Dr. Robert Malenka: How Your Brain’s Reward Circuits Drive Your Choices

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2023

⏱️ 170 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, my guest is Robert Malenka, MD, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford School of Medicine who has made numerous seminal discoveries of how the brain changes (neuroplasticity) in response to learning and in response to rewarding and reinforcing experiences. We discuss the brain’s several reward systems involving dopamine and serotonin and how these motivate us to seek out specific behaviors and substances. We discuss how these reward systems are modified based on context and our memories, and how they can be hijacked toward maladaptive drug seeking in addiction. We also explore how reward systems influence social connections, oxytocin and empathy and how that applies to our understanding of autism spectrum disorders. This episode should be of interest to those interested in neuroplasticity, social bonding, addiction, autism learning and motivation. For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman ROKA: https://roka.com/huberman Levels: https://levels.link/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Momentous: https://livemomentous.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Dr. Robert Malenka (00:02:37) Sponsors: ROKA & Levels (00:05:21) Dopamine & Reward Circuitry (00:11:31) Reward, Arousal, Memory & Dopamine (00:17:34) Context, Cues & Dopamine Modification (00:25:38) Memory & Reward Scaling (00:30:50) Dopamine, “Addictive Liability” & Route of Administration (00:39:07) Sponsor: AG1 (00:40:04) Drugs of Abuse & Brain Changes; Addiction & Individual Variability (00:50:51) Reinforcement vs. Reward, Wanting vs. Liking (00:57:500 Opioids, Psychostimulants & Dopamine (01:03:38) Sponsor: LMNT (01:04:51) Self-Doubt, Confidence & Career (01:12:40) Autism Spectrum Disorder (01:19:29) Pro-Social Interaction & Reward; Oxytocin, Serotonin & Dopamine (01:30:30) Nucleus Accumbens & Behavior Probability (01:38:28) Reward for Pro-Social Behavior (01:43:13) Social Media & “Addictive Liability”; Gambling (01:52:17) Pain, Social Behavior & Empathy (02:02:19) Empathy Circuitry, Dopamine & Serotonin (02:10:07) Autism Spectrum Disorder & Social Interactions, Empathy (02:17:23) MDMA, Serotonin & Dopamine; Addiction & Pro-Social Effects (02:28:13) Autism Spectrum Disorder, Social Behavior, MDMA & Pharmacology (02:37:18) Serotonin, MDMA & Psychedelics (02:40:16) Psychedelics: Research & Therapeutic Potential (02:47:57) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Momentous, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:09.0	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:15.0	Today my guest is Dr. Robert Malenka.
0:18.0	Dr. Robert Malenka is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.
0:24.0	He is both a medical doctor and MD and a researcher, a PhD.
0:29.0	His laboratory is famous for having discovered some of the key components allowing neuroplasticity,
0:34.0	that is the nervous system's ability to change in response to experience.
0:39.0	In addition, Dr. Malenka's research is considered central to the textbook knowledge about how reward systems in the brain are organized and function.
0:48.0	Indeed, Dr. Malenka's research over the last 10 or 15 years has merged what's once two disparate fields, the first being the study of neuroplasticity.
0:56.0	Again, the nervous system's ability to change in response to experience.
0:59.0	And the other field being the field of dopamine as it relates to pleasure and addiction.
1:04.0	His laboratory has shown for instance that when we seek out particular forms of pleasure, regardless of whether or not they are healthy for us,
1:11.0	that changes the way that our reward circuitry works and actually changes the way that dopamine is released and how it impacts the brain.
1:19.0	And his work has also informed how we seek out healthy pleasures, including healthy food and social connection.
1:26.0	Today's discussion explores all of these topics and by the end of today's discussion, you will have a rich understanding of how neurochemicals like dopamine and serotonin work in parallel to reinforce,
1:37.0	that is to increase the probability that we will engage in certain types of thinking and behaviors.
1:44.0	So if you are somebody interested in neuroplasticity, that is how the nervous system can change in response to experience,
1:50.0	and or you are interested in reward systems, what motivates us and what we are likely to pursue in the future given our choices of past.
1:59.0	And if you are interested in things like social connection and empathy or lack thereof, today's discussion encompasses all of those topics.
2:06.0	It is worth mentioning that Dr. Malenka is a true luminary in all of the fields I just mentioned, as well as several other fields.
2:13.0	In fact, when you look out on the landscape of modern neuroscience, what you will discover is that a very large percentage of the top laboratories studying neuroplasticity and reward systems and so on,
2:23.0	all stemmed from having trained in Dr. Malenka's laboratory.
	...

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