so how many of you enjoyed learning
social studies in school growing up yeah
Oh quite a few yeah I mean I was like in
the middle you know it’s not it was not
fun for me to remember all the kings and
their time they ruled and where they
conquered and the currencies and the
capital of the countries but then we had
a new textbook and it had this beautiful
glossy pictures just like you would see
in the National Geographic magazine all
those monuments all those building all
those people and their colorful cultural
cuisine and everything I was really
fascinated so I told myself that when I
grow up I’m gonna travel around and I
have to sample everything like you heard
from my introduction for me it’s not
enough just to hear about it read about
it I have to do it by myself so so then
growing up then I realized like
something else stuck me you know when
you grow up you have a job you have to
pay taxes and everything then I started
thinking about it like those
civilizations those cultures that
flourished that has to be really you
know it’s not only economic thing behind
them like the people are the citizens of
those civilizations they had enough you
know opportunities to go get a job paid
taxes but then they also have this
mental capacity to be relaxed to enjoy
and to kind of invent all these arts and
literature and those monuments so what
kind of you know lifestyle they had that
they that and what kind of you know
society they had that allowed them to do
all those things and those monuments
those things those old ages people from
the old civilization built we still are
fascinated by that when we go and visit
them as tourists we still cannot wrap
our brains around that that how could
people in those days do such things that
are still standing so that’s why we came
about the aliens must have built it all
right so not those people because how
can this do but one of the hallmark of
such a flourished culture that can leave
it legacy far into the future it’s like
human beings any country or any culture
any civilization it’s for most
what’s a rich is their human human minds
the minds of their human beings are the
civilized citizens but one of the things
these days we are facing one of the
problems one of the adversity that asks
ourselves in this present time is facing
his poverty I had the privilege of
volunteering as a AmeriCorps VISTA for a
few months for those of you who don’t
know AmeriCorps VISTA it’s a domestic
question of Peace Corps it was
established during President Lyndon
Johnson’s time too as an anti-war
anti-poverty fighting machine so if the
goal was to eradicate poverty but as you
all know it’s been like more than 50
years we are still fighting poverty we
haven’t gotten it out and it’s like
these days when you read news and news
sometimes it can be very depressing with
all the problems that comes if you ask
the federal government to define poverty
they’ll say okay take a household with
this many people this much earning they
are having if they make it about that
they are not pop or if they below it
they are poor that’s all like income
based poverty the thing but poverty is a
very complex issue it’s a much more
complex issue and during my Vista
orientation we had an entire session –
kind of like define what is poverty what
what does poverty mean to you and me and
they were like a lot of young people
young students are kids in my group and
what they put forward was really very
eliminating some of the things we talked
about is like you know the not knowing
where your next meal is gonna come from
not knowing whether you get a hot meal
or not not knowing whether you will be
able to take a hot shower not knowing
whether you will be able to have a place
to sleep comfortably warm and so on so
uncertainty is one of the you know
defining things of poverty not knowing
the basic necessities of food and
shelter and you know those things you
don’t know whether it’s gonna happen or
not not in a month not in a year but the
next meal next you know thing and the
other thing that also came up which is
was very interesting is that like unable
to make
you are not having the power to make
your own choices what do I mean by that
I I want to be a scientist or I want to
be a doctor I that’s my dream I want to
live in a nice neighborhood I want to
live in a house with a nice yard how
many of you think it’s so easy to
achieve so it’s when you work hard when
you dream and you have goals but you are
not able to make those choices to move
forward your dream because there are a
lot of roadblocks a lot of constraints
that are that is being put put by the
society which is not under your control
so that kind of leads to a lot of
frustration so these two things given
the uncertainty and feeling like
powerless frustrated with to make your
own life to decide you the path of your
own life can lead to a lot of stress and
anxiety so I’m not even talking about
fear fear is like the first step
everybody feels something Oh what will
happen if I get food but that’s for one
time but if you keep on prolonged you
know it goes to stress and anxiety
everybody feels stress everybody has
like you know very stressful situations
like for example there will be like two
minutes for every good speaker when you
step on the stage look at the audience
and stop talking because I have to see
whether you’re really connecting with me
or you’re gonna be like you know okay
let me check my facebook status all
right that’s stress but then once I
realize I I got them hooked up so then
my stress level will go off and that’s
like a very good stress it’s okay but
there are also other situation very
stress is very good you see a tiger you
have to and then your heart rate will go
up the blood pressure would be a pump
that then you will brain will say wrong
and then you run that’s very good for
you that kind of stress it’s really
really good for you all right unless you
you are a very wonderful person you want
to feed a tiger that’s different okay so
but then body has different stress
mechanisms but there is also under the
stress where you produce cortisol so you
adrenaline rush stress is fine but then
there’s also tolerable stress you have
stress and then you can like you know
you you see it’s very difficult but
after some time your your brain kind of
adjusted everything will normal and you
say oh I learned the lesson from that
situation I can go ahead and you know
build my life that’s fine but there is
very toxic stress like you have to
prolong do you have to live like in
poverty living with such an uncertainty
uncertainty over a long time of periods
of life where you have to really like
you know you don’t know this is stress
you know you have to pay a telephone
bill you have to get you have to pay a
rent you get your eviction notice your
kids are all you know if you’re a single
mother than yours your kids are there
you have so many things that we have
like as a society as a person of this
society that you have to do and that’s
kind of like this poverty prolonged
poverty and all the stresses that comes
with that that really can keep your
stress levels it doesn’t give you a your
body and your brain to come down to the
baseline and get to normal so that
really affects your body the immune
system and then also your brain add it
to this stress and anxiety there’s
another very important component to this
poverty and this resonated to that is
your societal and pure by us we all have
implicit bias okay we all have implicit
bias but then there’s this bias against
poor people we all think that if I made
it why can’t they make it if they had
worked hard if they had studied good
they could have made it so and we are in
a society where we define productivity
we love productive people everywhere we
want productive people and we define
that productivity as the title of the
job oh he’s so and so the amount of you
know well-placed people that they know
the money they have that’s all we look
as productivity and as long as that you
have to all be honnest and think about
in your back cells if there is somebody
else who is an executable ye our CEO of
a company and there is a poor person who
won’t hand give you anything back we
will ignore them because that executes
the CEO is a person you want to say hi
to you want to be connected to because
he has a position to kind of like you
know push you up in life so for people
are literally made invisible in our
society because they are label that’s
not productive they are not you know
they’re not useful anymore so that’s the
way we are working as a society and
hopefully I will take you through that
but that
that pier by us pier means we are all
human beings you and I are pure doesn’t
matter what you are like you know
whether you’re a doctor or a lawyer or
you know high school or anything we are
all peers as as of the label that we are
all human beings and when each others
are looking at us with bias and treating
us literally as invisible that in turn
feedbacks to the anxiety and the stress
those poor people feel so as you can
imagine then that never lets their
stress level come down they’re always
stressed you know to be felt invisible
so when we look at the brain so this is
the cortex the outer layer this bright
beautiful yellow is the context of the
human brain as you all know that this is
this is what the cortex is what makes us
human being you know like all our
wonderful higher level of thinking and
intelligence and everything you have the
frontal lobes which kind of like makes
you dizzy
it’s involved in decision-making and you
know reasoning and higher creative
thinking and so on and within that below
the cortex is the this blue region
entire blue region is is called the
limbic system it’s very emotions are
processed all our emotion and then
learning and memory formation are made
as you can see the way this brain is
organized like this is your hippocampus
that’s where the learning and memory
happens and then this is your amygdala
that’s where your all your emotions are
processed all of your sensory input like
your touch the vision the hearing
everything is go straight to here and
then it’s all processed along with the
cortex to make sense of it and that’s
how we form our consciousness of us and
others so as you can see all this
emotional stuff this is what makes us
human like every all the emotions we
process it and then it’s connected feed
back to into your cortex and when when
you are having too much stress this is
the structures that are going to get
affected and your hippocampus where the
learning and memory is happening and is
the amygdala where the emotions are
there it’s always associated so but
brain does lot of
learning so when you have a incident
that involves a very bad negative
emotion and then that gets imprinted
imprinted into the hippocampus where
it’s been like okay this situation or
this person is bad he made you feel like
this so that kind of like association
happens and when when we talk about
stress the chronic stress it leads to a
lot of changes so when the first thing
would be like your hypothalamus which
kind of like or oversees all the
hormonal systems for example for the
simplified thing it’s the one that kind
of regulates the cortisol the caramel
one of the harms that is released during
stress okay so when you have prolonged
cortisol then what happens is that a lot
of changes happen physiological like you
know changes to the brain architecture
of the brain itself what they have found
in studies is that the layer of the
cortex itself gets thinned up you feel
grow up you are really know very poor
you’re growing up in poorer parents and
everything so it gets thinned out and
that also there’s a lot of changes in
the receptors that are that are binding
to the cortisol and then in turn it can
regulate so all the time we are like our
brain shapes itself from the experience
which it’s not like it was very years
ago we thought brain is gross till
you’re you know teenage or something
after that it doesn’t change no that’s
absolutely wrong our brain is always
continuously changing itself adapting
itself to the experiences that we are
facing and also what happens is that
like when prolonged stress also changes
the expression of a protein called
myelin if you look at the axon there is
a machine myelin is a protein that forms
a sheet that wraps around the neuron so
it can efficiently it’s an electrical
wire transmission of electricity so when
myelin is the insulation so you get very
fast and you know efficient
communication through the neurons so if
you look at the teen brains when we say
teenagers are not able to make proper
decisions are not very good in impulse
control that’s because they are myelin
is not yet fully formed and the cortex
the frontal cortex is not completely
myelinated and in people that are going
undergoing
prolonged stress this also will be like
that their brain will be like the
teenage brain level so it’s not totally
myelinated it’s not very efficient that
means the frontal lobe functions are not
gonna be very good so those functions we
call it as like executive functions it’s
not like the executive function of a CEO
or for company the brain does a lot of
executive functions one of that will be
impulse control for example you want to
cross the road you see it’s red for you
but there is a car coming there but then
you think that Cardus doesn’t look so
fast let me go you know said but then
your brain other brains but part of the
brain will say mmmm you know he might be
coming fast you don’t know can you just
wait it’s gonna be 1 or 2 seconds but
then you cannot control the impulse how
many of you then said oh I can make it
and out through the road and crossed it
if not many people that’s good but I
have done that and then I’m like why did
you do that what did you save so that
kind of like that’s a very simplified
example of impulse control but you can
imagine so then other one is working
memory working memory is the ability of
the brain to kind of like you know get
the piece of information at that time
and make processes and make decisions
based on that so that’s very important
for us as a human beings to to make
decisions to switch tasks to save this
is good this is not right and so on so
all those executive functions and which
can result in your behavior is being
affected by this prolonged stress and
the subsequent changes in the
architecture of the brain itself and
this is what and happens and you know
people who are in living in adverse
conditions because when you think about
adverse poor conditions they are living
in a neighborhood that’s polluted they
are living in neighborhood that’s full
of violence nobody knows whether they
were when they walk on the street they
will make it alive or not you know the
children in those poor neighborhoods
won’t have a very quality one-on-one
time with their parents because if I was
preparing for the talk and then I have
to be like brush weight I have to focus
think about that like if you are living
every day not knowing how to make the
you know put food on the table you are
not gonna
look at your child and say oh my god
wonderful you drop that no so that
that’s like a very vicious cycle we all
are believed to oh if you work hard you
get a job you can get out of poverty no
poverty is a much more complex thing and
it really affects all the executive
functions the normal person who has a
normal stress level normal healthy brain
that can process this won’t be behaving
differently than a person who’s
executive functions are affected that’s
why in a unrelated thing a lot of the
happenings that happens like you know in
the news when we say why did that person
did not raise his hand but now that his
brain is not like the way your brain is
working it’s totally changed so it
that’s that’s what happens in the in a
brain like that so there’s some
epigenetics is an evolving field in
biology which has like you know which
has a lot of implications everywhere
well how many of you know what
epigenetics is okay so it’s um it’s
where the environmental influences
change the organism but your DNA is not
changed your DNA is essentially the
genetic material is not changed but
they’re like tags and a lot of things
that go and change the way that the DNA
is expressed so you can easily change
the phenotype of an organism so that
happens in a lifetime so with all the
environmental cues that we are getting
we our brains like our DNA is being
modified either the gene is expressed or
not expressed so that’s called
epigenetics yep and there is also
another field evolving field called
transgenerational inheritance and that
is how these epigenetic modifications
not only affect one generation that it’s
not going to affect you but it can
affect you way generations in the future
there are studies which show that even
in the fourth generation they said the
the subjects are sensitive to the
stressors so that is also we are
learning so when you talk about poverty
it’s not just one person it can go into
other you know it can be carried over so
if you talk about Holocaust and then
you’re wondering why Jews are getting
upset that to off the practice because
they catch
get their triggers even though they
haven’t been you know prosecuted if you
think about african-american slaves that
who why they are getting so stressed
they are not slaves now here no they can
still get the triggers from their past
generations that is ingrained in our way
our biology works it’s not them it’s the
biology of being a human so that’s just
a picture of that but I showed you so I
made you all gloomy and sad all these
terrible things are happening but is it
the end
no our brain is a wonderful organism I
already I’m sorry organ so I already
told you that it keeps changing it has
this amazing ability to change itself
modify itself come back it’s called
brain plasticity many people call it as
neuroplasticity people are cut also
called as synaptic plasticity it’s the
ability of the brain to really like
learn from experience and and changes so
all we need to is give you a chance okay
so I want you to do a small exercise
with me I just want you to turn to the
person next to you and say just high
just high and just turn back okay okay
how did it feel like silly or okay or
normal because we all do all right
whenever we go anyway we say hi hi hi
but now I want you to turn back to the
same person look into their eyes and
then think about who is this person what
is the path that he walked why is he
here what is his dream certain
aspirations like that I want you to look
into the ice and then think about all
this thing and then say hi take ten
seconds did it feel any different when
you said that hi yeah let me tell you
where they came to us in 2010 I’m gonna
run over the time so when I came to us
in 2010 I I was doing a postdoc at the
Albert Einstein and I was walking there
was a person said hi how are you doing I
was like somebody is asking it’s a very
personal question for me somebody asked
me how are you doing you know it was a
very personal question and I thought oh
my God my life is gonna be better I’m
gonna make friends and us everything is
going to be good and I’m like thank you
I was in Germany before there you have
to always first thank you and then then
answer the question so I said thank you
I’m doing fine but the person was
already at the end of the corridor I’m
like I’m like standing there and
thinking like you ask me a very personal
question about me how I am feeling and
you don’t even wait for the answer what
that shows that you really don’t care
about how am I feeling and then I
realized like everywhere you go in u.s.
everywhere people are asking how are you
doing and then they go on like I’m like
sometimes if I’m in a very in my crazy
mood I will just like yeah I’m doing
fine how are you doing and then I keep
trying to give the conversation with
them there will be like few percentage
that’ll be like oh god why did I ask
this person and then there will be some
will be very want to be polite as they
are good and then they will be like
afterwards they will try to ignore you
only very few person will then really
like you know take on the conversation
with you on a personal level and that is
the problem like when I talked about the
societal you know peer by us we we
literally are treating each other
invisible but our brain is not made to
be like that
there’s the entry set of neurons called
mirror neurons that is there to not only
to imitate at each other to look at your
face and see whether you’re sad or happy
there is a region of cortex called
insular cortex that is there to feel the
pain of others empathy originates there
if you feel pain I look at you and I
feel the pain that is the way brain is
made we are all made we are all social
animals I remember reading it when I
when I was in my school but that is true
because not because we can’t tell that
because of our brain it has so many
things in place all the neural network
and connections and regions that to show
that we are all connected so I want you
to ponder with me this this saying from
shri sai baba who’s who’s considered as
the one of the greatest 19th century
fuckers of india and from what we know
about brain i want i cannot have but
admire that unless there is some
relationship or connection nobody goes
anywhere if any men are creators come to
you do not discourteously drive them
away but receive them well and treat
them with due respect doesn’t matter
whether
you give money or anything charity for
the sake of charities is of no use but
to treat them as you know as yourself as
an extension of yourself with give them
respect show them that yes you recognize
them as your fellow human being that is
the connection we need to go somewhere
otherwise we will never reach anywhere
one last thing this is close to home
this is supposed to be from Martin
Luther King jr. as recalled by Larry
brilliant it says that the moral unit
the arc of the moral universe you know
would bend towards justice but it would
not Bend on its own we all have to do
our part we have to jump up we have to
target twisted to reach to the justice
and poverty is one of the greatest
injustice of our society and we all can
do that and we all have the know-how and
very with all to do that we have our
brain all we have to do is that when we
look at the human being next time
individual next time we have to look at
them as you know acknowledge them for
who they are and with that we can really
make a great change and that is the
world that I want to create I want to
live in and I want to also leave it for
my children and the next generation
thank you very much
[Applause]
social studies in school growing up yeah
Oh quite a few yeah I mean I was like in
the middle you know it’s not it was not
fun for me to remember all the kings and
their time they ruled and where they
conquered and the currencies and the
capital of the countries but then we had
a new textbook and it had this beautiful
glossy pictures just like you would see
in the National Geographic magazine all
those monuments all those building all
those people and their colorful cultural
cuisine and everything I was really
fascinated so I told myself that when I
grow up I’m gonna travel around and I
have to sample everything like you heard
from my introduction for me it’s not
enough just to hear about it read about
it I have to do it by myself so so then
growing up then I realized like
something else stuck me you know when
you grow up you have a job you have to
pay taxes and everything then I started
thinking about it like those
civilizations those cultures that
flourished that has to be really you
know it’s not only economic thing behind
them like the people are the citizens of
those civilizations they had enough you
know opportunities to go get a job paid
taxes but then they also have this
mental capacity to be relaxed to enjoy
and to kind of invent all these arts and
literature and those monuments so what
kind of you know lifestyle they had that
they that and what kind of you know
society they had that allowed them to do
all those things and those monuments
those things those old ages people from
the old civilization built we still are
fascinated by that when we go and visit
them as tourists we still cannot wrap
our brains around that that how could
people in those days do such things that
are still standing so that’s why we came
about the aliens must have built it all
right so not those people because how
can this do but one of the hallmark of
such a flourished culture that can leave
it legacy far into the future it’s like
human beings any country or any culture
any civilization it’s for most
what’s a rich is their human human minds
the minds of their human beings are the
civilized citizens but one of the things
these days we are facing one of the
problems one of the adversity that asks
ourselves in this present time is facing
his poverty I had the privilege of
volunteering as a AmeriCorps VISTA for a
few months for those of you who don’t
know AmeriCorps VISTA it’s a domestic
question of Peace Corps it was
established during President Lyndon
Johnson’s time too as an anti-war
anti-poverty fighting machine so if the
goal was to eradicate poverty but as you
all know it’s been like more than 50
years we are still fighting poverty we
haven’t gotten it out and it’s like
these days when you read news and news
sometimes it can be very depressing with
all the problems that comes if you ask
the federal government to define poverty
they’ll say okay take a household with
this many people this much earning they
are having if they make it about that
they are not pop or if they below it
they are poor that’s all like income
based poverty the thing but poverty is a
very complex issue it’s a much more
complex issue and during my Vista
orientation we had an entire session –
kind of like define what is poverty what
what does poverty mean to you and me and
they were like a lot of young people
young students are kids in my group and
what they put forward was really very
eliminating some of the things we talked
about is like you know the not knowing
where your next meal is gonna come from
not knowing whether you get a hot meal
or not not knowing whether you will be
able to take a hot shower not knowing
whether you will be able to have a place
to sleep comfortably warm and so on so
uncertainty is one of the you know
defining things of poverty not knowing
the basic necessities of food and
shelter and you know those things you
don’t know whether it’s gonna happen or
not not in a month not in a year but the
next meal next you know thing and the
other thing that also came up which is
was very interesting is that like unable
to make
you are not having the power to make
your own choices what do I mean by that
I I want to be a scientist or I want to
be a doctor I that’s my dream I want to
live in a nice neighborhood I want to
live in a house with a nice yard how
many of you think it’s so easy to
achieve so it’s when you work hard when
you dream and you have goals but you are
not able to make those choices to move
forward your dream because there are a
lot of roadblocks a lot of constraints
that are that is being put put by the
society which is not under your control
so that kind of leads to a lot of
frustration so these two things given
the uncertainty and feeling like
powerless frustrated with to make your
own life to decide you the path of your
own life can lead to a lot of stress and
anxiety so I’m not even talking about
fear fear is like the first step
everybody feels something Oh what will
happen if I get food but that’s for one
time but if you keep on prolonged you
know it goes to stress and anxiety
everybody feels stress everybody has
like you know very stressful situations
like for example there will be like two
minutes for every good speaker when you
step on the stage look at the audience
and stop talking because I have to see
whether you’re really connecting with me
or you’re gonna be like you know okay
let me check my facebook status all
right that’s stress but then once I
realize I I got them hooked up so then
my stress level will go off and that’s
like a very good stress it’s okay but
there are also other situation very
stress is very good you see a tiger you
have to and then your heart rate will go
up the blood pressure would be a pump
that then you will brain will say wrong
and then you run that’s very good for
you that kind of stress it’s really
really good for you all right unless you
you are a very wonderful person you want
to feed a tiger that’s different okay so
but then body has different stress
mechanisms but there is also under the
stress where you produce cortisol so you
adrenaline rush stress is fine but then
there’s also tolerable stress you have
stress and then you can like you know
you you see it’s very difficult but
after some time your your brain kind of
adjusted everything will normal and you
say oh I learned the lesson from that
situation I can go ahead and you know
build my life that’s fine but there is
very toxic stress like you have to
prolong do you have to live like in
poverty living with such an uncertainty
uncertainty over a long time of periods
of life where you have to really like
you know you don’t know this is stress
you know you have to pay a telephone
bill you have to get you have to pay a
rent you get your eviction notice your
kids are all you know if you’re a single
mother than yours your kids are there
you have so many things that we have
like as a society as a person of this
society that you have to do and that’s
kind of like this poverty prolonged
poverty and all the stresses that comes
with that that really can keep your
stress levels it doesn’t give you a your
body and your brain to come down to the
baseline and get to normal so that
really affects your body the immune
system and then also your brain add it
to this stress and anxiety there’s
another very important component to this
poverty and this resonated to that is
your societal and pure by us we all have
implicit bias okay we all have implicit
bias but then there’s this bias against
poor people we all think that if I made
it why can’t they make it if they had
worked hard if they had studied good
they could have made it so and we are in
a society where we define productivity
we love productive people everywhere we
want productive people and we define
that productivity as the title of the
job oh he’s so and so the amount of you
know well-placed people that they know
the money they have that’s all we look
as productivity and as long as that you
have to all be honnest and think about
in your back cells if there is somebody
else who is an executable ye our CEO of
a company and there is a poor person who
won’t hand give you anything back we
will ignore them because that executes
the CEO is a person you want to say hi
to you want to be connected to because
he has a position to kind of like you
know push you up in life so for people
are literally made invisible in our
society because they are label that’s
not productive they are not you know
they’re not useful anymore so that’s the
way we are working as a society and
hopefully I will take you through that
but that
that pier by us pier means we are all
human beings you and I are pure doesn’t
matter what you are like you know
whether you’re a doctor or a lawyer or
you know high school or anything we are
all peers as as of the label that we are
all human beings and when each others
are looking at us with bias and treating
us literally as invisible that in turn
feedbacks to the anxiety and the stress
those poor people feel so as you can
imagine then that never lets their
stress level come down they’re always
stressed you know to be felt invisible
so when we look at the brain so this is
the cortex the outer layer this bright
beautiful yellow is the context of the
human brain as you all know that this is
this is what the cortex is what makes us
human being you know like all our
wonderful higher level of thinking and
intelligence and everything you have the
frontal lobes which kind of like makes
you dizzy
it’s involved in decision-making and you
know reasoning and higher creative
thinking and so on and within that below
the cortex is the this blue region
entire blue region is is called the
limbic system it’s very emotions are
processed all our emotion and then
learning and memory formation are made
as you can see the way this brain is
organized like this is your hippocampus
that’s where the learning and memory
happens and then this is your amygdala
that’s where your all your emotions are
processed all of your sensory input like
your touch the vision the hearing
everything is go straight to here and
then it’s all processed along with the
cortex to make sense of it and that’s
how we form our consciousness of us and
others so as you can see all this
emotional stuff this is what makes us
human like every all the emotions we
process it and then it’s connected feed
back to into your cortex and when when
you are having too much stress this is
the structures that are going to get
affected and your hippocampus where the
learning and memory is happening and is
the amygdala where the emotions are
there it’s always associated so but
brain does lot of
learning so when you have a incident
that involves a very bad negative
emotion and then that gets imprinted
imprinted into the hippocampus where
it’s been like okay this situation or
this person is bad he made you feel like
this so that kind of like association
happens and when when we talk about
stress the chronic stress it leads to a
lot of changes so when the first thing
would be like your hypothalamus which
kind of like or oversees all the
hormonal systems for example for the
simplified thing it’s the one that kind
of regulates the cortisol the caramel
one of the harms that is released during
stress okay so when you have prolonged
cortisol then what happens is that a lot
of changes happen physiological like you
know changes to the brain architecture
of the brain itself what they have found
in studies is that the layer of the
cortex itself gets thinned up you feel
grow up you are really know very poor
you’re growing up in poorer parents and
everything so it gets thinned out and
that also there’s a lot of changes in
the receptors that are that are binding
to the cortisol and then in turn it can
regulate so all the time we are like our
brain shapes itself from the experience
which it’s not like it was very years
ago we thought brain is gross till
you’re you know teenage or something
after that it doesn’t change no that’s
absolutely wrong our brain is always
continuously changing itself adapting
itself to the experiences that we are
facing and also what happens is that
like when prolonged stress also changes
the expression of a protein called
myelin if you look at the axon there is
a machine myelin is a protein that forms
a sheet that wraps around the neuron so
it can efficiently it’s an electrical
wire transmission of electricity so when
myelin is the insulation so you get very
fast and you know efficient
communication through the neurons so if
you look at the teen brains when we say
teenagers are not able to make proper
decisions are not very good in impulse
control that’s because they are myelin
is not yet fully formed and the cortex
the frontal cortex is not completely
myelinated and in people that are going
undergoing
prolonged stress this also will be like
that their brain will be like the
teenage brain level so it’s not totally
myelinated it’s not very efficient that
means the frontal lobe functions are not
gonna be very good so those functions we
call it as like executive functions it’s
not like the executive function of a CEO
or for company the brain does a lot of
executive functions one of that will be
impulse control for example you want to
cross the road you see it’s red for you
but there is a car coming there but then
you think that Cardus doesn’t look so
fast let me go you know said but then
your brain other brains but part of the
brain will say mmmm you know he might be
coming fast you don’t know can you just
wait it’s gonna be 1 or 2 seconds but
then you cannot control the impulse how
many of you then said oh I can make it
and out through the road and crossed it
if not many people that’s good but I
have done that and then I’m like why did
you do that what did you save so that
kind of like that’s a very simplified
example of impulse control but you can
imagine so then other one is working
memory working memory is the ability of
the brain to kind of like you know get
the piece of information at that time
and make processes and make decisions
based on that so that’s very important
for us as a human beings to to make
decisions to switch tasks to save this
is good this is not right and so on so
all those executive functions and which
can result in your behavior is being
affected by this prolonged stress and
the subsequent changes in the
architecture of the brain itself and
this is what and happens and you know
people who are in living in adverse
conditions because when you think about
adverse poor conditions they are living
in a neighborhood that’s polluted they
are living in neighborhood that’s full
of violence nobody knows whether they
were when they walk on the street they
will make it alive or not you know the
children in those poor neighborhoods
won’t have a very quality one-on-one
time with their parents because if I was
preparing for the talk and then I have
to be like brush weight I have to focus
think about that like if you are living
every day not knowing how to make the
you know put food on the table you are
not gonna
look at your child and say oh my god
wonderful you drop that no so that
that’s like a very vicious cycle we all
are believed to oh if you work hard you
get a job you can get out of poverty no
poverty is a much more complex thing and
it really affects all the executive
functions the normal person who has a
normal stress level normal healthy brain
that can process this won’t be behaving
differently than a person who’s
executive functions are affected that’s
why in a unrelated thing a lot of the
happenings that happens like you know in
the news when we say why did that person
did not raise his hand but now that his
brain is not like the way your brain is
working it’s totally changed so it
that’s that’s what happens in the in a
brain like that so there’s some
epigenetics is an evolving field in
biology which has like you know which
has a lot of implications everywhere
well how many of you know what
epigenetics is okay so it’s um it’s
where the environmental influences
change the organism but your DNA is not
changed your DNA is essentially the
genetic material is not changed but
they’re like tags and a lot of things
that go and change the way that the DNA
is expressed so you can easily change
the phenotype of an organism so that
happens in a lifetime so with all the
environmental cues that we are getting
we our brains like our DNA is being
modified either the gene is expressed or
not expressed so that’s called
epigenetics yep and there is also
another field evolving field called
transgenerational inheritance and that
is how these epigenetic modifications
not only affect one generation that it’s
not going to affect you but it can
affect you way generations in the future
there are studies which show that even
in the fourth generation they said the
the subjects are sensitive to the
stressors so that is also we are
learning so when you talk about poverty
it’s not just one person it can go into
other you know it can be carried over so
if you talk about Holocaust and then
you’re wondering why Jews are getting
upset that to off the practice because
they catch
get their triggers even though they
haven’t been you know prosecuted if you
think about african-american slaves that
who why they are getting so stressed
they are not slaves now here no they can
still get the triggers from their past
generations that is ingrained in our way
our biology works it’s not them it’s the
biology of being a human so that’s just
a picture of that but I showed you so I
made you all gloomy and sad all these
terrible things are happening but is it
the end
no our brain is a wonderful organism I
already I’m sorry organ so I already
told you that it keeps changing it has
this amazing ability to change itself
modify itself come back it’s called
brain plasticity many people call it as
neuroplasticity people are cut also
called as synaptic plasticity it’s the
ability of the brain to really like
learn from experience and and changes so
all we need to is give you a chance okay
so I want you to do a small exercise
with me I just want you to turn to the
person next to you and say just high
just high and just turn back okay okay
how did it feel like silly or okay or
normal because we all do all right
whenever we go anyway we say hi hi hi
but now I want you to turn back to the
same person look into their eyes and
then think about who is this person what
is the path that he walked why is he
here what is his dream certain
aspirations like that I want you to look
into the ice and then think about all
this thing and then say hi take ten
seconds did it feel any different when
you said that hi yeah let me tell you
where they came to us in 2010 I’m gonna
run over the time so when I came to us
in 2010 I I was doing a postdoc at the
Albert Einstein and I was walking there
was a person said hi how are you doing I
was like somebody is asking it’s a very
personal question for me somebody asked
me how are you doing you know it was a
very personal question and I thought oh
my God my life is gonna be better I’m
gonna make friends and us everything is
going to be good and I’m like thank you
I was in Germany before there you have
to always first thank you and then then
answer the question so I said thank you
I’m doing fine but the person was
already at the end of the corridor I’m
like I’m like standing there and
thinking like you ask me a very personal
question about me how I am feeling and
you don’t even wait for the answer what
that shows that you really don’t care
about how am I feeling and then I
realized like everywhere you go in u.s.
everywhere people are asking how are you
doing and then they go on like I’m like
sometimes if I’m in a very in my crazy
mood I will just like yeah I’m doing
fine how are you doing and then I keep
trying to give the conversation with
them there will be like few percentage
that’ll be like oh god why did I ask
this person and then there will be some
will be very want to be polite as they
are good and then they will be like
afterwards they will try to ignore you
only very few person will then really
like you know take on the conversation
with you on a personal level and that is
the problem like when I talked about the
societal you know peer by us we we
literally are treating each other
invisible but our brain is not made to
be like that
there’s the entry set of neurons called
mirror neurons that is there to not only
to imitate at each other to look at your
face and see whether you’re sad or happy
there is a region of cortex called
insular cortex that is there to feel the
pain of others empathy originates there
if you feel pain I look at you and I
feel the pain that is the way brain is
made we are all made we are all social
animals I remember reading it when I
when I was in my school but that is true
because not because we can’t tell that
because of our brain it has so many
things in place all the neural network
and connections and regions that to show
that we are all connected so I want you
to ponder with me this this saying from
shri sai baba who’s who’s considered as
the one of the greatest 19th century
fuckers of india and from what we know
about brain i want i cannot have but
admire that unless there is some
relationship or connection nobody goes
anywhere if any men are creators come to
you do not discourteously drive them
away but receive them well and treat
them with due respect doesn’t matter
whether
you give money or anything charity for
the sake of charities is of no use but
to treat them as you know as yourself as
an extension of yourself with give them
respect show them that yes you recognize
them as your fellow human being that is
the connection we need to go somewhere
otherwise we will never reach anywhere
one last thing this is close to home
this is supposed to be from Martin
Luther King jr. as recalled by Larry
brilliant it says that the moral unit
the arc of the moral universe you know
would bend towards justice but it would
not Bend on its own we all have to do
our part we have to jump up we have to
target twisted to reach to the justice
and poverty is one of the greatest
injustice of our society and we all can
do that and we all have the know-how and
very with all to do that we have our
brain all we have to do is that when we
look at the human being next time
individual next time we have to look at
them as you know acknowledge them for
who they are and with that we can really
make a great change and that is the
world that I want to create I want to
live in and I want to also leave it for
my children and the next generation
thank you very much
[Applause]
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