You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey Short Waivers, John Hamilton here in the host chair for one day only.

I generally cover the brain so today we've got an episode about the brain and racism.

Scientists know that black people are at a greater risk than white people for health problems like heart

disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's. Some other minorities also face

greater health risks. And researchers are asking whether part of the explanation

involves the brain, specifically the brain's response to racism.

Nate Harnett is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

He studies how the brain responds to traumatic events and extreme stress, including the events and stress related to racism.

A lot of us experienced trauma, and so I think in some ways a lot of us end up doing me search

when we go into this field and trying to figure out, you know, why are we some ways

a lot of us end up doing me search when we go into this field and trying to figure out,

you know, why are we sort of resilient or why do we have the reactions that we do?

And are there ways that we can help better understand that

so that we can help other people, people you know not have to suffer the things

that we went through.

One of Nate's current projects is a collaboration with Nagar Fani, a clinical neuroscientist

at Emory University.

So I do see racism to be a type of trauma,

and racism is kind of an umbrella term that describes multiple things.

It's really a system of oppression to a group of people that are treated as

inferior based off of their race, ethnicity, or skin color.

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