma that mightnot seem as profound?
Sofia Carozza (05:11):
Yeah, really good questions and certainly areas
that we're still investigating.
I would say, on the firstquestion about whether or not
we've all experienced trauma, Imean a theological answer is yes
, because of original sin, thatwe live in a world that's fallen
.
But in the brain we see this inthat there's no environment
that you can grow up in thatwon't shape you, for better or
(05:35):
for worse, into modes ofbehavior that are suited to that
environment, and this does notalways help you when you go
somewhere new.
And so, whether it's justidiosyncrasies of your family
culture or really is adeprivation of the kind of love
that you're meant to have, thereare going to be elements of
your environment that thenmanifest later on in difficulty
(05:56):
and in suffering.
This is a part of human lifeand again, it's, I think, a
place where we see that we're inneed of redemption and that we
can participate in that byloving one another with
compassion.
And toward your second question,I would say that there are
certainly elements of our bodiesand our brains that make us
more or less vulnerable totrauma.
(06:18):
So we see some kids whoexperienced what others would
look upon and, objectively, isjust horrific deprivation, but
have emerged in a senseunscathed or indistinguishable
from a child who hadn't beenthrough that, whereas others are
much more sensitive and theslightest environmental
perturbation can result in anexperience of mental illness or
(06:39):
a developmental difference.
Now, some of this is due todifferences in the wiring of our
brain and the expression ofcertain receptors for stress
hormones, and there are anynumber of epigenetic factors we
could talk about.
Some of it's also personality,but one of the most intriguing
factors for me is the role ofrelationship, so that, in other
(07:01):
words, a child who has a singlesupportive relationship with a
loving adult early in life canwithstand much more adversity
than a child who is left alone.
So, even if there's abuse andneglect in the home, if that
child has a grandmother or acoach or a pastor, someone who
looks upon him or her with justunconditional love, that
(07:22):
protects against the mentalhealth and even the
neurocognitive impact of some ofthe more difficult things that
child's facing.
Dan Kuebler (07:30):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, and you mentioned to meearlier about what you're sort
of finding, that there's not oneregion of the brain that's
divided, but it's this holistic,the whole organization might be
different, right.
Sofia Carozza (07:45):
Yeah.
Dan Kuebler (07:47):
And again goes back to the complexity the organ of
the brain is.
And does that make it thenharder, you think, to correct
these things?
Right, if it's a small changehere in the brain, but it seems
to be a global disorganizationthat these can trigger.
You could look at it that way.
Sofia Carozza (08:07):
You could also look at it in terms of well, if
our negative experiences affectnot just the prefrontal cortex
and the amygdala but reallyevery pathway throughout the
whole brain, so to our positiveexperiences don't just affect,
again, our hippocampus and ouramygdala but the whole brain is
taken up and implicated inexperiences of love and care and
(08:29):
abundance.
And so when we whether thechild belongs to you or not when
we care for children, the lovethat we communicate through
physical care, emotional care,education, really engages their
whole body and their whole brainin a way that can communicate
as I mentioned happened at thisorphanage the summer I was there
(08:49):
that can communicate a new lifeto them and so, yeah, so I
think it's beautiful how ourwhole biology is taken up in our
relationships with each other,even when it comes at the risk
of experiencing a violence orthe wound of sin from another
person.
Dan Kuebler (09:05):
And this reorganization shapes their
behavior to some extent.
So I just I've heard peopleargue well, that shows that we
don't have free will or freedom.
Like my experience, it was bad,it shaped my brain this way.
So I'm just, I am just, dealwith me.
How would you respond?
Sofia Carozza (09:27):
Well, I think, first of all, that's a
misunderstanding of what freedomis.
Freedom is not the capacity forunfettered choice in everything
that you do in life.
That wouldn't be freedom,that'd be complete arbitrariness
.
Freedom is something that takesplace within a context.
You have reasons for behaviorand it's not absolute.
It particularly because we'refallen.
(09:47):
There are constraints on ourfreedom.
So it can certainly be the casethat one's relational landscape
early in life limits theirfreedom to choose the good and
adhere to what's good for themlater on in life.
I don't that's true of me,that's true of everyone, right.
But it doesn't at all deny thecapacity that we have for agency
(10:09):
, for action, for something fromwithin that we're not compelled
to do but we choose out of ourown volition and thereby
participate in our fulfillment.
And so that possibility isnever taken away from a human
being, no matter what's happenedto them.
It can be very constrained, butit's never taken away
(10:30):
absolutely.
And I think you see this in thebrain that it doesn't make
sense.
The brain as an organ doesn'tmake sense if you ignore the
role of the agency of theorganism.
It's not like an artificialneural network where it carries
out what the engineer tells itto.
It really is.
(10:50):
It's a life right and it'sdirected.
There's an intrinsicpurposiveness to it that can't
be chalked up to externalinfluence and constraint.
Dan Kuebler (11:01):
Am I writing this so that you?
It's more difficult to dealwith this, the longer the brain
you do lose some of plasticityas you age, but you still house
the ability to form memories andchange the behavior.
Sofia Carozza (11:18):
Absolutely.
Dan Kuebler (11:21):
Is there a window where it really drops off, like,
is it the first five years,first 10, 20?
Catherine Hadro (11:26):
Yeah, I'm 32.
Dan Kuebler (11:30):
Well.
Sofia Carozza (11:30):
I'm 32.
Dan Kuebler (11:31):
No, no, no.
Sofia Carozza (11:32):
If you want to learn a language as a native
speaker, it is too late for you,which reflects that there are
different windows depending onthe domain.
So if a child, for example,grows up in an environment,
there's some tragic stories offeral children not those I mean
typically what you imagine is achild growing up with wolves,
but more often what happens isthe child is locked in a room or
(11:56):
a basement and not cared forfor sometimes a decade, 15 years
.
These truly tragic which we seefrom those children and from
studies in other animals, thatthere are windows of plasticity
that do shut for things likevisual experience and language
and even some forms ofsocializing, that you do need to
(12:18):
have some kind of experience inthat area if the plasticity is
going to work the way that itshould.
But those more extreme casesaside, there really is no set
time in development whenplasticity shuts off.
It gradually drops off over thecourse of childhood and we say
that the brain is generallyfinished maturing by your late
(12:40):
20s, a little bit later for menthan for women.
Dan Kuebler (12:43):
Of course.
Sofia Carozza (12:45):
But plasticity in most areas.
You can still pick up a newskill, you form new memories,
you can navigate newrelationships, and all of that
is in a sense because your brainremains plastic for the whole
of your lifespan.
Catherine Hadro (12:56):
So it's fascinating to how, I mean, the
brain really protects itself too.
If there are horrible memoriesas a child, can't your brain
kind of forget about it too andyou'll have repressed memories?
But I think one of the mostimportant things that you're
saying is this you maintainthroughout the rest of your life
the ability to heal and berepaired and you use that phrase
(13:18):
to begin anew.
What does that require?
Is it relationship?
Is that?
Sofia Carozza (13:24):
the key.
Yeah, I mean, I would say again, as a Christian grace, that you
need something to enter intoyour lice and break you out of
previous habits or to heal yourwounds and to give you a new
path to follow.
This is grace.
It's a gift freely given.
It doesn't come from you.
But on the level of the mindand the brain, what I would say
(13:46):
is exactly the way that oftentakes shape is through a
relationship that enters ontothe scene and through desire,
through a relationship awakeningyour desire to change, because
being open to change isfrightening and it's hard and it
demands often hard work andsustained effort.
And so if you're going to bemotivated to do that, you need
(14:06):
to have neuroscientists wouldsay recruitment of your reward
system.
You need to desire that changeand that newness of life that
alone is going to sustain thejourney and the work of
conversion or healing orwhatever the changes that's at
stake.
Catherine Hadro (14:22):
But again you have that agency.
Sofia Carozza (14:23):
Yes, your freedom needs to be involved.
Dan Kuebler (14:26):
Yeah, so in your research you have a relatively
large dataset you're workingwith of somewhere around 10,000
children and looking at that andcan you just I think you said
you're looking at brain imagesof those and sort of correlating
that with differentpsychological factors?
(14:49):
Is that?
Sofia Carozza (14:50):
Yeah, so I'm interested in how elements of
the early environment cometogether to shape the whole
brain, as you mentioned before,not just one region or two, but
really the whole brain isimplicated, and prior research
has taken a pretty narrowperspective on elements of the
early environment that arecontributing factors, looking
mainly just at, for example,household income or whether or
(15:14):
not you've experienced physicalabuse.
But I think anyone who's apersistent and observant, anyone
who's a persistent observer ofchildren will know that numerous
factors go into theirdevelopment.
It's how big is your family,it's what are your family
dynamics like, what is yourneighborhood like, and so I'm
(15:35):
taking data from this largepioneering cohort study called
the ABCD study Adolescent BrainCognitive Development, abcds and
they have data on 10,000children, again, as you
mentioned, brain imaging scans,but they also have
questionnaires that theirmothers filled out.
They have linked to censusinformation.
(15:56):
So this rich, detailed pictureof what the early life
environment looked like, becausewhere your parents married and
what was it like in terms of theconflicts you had in your home,
how supported did you feel,that kind of thing and what I'm
doing is using a data-drivenanalysis to identify which of
those elements of the early lifeenvironment predicts how much
(16:18):
white matter you have, which arethe communication pathways in
the brain, and how that whitematter is organized into
networks later on in life.
And then I'm using informationon these children's cognitive
abilities to try to say well,why do we care about the brain
at all?
Does it mediate, does itexplain some of this
relationship that so muchresearch has found between your
(16:40):
early life environment and yourlearning and memory later in
life?
So this is one analysis that I'mworking on at the moment and
I'm excited to find that again,as you mentioned before, there's
really a broad range of changesin the brain that we observe,
based as a function of yourearly life environment.
It's not limited to just thoseregions that you would expect
(17:01):
based on the literature of yourfrontal cortex, but really the
whole brain is involved withthese nuanced changes that do
seem to account for latercognitive differences.
So this is one main analysis,but I am, as you mentioned
before, also trying to usemachine learning and artificial
intelligence.
So I'm taking these brainnetworks and I'm using a newly
(17:24):
developed technology totransform them into recurrent
neural networks.
So this is a kind of artificialneural network that is sort of
similar to how brain networksprocess information and you can
train these networks oncognitive tasks.
I'm taking these biologicallyderived networks, training them
(17:46):
on a variety of differentdemands of learning and memory
and seeing whether or not thiscan account for computational
properties in the networks canaccount for what we see in
children later on in life.
Dan Kuebler (17:57):
So you're modeling the different organizations you
see in the ones that have thetrial and say, well, let's model
this and see, does it seem tobe dysfunctional?
Not dysfunctional, but leadingto different cognitive abilities
.
Sofia Carozza (18:12):
Yes, absolutely.
So, trying to really press onthat relationship between the
brain and cognition, can we useartificial intelligence and
machine learning to really saywell, why does it matter that
their brain networks areorganized differently?
Dan Kuebler (18:25):
Yeah, that's interesting and people follow
these people or these childrenfor many years and looking at
different, so it's alongitudinal study.
Sofia Carozza (18:34):
They're conducting ongoing follow-ups.
Catherine Hadro (18:37):
Yeah, I think a lot of people are weary of AI,
but this might be an instancewhere it can be really
beneficial hopefully.
Sofia Carozza (18:44):
Yes, I think a lot of the concern about AI in
my perspective is overblown,which is not to say that we
don't need careful and rigorouswork to demarcate ethical uses
of AI, but AI is built uponimitation of human intelligence
and it's a very powerful tool toleverage distinctively human
(19:07):
strengths and increase ourcapacity to turn those strengths
into the good of other people.
You see this in medicaldiagnostic imaging and I think
you see it in my capacity forresearch, and so, in general, I
think that when used withinethical limits, it can be a very
powerful tool for advancinghuman flourishing.
Catherine Hadro (19:28):
Coming back again to this concept of
plasticity and how that's reallyunique to the human brain and
our ability to again learn,change, repair and I'm thinking
of a listener or a viewer rightnow who maybe they're down on
themselves and thinking you know, I've really gotten into this
bad habit, bad routines, andthis is just what I'm destined
(19:49):
for.
And here we are saying you haveagency, you have the ability to
control your behavior andreally, through your behavior,
rewire your brain.
We often hear you know tochange a habit takes 30 days of
consistency.
What's your reaction to that?
And then any I don't know wordof encouragement or with done
(20:10):
for people who are trying tochange certain habits and
behaviors and what that willrequire from your perspective as
a neuroscientist.
Sofia Carozza (20:19):
Neuroscience has done remarkable work on
formation of habits, maintenanceof habits and breaking of
habits.
So this is one area in which Isee that the study of the brain
really can advance our selfunderstanding as a species.
So I would say that how longit's going to take you to change
a habit really varies based onhow long you've had the habit in
(20:39):
the first place, because thatreally determines how strong the
connections and the pathways inthe brain are that support that
behavior, but also what kind ofbehavior it is and how attached
to it you are.
So it varies based on thedomain.
So I wouldn't want to say lookfor results after 30 days and if
you don't see them, then giveup, because sometimes it takes
(20:59):
60 or 90 or a year.
But what the research shows isthat usually most of the time it
starts with very smallincremental changes, because the
brain generally tends to beresistant to rapid change.
But incremental change is a loteasier because you slowly
rewire the way that yournetworks are organized to
(21:21):
support a new behavior.
So if you can just create, ifthere's a difficult behavior you
don't want to be engaged in, ifyou can create a small gap
between yourself and thatbehavior, that you can then push
and make grow and grow and grow.
That's the path to freedom.
So if, for example, you don'twant to be eating ice cream
(21:43):
every single night, perhaps juststarting by decreasing your
portion size or waiting 20minutes after you finish dinner
and then having your ice creamnot expecting to go cold turkey,
but just creating a little bitof space of distance between you
and that stimulus that you canthen make grow slowly over time,
so that your freedom comes outagain and you're able to choose
(22:05):
whether or not you want that foryour good.
But I'll also say at the sametime that in the end it's a
grace.
Change is a grace and it happensall the time through
relationship of realization whatit is that you desire, and then
being in a context offriendship or love where you're
supported to adhere to that goodinstead of what you've been
(22:27):
following in the past.
And I think anyone who's livedin this world has had
experiences of this.
And so looking back at yourpersonal history and saying, oh,
you know what, through thisfriendship or through that
relationship, I've alreadychanged.
There's already been anexperience in my life of newness
or of new freedom or ofconversion or of healing, and so
(22:48):
that's a reason for hope, andthat's a reason to begin again
and to depend on thoserelationships and say, like I'm
starting again from what Ireally desire for my life and
not what my habits are right now, and to be patient with
yourself Absolutely, to bemerciful, to know that we're
fallen and, as we've said before, our freedom is constrained,
(23:09):
and so to not look at ourselveswith shame when we fail, but
rather in gratitude that everyday that we get up again is a
chance to begin again.
Dan Kuebler (23:20):
That's profound, that to change a person, to
change my person, a lot of timesanother person is really
essential for that.
And I think we've all hadexperiences of that and it makes
it much easier.
Catherine Hadro (23:33):
Final question that just came to my mind.
I'm curious again from yourperspective.
You have this neuroscience andtheology talking about the
ability to change, to overcomehabits, to overcome vice,
childhood adversity.
Do you look at certain saintsthat kind of stand out, or
saints you look at in your workwho have overcome early
childhood adversity, who haveovercome something in our
(23:56):
witnesses of doing just that?
Sofia Carozza (23:59):
So many of the saints Thank you for asking I
think of, when it comes tochildhood adversity, Margaret of
Castello, whose parents wereneglectful and abusive of her,
and she had physical handicapsand perhaps even intellectual
ones as well, but went on tobecome, in her simplicity and
(24:20):
poverty of spirit, a radiantexample and spiritual mother to
so many.
So she's a great undercessorfor those who've experienced any
kind of trauma in theirbackground.
But really any of the saints,Because if you look at I mean
from the great the patristics,if you look at St Augustine and
his journey of conversion thatwas such a struggle for so long
(24:41):
until that grace was given tohim of encountering Christ all
the way up until our day and age, and the saints who have
recently died, I think one who'sparticularly dear to me is
Chiara Corbella Petrillo, who'sa young Italian woman who was a
mother to several children andthen received a cancer diagnosis
(25:02):
during her third and firsthealthy pregnancy and chose to
carry the baby to term insteadof.
And if you look at her in theway that she gradually came to
this luminous vocation, I meanit was a journey of complete
ordinariness, of relationshipwith her boyfriend, and they
fought and broke up and got backtogether, and but she was just
(25:24):
faithful to the circumstancesthat were given to her.
That again, like I was sayingbefore, the greatest elements of
human life are the simplestones.
It's not the greataccomplishments that we have or
the moments of human glory, butthe beautiful relationships that
enable us to change andmanifest in our lives an
impossible life and love that isa witness of the resurrection.
(25:47):
And so all of these saints fromyou know, from the time of the
Lord to our own today, who hasembodied what it means to be
human, that it is a responsivelove to our creator and redeemer
that can then turn us into asource of life for other people.
What it means to be human is sosimple.
It's just that.
Catherine Hadro (26:09):
Dr Sophia Crow said thank you so much for your
time and your wisdom.
It's been a joy.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so grateful for the timethat Sophia took to sit down
with us and again so impressedin the fact that she has this
theology background andneuroscience Really fascinating
insights and how again it'sunitive, how she incorporates
(26:29):
both of them into her work.
Dan Kuebler (26:30):
Yeah, so you can look at the best of modern
neuroscience, which she's doing,and then step back and reflect
on what does this meantheologically, what does this
mean for her faith life, and youcan see how she integrates it.
There's no distinct differencebetween both.
It's integrated, yeah.
One thing that sort of reallystruck me with what she talked
about is how the brain is on acontinual journey.
(26:53):
You know, with neuroplasticityand the fact that your habits
can change the brain, that we'resort of striving for, you know,
this end goal, just like allcreation we talk about, all
creation is on a journey towardsits ultimate perfection, like
we are as well, and that'smimicked by the fact that our
brain is continually changing,trying to rewire and so forth,
(27:14):
to overcome bad habits and toimprove.
Catherine Hadro (27:19):
And even though there might be that more
plasticity, that term againearlier on in life.
It states there's the abilityto change and tell the day that
you die, which gives some hope,some hope right, exactly.
No, but that was fascinatingand again, especially when we
talked about evolution, to hearyour insights as well as a
biologist on the evolution ofthe brain, so really great to
speak with her.
Dan Kuebler (27:39):
No, it was wonderful opportunity.
Catherine Hadro (27:41):
And sets us up pretty perfectly, because this
is again the end of season three, but season four will be back
and focused on consciousness.
Dan Kuebler (27:47):
Yeah, so we've talked about human evolution and
now we just started to talkabout the human brain.
And now you know, for the newone level, what is consciousness
and what does that mean and howdo we understand it.
And so this sort of what we'vetalked about with the brain just
natural segue into season four,exactly.
Catherine Hadro (28:07):
And so with that, as season three begins to
come to a wrap, we can't end yetwithout going to the office
hour segment.
So here are the last questionsgiven to you for this season.
So Catholic News Agencyrecently reported that Brother
Robert Mackie, who's a Jesuitastronomer at the Vatican
Observatory because theyreported, because NASA turned to
(28:27):
him for help on an importantspace mission NASA was in need
of what's known as a picnometerI think I'm pronouncing that
correctly To measure the densityand porosity of asteroid
material taken from deep space.
And they typically buy thispart from companies, but none of
these picnometers fit thespecific criteria.
(28:49):
So Brother Robert Mackie custombuilt one for NASA, which again
was pivotal for their research.
And it's incredible, because ofthis one Jesuit, NASA is better
able to understand the originsof the solar system.
What are your thoughts when youheard this story?
Dan Kuebler (29:06):
Yeah, you know there's two thought.
One it's just wonderful thatyou can see how the church is
sort of interested in scientificdiscovery.
Here's a real, tangible proofof that, that the church is very
open and wants to understandthe natural world, you see, as
this Jesuit is playing acritical role in understanding
it.
And the other thing I thinkit's kind of interesting in what
they're looking at looking atasteroids and so forth, meteors
(29:30):
they're looking at what's there,and what you do find often is
these biological molecules thatshow up like amino acids.
So this is something we'vetalked about in the show how the
chemistry or the physics leadsto the chemistry and the
chemistry leads to life.
And one of the things thatthey're exploring is what
biological molecules might youfind, what amino acids and
things like this.
There's this naturalprogression.
(29:51):
So this research is actuallylooking at how the universe is
sort of moving towards life, oris it amenable to the brain
about life?
Catherine Hadro (30:00):
And it's always interesting to hear how the
Vatican Observatory is involvedin these major NASA projects as
well.
Dan Kuebler (30:07):
Exactly.
Catherine Hadro (30:08):
Okay, so totally different topic now, but
one that I think is reallysignificant with pop culture,
and I'm hearing a lot of buzzabout it.
One of the top stories fromthis past year is the surge in
popularity of what's calledsemi-glutide injections,
typically a treatment for typetwo diabetes, but there are
people including, most famously,a lot of celebrities who are
(30:30):
open about it who are takingthis now for weight loss.
So, to be clear, not asking youto give medical or health
advice to any listener, but howdo these medications work and is
it safe for people to be takingthese injectables long term as
a weight loss strategy?
Dan Kuebler (30:47):
Yeah, I'm not a doctor, but I just know when
they take them they are mainlyfor type two diabetics to help
them produce more insulin, butit also slows down digestion and
it also slows down and reducesyour appetite.
That's sort of the reasonpeople are taking these.
(31:08):
There are serious side effectsthat you can have with these the
pancreatitis and things likethat.
There are some people that areparticularly your stories of
people taking it off label.
You don't know what type ofpurity and what type of urine
you're getting, so there's a lotof risk associated with this.
But if you're taking thiswithout the advice of your
(31:28):
doctor, there are certainlyconcerns.
But it does.
It is known that it's effectivefor weight loss, but the side
effects are something that youshould be concerned about and
you should be doing this on yourown.
Catherine Hadro (31:41):
Some context on top of these celebrity
headlines that we're sayingabout this.
All right, well, that concludesseason three.
Dan Kuebler (31:48):
Another great season to be with you, dan, as
always it's wonderful and it isa season that I really enjoyed
talking about evolution, so myfavorite topic in terms of the
podcast.
Catherine Hadro (32:00):
I can tell Now I learned a lot and I hope that
you all did as well.
Just as a reminder, if you everwant to submit questions for
the office hour segment, you canemail info at magescentercom.
You can also give us a call.
Leave us a voice message.
You might be able to hear yourvoice right here on the podcast.
Just call 949-257-2436.
But until next time, when wesee you back here for season
(32:23):
four, make sure to subscribe toPurposeful Lab on your favorite
podcast platform and go tomagescentercom for the latest
updates and we'll see you withseason four.
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