For anyone enjoying these lectures in 2019 and forward, Sapolsky's new book Behave covers pretty much the same territory as this lecture series with ever-so-slightly different organization. For audio learners, though the audio book is not narrated by Sapolsky himself, he has chosen a dynamic reader who conveys the material clearly and entertainingly. If nothing else, the book is an excellent companion piece that reinforces the material he covers here.
This is soo good for a change from entertainment video or news. Living in this era where we can see a wide variety of videos, and essentially free, this is nice.
I have now watched all of these lectures and I think they've changed my life, or at least how I think about things. Late last year, I started reading Ed Wilson's work on sociobiology and human nature, THEN I found out about Sapolsky, read Behave, then found these lectures. I'm in awe of his skill at lecturing- I stay in rapt attention to everything he says. This is my favorite lecture, by far. At about minute 50 when he calls a break because he's obviously about to lose it, emotionally, I gained even more respect for the man. He clearly cares deeply about how our justice system treats those of us who are neurophysiologically broken, and that means a lot to me because it's something that I care about. Very glad these lectures are available. I'm a biochemistry major minoring in psych (in my 30s , haha). I want to study behavioral pharmacology in grad school, but these lectures have been making me think about changing my plans. Thanks again, Stanford, for making these available.
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order 124 pages of gold basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
you've been told that working is more rewarding than watching these videos but in fact it's the other way around and you know it. i guess that's the cause of your behavior.
These lectures have given me so much context for my own neuroses and validation for my own struggles; they have changed how I think about myself. I originally came here for the emergence lecture and decided to watch the whole series out of curiosity, and now I'm here with a completely different understanding of things, and a vastly richer world to live in. Dr. Sapolsky has got to be one of the best lecturers I have ever seen, spinning together an intricate web of philosophy and science that reminds me why I love learning, and that there will always be more to love and appreciate and discover in the world. I cannot appreciate this series enough
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order 124 pages of gold basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
omg, I've been watching this series from the beginning, and this lecture just unlocked all kinds of explanations for things going on in my life because of my brain pathways. Freakin' everyone should watch this, for reals, regardless of the teacher being human and flawed like everyone, the material is enriching beyond my wildest dreams.
In the Middle East they call these types of lectures about the brain and mental illnesses "Blasphemy".....look up Dr. Wafa Sultan who was a Syrian Psychiatrist born in Syria who tried to get treatments for their acute forensic mentally ill and violent but was called a "Blasphemous" person and hunted to be killed in Syria by the leaders there. They wanted to kill her because they knew she would tell the world that Middle East refuses to purchase Antipsychotic medications (the only treatments which work for the mentally ill and psychotic/manic) because the Middle East leaders don't want the Phamaceudical companies whom are owned by the USA to profit from this. So instead they allow their mentally ill to suffer inside their illnesses or ship them all to the USA and Canada for treatments. One injection of Antipsychotic medication for ONE person is $3000 a month. Now add this up for the entire world.....USA cannot pay for the whole world to get mental health treatments. Middle East need to stop allowing their violent to take over and treat them instead so people can live in peace.
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order 124 pages of gold basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
A wonderful and educational service to the public to have these lectures online. W all know, live with or deal with so many of these mental health issues. Destigmatizing them is critical for compassion, diagnosis and treatment. Thank you
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order 124 pages of gold basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
@@bendadestroyer sure, what time would you say is best, for most / those keeping a regular 'western lifestyle' ... if, say we decided to spend 20 hours learning something new. say two hours a day for 10 days, what hours would you rec.
A true professor. Captivating, brilliant and of course, untimately knowledgable about his subject. To me, who have had many hours of college(3 B.S. degrees - zoology, medical technoloty and nursing) it seem difficult to be able to take notes from this guy b/c it's ALL important.
@@lockandloadlikehell They’re the one that test your blood , laboratory test , X rays , etc. , Degrees that you mentioned are for low IQ’s at least in the past but now it’s changing smart people going to other degress and business degrees , that’s sad to see smart people driven by money now , at least we still have Sapolsky.
This amazing series made me realize the intrusive tragical thoughts I’ve having is because my amygdala is bigger and extra sensible to interpret reality as a threat.
Favorite series of lectures to listen to for fun. Robert Sapolsky is captivating, witty and excellent at translating information in a way that others can easily comprehend.
@@Noobener He literally said in the same minute of the lecture as your quote that love and hate are extremely similar brain processes, so much so that people regularly confuse which of the 2 they are experiencing
Jeez, What a great prof! Understood entire lesson without having any background on subject! Ya' gots' to find a way to bottle these communication skills sir. Thank you SU for sharing Robert with us.
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order 124 pages of gold basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
Okay, so were Professor Sapolsky and I the only ones that caught the significance of him referencing the 1840s when he meant the 1980s, and then saying "I won't go there." There being how it related to earlier in the lecture. I'm absolutely in awe of how how swift and fluid his cognitive flexibility is!
Man, Robert talks so fluidly. Notice how he doesn't say: ummmm or aaahhh between thoughts. He doesn't even really pause. I mean Im sure he presents this class every year but he has this stuff down. My basic azz brain has to pause the vid to let my thoughts catch up every few minutes. Robert is great though. Really interesting stuff.
i wholly agree, how do you learn to without even taking a breath 😊. his brain is BRIMMING with factoids snd great stories, its hypnotizing, i wasn't even PLANNING on listening to this but my youtube is on autoplay and for whatever reason youtube chooses to play this more often than anything else, i wake up every morning to this guy's lectures, omg can you imagine what kind of kid he was, i bet he's GREAT at cocktail parties ....im habituated, what a mind!
@57:00 Prof Saposky talking about the feature of normative aging, how we "come into our own" stop caring about impressing people and what they think of us saying it's just the brain damage... I couldn't tell if he was joking there and I'm pretty good at detecting humor. What a G when it comes to screwing with his class. Like that Nelson Mandela reference at the climax of his soccer story in aggression 1. lol!
Thanks for these lectures - the way Dr. Sapolsky explains makes it easy to understand concepts in the moment - which increases my ability to retain the information. Love these classes!
Robert Sapolsky’s lectures are my go to background filler. Not only is he brilliantly fascinating but his delivery has a melodic cadence that is pretty addictive.
I dropped out of school. Shot dope and was one of the fortunate ones to actually MAKE more money than most in the lifestyle… now that i am off that and clear headed. I feel like I made huge mistake by leaving school. Especially after a week or so of listening to this man.
God I love my field of psychology 50 years of study and still not bored even when I know and taught 95% of it. Ah but the deliciously novel 5%.Yum, dessert for the brain!
My frontal cortex is asking me what kind of test we are having after this class. "Tomato, hammer, cheerios, grape . . ." "Person, woman, man, camera, TV."
1:03:45 Relationship between socio economic status and thickness of frontal cortex and resting metabolic rate. High receptors for glucocorticoids that atrophy neurons in this area.
The video ended while I was completely in in awe about the army tank story! :( I wanted to know Professor Sapolsky's thoughts on the matter! Why you do this Stanford?!
He tells this story at "A Primate's Memoir" as I just read the ending in this free sample: books.google.com.br/books?id=gpfonu4ce28C&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=carnivore+biologist+army+tanks&source=bl&ots=te5P9rL9fl&sig=ACfU3U373eJKJcorxl7LH1ARohb95yS1fw&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=carnivore%20biologist%20army%20tanks&f=false But there is also no conclusion, just three comic possible true endings of what has happened: a) Biologists and Colonels still together in cahoots; b) This was an exercise for the army to get info from scientists in general; c) Colonels were actually herbivores... I expected more from this story! xD
Dont try to stroke your ego and ask questions during a lecture,thats just really bad form and a unwritten rule,we are here for this guys presentation and your input is not required ,great mind and presentation of this subject manner
I'm glad to listen to Stanford for the first time and continue. It makes sense after I read the "The Whispering Room" by Dean Koontz. I would recommend to everyone who had not read yet. MD (Medulla; Dixtroisen medicine to keep heart pumping for blue star patients.) per Camino Winds by John Grisham.
"[49:48] I suspect ultimately saying that in a small handful of places, if you have no frontal cortex at all, we’re talking about neurology. [49:54] If you’ve got any frontal cortex, we’re talking about morality and soul, and even all of that. I suspect it will eventually make as little sense as lacrymal glands drying up. [50:06] Ok I’m obviously just on the edge of tirading. So let’s take a 5’ break." This is a tremendously revealing self-comment. Here, we can see our Incredibly Learned Professor delighting in the bizarreries of past human judgment - revealed by cool and rational research as conducted by his frontal cortex. But this does not preclude his own emotional reactions to the data, thus giving a play to his own limbic system, as often expressed in his little personal remarks of joy or disgust, "interesting", "exciting", or"whoa!", "depressing", even "absurd", or "insane". When he so delights in highlighing the ridiculously fanciful intuitions of the past, they are immediately exposed as the product of "insane"and tremendously ignorant moral/social considerations. While, by contrast, he extols the illuminations from advancing scientific brain and behavior research in radically transforming our worldview. The implied suggestion is that many of our current beliefs about human nature and behavior may in the same manner suddenly or gradually change in the near future as an effect of new research data. If we read Professor Sapolsky’s six previous books, all the way to his recent magnum opus BEHAVE (2017), we cannot fail to be struck by his passionate interest in the repercussions of progressing neuroscience in undermining the fallacies now accepted as given dogma in many of our current social practices and moral beliefs - and especially the failings of the legal system to update some of its backward rules. In this critical manner, he joins the wave of scientific criticisms animating many scientists in brain research, such as, for instance, the empirical psychologist Daniel Kahneman. ROO BOOKAROO, June 28, 2022.
1:27:00 to 1:29:00 outlines the importance of the socratic method/street epistemology. Becoming rational is not very different from just taking the beliefs you already have and asking yourself "can I justify this belief?"
The key diagram, which is the central focus of this whole important lecture, is the one on the right-hand side blackboard. It remains out of the camera angle for nearly all the 1h 45' of the lecture. Finally, the camera operator deigns to take in the full diagram at 53:12. This is the key illustration of the critical connections at work between the limbic system and the frontal cortex, with activation of various dopamine pathways. This cameraman consents to let the diagram shine in its full glory for 2 seconds from 53:15 to 53:17, to abandon it entirely at 53:20, never to be seen again. Nothing more frustrating for a dedicated student of this whole course on Behavioral Neurobiology, offered on TH-cam by Stanford Un., who is following the series of the 25 (or 27) lectures. Viewing that diagram early on, as soon as it becomes the center of the discussion, would have been essential to any viewer. After all, our Incredibly Learned Professor has lavished all his attention on his self-made sketch to make it nearly self-explanatory. Whatever drawings are on the boards are so critical for viewers who are not in the classroom to allow them to fully follow Prof. Sapolsky's rapid-fire presentations. Note that this neglect persists throughout the whole series of the lectures. This is the irritating weakness of all those videos. If the explanation is correct that this operator is a film student at the university who's given a chance for developing camera skills, it is tempting to believe that this student is under 25, with a frontal cortex not yet fully mature, and has not yet completely understood the dynamics of teaching and those of viewing videos of those lectures. For this operator, the interest is not in the intellectual teaching process of our Incredibly Learned Professor, but in following his photogenic personality at the center, finding satisfaction only in focusing on his beard, pony tail, and moving arms. Even when our Incredibly Learned Professor, in his Aristotelian ambulatory style, rushes from the left towards the right to point with his left arm to the famous diagram, the camera, obstinately stays focused on Prof. Sapolsky's fascinating figure, barely condescending to include some portion of the arm pointing towards the diagram, but never switching to a full take of the sketch, that we got only for a few fleeting seconds, way towards the end. What a pity.
Just a few notes arising from the last, truncated, Army story : I remember it as the Abrams M-1 tank. Coursing predators , whether alone or in groups, are most prominently dependent on their attentional skills. Playing/fighting skills also (social playing/fighting) depend upon developed AND innate reflex arcs. So, social and environmental learning adds to - practice improves some - reflex arc development. Working and playing with wolf, I saw distinct learned cognition of whether an object was animate vs objects that were predictable (and thus not composed of edible parts). Adult wolves are bored by preditable inanimate movement, although always attentive to new stimuli. There is another attentional difference between wolves and neotenous domesticated dogs. Wolves appear to have far faster reflexes under cognitive control, as their bite strength varies superbly in situations of blinding speed equivalent to serious lethal encounters. Dogs aggressively engaging a wolf will find themselves bearing serious wounds so quickly that most humans do not even see the strike. Yet most wolf social fighting is air bites, hip and shoulder checking. Firing a tennis ball at a wolf, the faster one throws it, the more accurate the midair catch, while a dog is better at gauging gravitational arcs, far poorer at pure speed accuracy. But, back to strategy. Strategy of lion prides, wolf packs, and coyotes have all been attributed to both individual responsiveness (attention) and in some cases, clear dispersal to strategic points and tactical drive or deception of prey. Corner-cutting is attentional, reflexive/cognitive, agile. Hyenas, by the way, can kill female lions when a group of hyenas encounters a lioness. However, EVERY time a big male lion encounters any amount of hyenas, at least one hyena will be dead, the male lion uninjured. Thus you have evolutionary support for males' roless in lion prides, especially when you include the continuing protection of present cubs. Successful lion prides mostly have two males, one of which is reproductive, and the other usually a sibling of his. An adult male reproducer is in severe trouble if he is solo male in a pride. Wolves, although males are 20% to near 50% larger, also retain a cubs-first eating pattern, enforced most often by the reproductive female. Painted dogs are the most social predator, with many interesting and to us, often admirable, social traits. They are critically endangered due to heavy human fragmentation of habitat.They do the most alloparenting of any complete (both sexes. Gender is a word meaning the ending of words in romance and germanic languages, and is not properly applied to actual males, females, or intersex individuals) social animal. Wolves are also highly altruistic, with strong alloparenting, although this has been attributed to the closer relatinoship in the smaller wolf packs. Interestingly hyenas (spotted are the largest of four species) are closer to the Felidae than to Canidae, just as the highly social likon is a felid. They both hunt in canid-like ways, although lions really retain the ambush characteristics of felids. Once, before the dispersal of Canidae, ancient hyena species numbered over 30 species. It seems that canids entering the scene outcompeted the more doglike hyena species, leaving only the four. Unlike wolves, the two larger hyenas are known to eat humans when opportune. They are as mythologized in Africa in the same vilifying way as wolves and coyotes are by Europeans and Euroamericans, another case of the misattribution of fiction as fact mentioned by Sapolsky in the limbic/FC-ACC discussion. Just today a pair of wolf biologists published a letter calling for neurological/evolutionary study of the hypothesis that some , but not all, humans hereditarily have antiwolf responses (I am inclined to bet that epigenetic and cultural misattribution of amygdala-mediated predator fear is in the mix. Maasai and more ancient Mediterranean boys and heroes equated overcoming of lions with manhood test, and Inuit/Inupiat, spearing a polar bear, are analogous traditions. The Euro- gun hunting arising in the 1800s is a safe aberration of something having to do with predators and social protection)
Yes, That makes a lot more sense. The Sherman had other virtues. For example the German Tiger II was only made in tiny numbers - about 500. There were about 50,000 Shermans made.
So well, I was taking notes of the lecture, very focused and my sister threw a matchbox at me. First I was scared but then I felt anger. Now I tried this on my sister, I yelled her name and she just flinched and looked up at me in confusion. (She was listening to music) Second time when I yelled at her she was making food.( This time she got angry). So my observation is that when you are focused( activated foetal cortex) and someone disturbs you, you immediately get angry(amygdala activates) because you loose the focus (deactivation of frontal cortex). And the other emotions like fear or anxiety can lead to anger because now your amygdala is activated.
my brother in law is a lawyer, and i asked him if any of this type of research could be presented to a jury in a criminal trial. his response was it could be used for mitigating circumstances during sentencing, but not for the determination of guilt unless it was an insanity defense. we're in Canada where we don't have the death penalty, but i wonder how many people texas executes for biological issues
Judges being Elected(and having sponsored campaigns) and Jurys being lay people who aren't compensated for any of the time it takes to inform them self's contribute to the US systems failings.
@@captain34ca My home state of Hessia still has the death penalty on the books but is subject to Federal and European laws prohibiting them from executing (hanging) anyone, it's embarrassing but no longer deadly.
Taxpayers shouldn't complain when we take their money to feed, house, make remorseless killers comfortable long into the old age. Especially, terrorists captured overseas, we should accommodate them every way possible. If we deny any prisoner a 100,000 dollar sex change operation, we're clearly monsters.
@@jameseames4754 Firstly you are monsterous and secondly, even if you keep pardoning war criminals and executing innocents, social security is cheaper to provide than the amount of suppression it would take to make Tax payers equally safe. Not only do you increase safety/decrease systemic costs currently accepted by covering basic needs (including Healthcare, like other nations since 1883) but doing the same in regions bombed for as long as inhabitants can remember ("peace building") would undermine terrorist recruitment.
For the "washing your hands of your sins", or "warm personality", did they test these little trials with any cultures that did not have these same metaphores in their cultures? That would be one interesting study, whichever way it goes - whether the warm tea just physically made them feel better, so it made them like them more, or if it takes the metaphor in their language for that strange routing of pathways to occur.
There are few human cultures in which there is no cultural link at all between washing and moral purity, which makes such tests difficult (but also maybe partly answers the question). Some studies tend to show that the parts of the body that ones needs to wash to reduce guilt may vary from one culture to another. For instance, in East Asian cultures, people will wash their faces rather than their hands.
1:04:10 How is he so confident in assuming that by age 5, the differences between kids' size and activity of the frontal cortex are CAUSED by socioeconomic statuses of each family? So basically if an always economically poor couple wins the lottery and then they have a kid, at age 5 he will have a superdeveloped frontal cortex? It seems to me he's dismissing too much the genetic factors while making such an assumption.
If I'm not mistaken he didn't say it was caused by socioeconomic status but correlated with it. It means that it is only one of the factors inducing frontal cortex's atrophy, but one that predicts it pretty well. In the end it kinda makes sense, sociology has long shown that socioeconomic status is a pretty good proxy for estimating quality of life, average stress in environment, impact of bad events etc. The brain sure must be impacted by these during early development.
Spike through brain...not good..learned in Intro to Psych as undergrad. PHotos of him in my textbook. Sort of a Ripleys Bdlieve It or. Not....fell in love with psych due to that book..a .lifetime passion!
Great lecture, but I am a bit bothered by how the word 'aggression' is not clearly defined. I've gotten used to thinking (having studied military history and science) that if an infantryman in WWI shoots another at range, there is barely aggression per ce involved; bayonet one from the front, and there's a great deal of it. Meaning, it is not the brutality of the act, but the 'natural' resistance of the soldier - or person in general - as well as the distance, moral and physical, which are factors here. Things get really complicated when one considers the way modern, post-Vietnam, training in the West prepares service personnel to fire at their targets, virtually bypassing all other brain functions but the motor ones. Point being, aggression is far more complex than having someone in the ropes and scared and striking them all the same; anyone can bludgeon another into virtually accidental death with a rifle butt. However, taking the rifle and the bayonet, staring somebody in the eye, and driving the bayonet into their body with the explicit intent to kill them is very different. Takes training, or a very specific type of person who does not, per ce, enjoy it, but gets addicted to battle and the adrenaline fix. Or, just a psychopath. But soldiers can be 'trained' into psychopaths, meaning emotion is cut out as a middle man, and everything is training and motor reflexes reinforced by conditioning and reward. This is my pet peeve with virtually all lectures on evil and aggression (non-scientific terms, I'd add) and not only this one. I wonder if there are taboo types of killing for chimpanzees which they simply do not engage in, unless there is psychopathology involved.
You can aggressively wash the dishes or aggressively yell at someone or be diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Aggressive doesn't always equal violence or evil. It's just an action or response to situations that lacks restraint.
props to the camera man your ability to follow robert does not go unnoticed
For anyone enjoying these lectures in 2019 and forward, Sapolsky's new book Behave covers pretty much the same territory as this lecture series with ever-so-slightly different organization. For audio learners, though the audio book is not narrated by Sapolsky himself, he has chosen a dynamic reader who conveys the material clearly and entertainingly. If nothing else, the book is an excellent companion piece that reinforces the material he covers here.
Awesome thanks
watching in 2020. thanks!
good to know! thanks!
Thanks a lot for the info
I have that book, it's pretty awesome :) not that expensive either, so definitely a good investment for anyone who cares about this topic
This professor makes learning science a lot of fun.
I am eating up these lectures..
He is brilliant isn't he ..
This is soo good for a change from entertainment video or news. Living in this era where we can see a wide variety of videos, and essentially free, this is nice.
Yep, me too! Got his book "Behavior" as well. :)
Binge watching in 2018
I still am. I end rewatching these from time to time.
I have now watched all of these lectures and I think they've changed my life, or at least how I think about things. Late last year, I started reading Ed Wilson's work on sociobiology and human nature, THEN I found out about Sapolsky, read Behave, then found these lectures. I'm in awe of his skill at lecturing- I stay in rapt attention to everything he says. This is my favorite lecture, by far. At about minute 50 when he calls a break because he's obviously about to lose it, emotionally, I gained even more respect for the man. He clearly cares deeply about how our justice system treats those of us who are neurophysiologically broken, and that means a lot to me because it's something that I care about. Very glad these lectures are available. I'm a biochemistry major minoring in psych (in my 30s , haha). I want to study behavioral pharmacology in grad school, but these lectures have been making me think about changing my plans. Thanks again, Stanford, for making these available.
@bill Bloggs wow, is your rudeness a result prefrontal cortex damage?
What did your trajectory end up looking like? :)
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order
124 pages of gold
basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
I must have a frontal lobe impairment because I know I am supposed to be working but I can't stop watching these videos.
you've been told that working is more rewarding than watching these videos but in fact it's the other way around and you know it. i guess that's the cause of your behavior.
These lectures have given me so much context for my own neuroses and validation for my own struggles; they have changed how I think about myself. I originally came here for the emergence lecture and decided to watch the whole series out of curiosity, and now I'm here with a completely different understanding of things, and a vastly richer world to live in. Dr. Sapolsky has got to be one of the best lecturers I have ever seen, spinning together an intricate web of philosophy and science that reminds me why I love learning, and that there will always be more to love and appreciate and discover in the world. I cannot appreciate this series enough
Then U are not the only one
Same here.. 👋🏻
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order
124 pages of gold
basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
That's actually not a beard. It's just his auxiliary network of neurons.
MrCerebellum2 lmao
dude. that's kind of funny yet kind of mean.
ソトヤママリアテレサ maybe MrCerebellum2 has suffered damage to his amygdala ;)
What a wonderfully geeky thing to say!
Like a real life Plo Koon
omg, I've been watching this series from the beginning, and this lecture just unlocked all kinds of explanations for things going on in my life because of my brain pathways. Freakin' everyone should watch this, for reals, regardless of the teacher being human and flawed like everyone, the material is enriching beyond my wildest dreams.
In the Middle East they call these types of lectures about the brain and mental illnesses "Blasphemy".....look up Dr. Wafa Sultan who was a Syrian Psychiatrist born in Syria who tried to get treatments for their acute forensic mentally ill and violent but was called a "Blasphemous" person and hunted to be killed in Syria by the leaders there. They wanted to kill her because they knew she would tell the world that Middle East refuses to purchase Antipsychotic medications (the only treatments which work for the mentally ill and psychotic/manic) because the Middle East leaders don't want the Phamaceudical companies whom are owned by the USA to profit from this. So instead they allow their mentally ill to suffer inside their illnesses or ship them all to the USA and Canada for treatments. One injection of Antipsychotic medication for ONE person is $3000 a month. Now add this up for the entire world.....USA cannot pay for the whole world to get mental health treatments. Middle East need to stop allowing their violent to take over and treat them instead so people can live in peace.
I just don't get tired of listening to his lectures. He is just amazing. Very easy to understand.
I'm so happy that he's paid to talk to us. I love his lectures.
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order
124 pages of gold
basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
I can't stop watching these lectures these are so fascinating.
A wonderful and educational service to the public to have these lectures online. W all know, live with or deal with so many of these mental health issues. Destigmatizing them is critical for compassion, diagnosis and treatment. Thank you
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order
124 pages of gold
basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
Can't imagine why anyone would binge watch GoT while this briljant series of lectures is available (October 2019)
Do both. GoT is applied neuropsychology.
(2019) i randomly watched one of these lectures and immediately became hooked ! i even watch them in my sleep ... >_
You should watch it when your frontal cortex is more active.
@@bendadestroyer sure, what time would you say is best, for most / those keeping a regular 'western lifestyle' ...
if, say we decided to spend 20 hours learning something new. say two hours a day for 10 days, what hours would you rec.
More interesting than watching a movie - check
Funnier than a standup comedian - check
Cheaper than university tuition fees - check
P
it seems that your frontal cortex has enough neurons.
@@nancybauer4079 loophole is
Indeed - who knew that TH-cam could be so entertaining and educational?!
we have no tuition fees in university in germany
A true professor. Captivating, brilliant and of course, untimately knowledgable about his subject. To me, who have had many hours of college(3 B.S. degrees - zoology, medical technoloty and nursing) it seem difficult to be able to take notes from this guy b/c it's ALL important.
Medical technology??
Is that like Hotel Management and Culinary Arts and Criminal Justice?
@@lockandloadlikehell They’re the one that test your blood , laboratory test , X rays , etc. , Degrees that you mentioned are for low IQ’s at least in the past but now it’s changing smart people going to other degress and business degrees , that’s sad to see smart people driven by money now , at least we still have Sapolsky.
Love this guy. Great ability to explain concepts in a digestible way.
This amazing series made me realize the intrusive tragical thoughts I’ve having is because my amygdala is bigger and extra sensible to interpret reality as a threat.
How did you find out your amygdala is bigger? MRI?
@@ericadelnigro6780ptsd diagnosis
xi nao
What this taught me is that if you bully someone young it really messes them up.
Favorite series of lectures to listen to for fun. Robert Sapolsky is captivating, witty and excellent at translating information in a way that others can easily comprehend.
This lecture is awesome. I enjoy all of Mr. Sapolsky's lectures. He is brilliant.
This and all the lectures in this series are simply amazing!
*1:31:05 "The opposite of LOVE is INDIFFERENCE" and then the phrase changed to "The opposite of HATE is INDIFFERENCE at 1:31:25
love and hate are the same thing
@@we-must-live Where has this been mentioned ?
@@Noobener in this comment!
@@Noobener
He literally said in the same minute of the lecture as your quote that love and hate are extremely similar brain processes, so much so that people regularly confuse which of the 2 they are experiencing
Jeez, What a great prof! Understood entire lesson without having any background on subject! Ya' gots' to find a way to bottle these communication skills sir. Thank you SU for sharing Robert with us.
These are the notes for these lectures. A couple are out of order
124 pages of gold
basicrulesoflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/robert-sapolsky-biology-human-behavior-2nd-edition3.pdf
that ending of the tanks and carnivore biologists was a straight up fever dream
Okay, so were Professor Sapolsky and I the only ones that caught the significance of him referencing the 1840s when he meant the 1980s, and then saying "I won't go there." There being how it related to earlier in the lecture. I'm absolutely in awe of how how swift and fluid his cognitive flexibility is!
Brilliant lecture.
I like the way he would use the inability to cry as a defence in a witch trial.
1:23:39 in Chinese, both "evil" and "nausea" are 恶
Interesting!
love these clear explanations
Amazing Professor, such a divine mind.
All our love to Dr Sapolsky!! 🌹
❤️❤️❤️
Imagine if everyone improved and understood communicating even 25%.
Man, Robert talks so fluidly. Notice how he doesn't say: ummmm or aaahhh between thoughts. He doesn't even really pause. I mean Im sure he presents this class every year but he has this stuff down. My basic azz brain has to pause the vid to let my thoughts catch up every few minutes. Robert is great though. Really interesting stuff.
i wholly agree, how do you learn to without even taking a breath 😊. his brain is BRIMMING with factoids snd great stories, its hypnotizing, i wasn't even PLANNING on listening to this but my youtube is on autoplay and for whatever reason youtube chooses to play this more often than anything else, i wake up every morning to this guy's lectures, omg can you imagine what kind of kid he was, i bet he's GREAT at cocktail parties ....im habituated, what a mind!
Quit school after tenth grade and I’m still here.
Great stuff.
I love the tank core story. Dr. Sapolsky is fantastic.
corps*
@57:00 Prof Saposky talking about the feature of normative aging, how we "come into our own" stop caring about impressing people and what they think of us saying it's just the brain damage... I couldn't tell if he was joking there and I'm pretty good at detecting humor. What a G when it comes to screwing with his class. Like that Nelson Mandela reference at the climax of his soccer story in aggression 1. lol!
I love this guy!
I wish Dr Robert Sapolsky would renew these at some point, I feel at 10 years old the level of neuroscience has leapt forwards
Thanks for these lectures - the way Dr. Sapolsky explains makes it easy to understand concepts in the moment - which increases my ability to retain the information. Love these classes!
Robert Sapolsky’s lectures are my go to background filler. Not only is he brilliantly fascinating but his delivery has a melodic cadence that is pretty addictive.
Truly. Well said!
I never fall to sleep listening to him. 😉
I dropped out of school. Shot dope and was one of the fortunate ones to actually MAKE more money than most in the lifestyle… now that i am off that and clear headed. I feel like I made huge mistake by leaving school. Especially after a week or so of listening to this man.
So what happened to the army guys??
I should be studying for my graduate robotics final, instead I spent a whole day watching these lectures. My cortex needs to do a better job!
Watch Tim Urban's Ted talk on procrastination.
@@raymondwilson293 added to Watch Later
@@UserName-ii1ce lol
Why am I here? Why can't I stop watching these lectures?
Why wouldn't you be where the Best of the Net is, assuming you have a Thinking, Curious Brain?
If I just washed my hands extensively, then I'm less likely to pick up stuff from the ground. Mystery explained :D
God I love my field of psychology 50 years of study and still not bored even when I know and taught 95% of it. Ah but the deliciously novel 5%.Yum, dessert for the brain!
I have crabs
@@Bruh-ft2sh 😳
Brilliant lecture. Should not be cut at the end.
My frontal cortex is asking me what kind of test we are having after this class. "Tomato, hammer, cheerios, grape . . ." "Person, woman, man, camera, TV."
I'm a bit thrown off by the change in mic qualty. Almost like someone else is talking.
***** i heard he upgraded his beard to full 7.1 surround sound
oh god this is continuing with the same topic and just from where we left off, but with double the speed O.O
my pencil be blessed!
Mama says alligators are on'ry 'cause they got all them teeth and no toothbrush
He knows so much and speaks so fast. Can't imagine what Sapolsky would be like if he were coked up.
He has his own brand; not necessary.
This professor just has that natural sauce to capture my attention
The effects of damage to the frontal cortex is some of the craziest shit I've heard in my entire life.
This was one of the most interesting lectures… thank you for this education.☺️
1:23:40 the guy in the audience got his insular cortex activated :)
1:03:45 Relationship between socio economic status and thickness of frontal cortex and resting metabolic rate. High receptors for glucocorticoids that atrophy neurons in this area.
was scared slightly when the william's syndrome description sounded slightly like myself, but the rest of the lecture was amazing.
the voice of the “stanford university” woman at the beggining is so relaxing
I love these lectures! I love this guy!
Never thought I’d make it to Stanford
Not followers. No religion here. Just a number of refreshing and highly interested folks. Peace out.
The video ended while I was completely in in awe about the army tank story! :( I wanted to know Professor Sapolsky's thoughts on the matter!
Why you do this Stanford?!
The video folks are not professionals :-)
probably an automated system which cuts off at the allotted time and the lecture overran. Could use a little AI to overcome this.
He tells this story at "A Primate's Memoir" as I just read the ending in this free sample:
books.google.com.br/books?id=gpfonu4ce28C&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=carnivore+biologist+army+tanks&source=bl&ots=te5P9rL9fl&sig=ACfU3U373eJKJcorxl7LH1ARohb95yS1fw&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=carnivore%20biologist%20army%20tanks&f=false
But there is also no conclusion, just three comic possible true endings of what has happened: a) Biologists and Colonels still together in cahoots; b) This was an exercise for the army to get info from scientists in general; c) Colonels were actually herbivores...
I expected more from this story! xD
Best sleep medicine ever.
Dont try to stroke your ego and ask questions during a lecture,thats just really bad form and a unwritten rule,we are here for this guys presentation and your input is not required ,great mind and presentation of this subject manner
I'm glad to listen to Stanford for the first time and continue. It makes sense after I read the "The Whispering Room" by Dean Koontz. I would recommend to everyone who had not read yet.
MD (Medulla; Dixtroisen medicine to keep heart pumping for blue star patients.) per Camino Winds by John Grisham.
Man, it feels like the vide was cut before he got to saying the most interesting thing about that conference and its consequences
"[49:48] I suspect ultimately saying that in a small handful of places, if you have no frontal cortex at all, we’re talking about neurology. [49:54] If you’ve got any frontal cortex, we’re talking about morality and soul, and even all of that. I suspect it will eventually make as little sense as lacrymal glands drying up. [50:06] Ok I’m obviously just on the edge of tirading. So let’s take a 5’ break."
This is a tremendously revealing self-comment. Here, we can see our Incredibly Learned Professor delighting in the bizarreries of past human judgment - revealed by cool and rational research as conducted by his frontal cortex. But this does not preclude his own emotional reactions to the data, thus giving a play to his own limbic system, as often expressed in his little personal remarks of joy or disgust, "interesting", "exciting", or"whoa!", "depressing", even "absurd", or "insane".
When he so delights in highlighing the ridiculously fanciful intuitions of the past, they are immediately exposed as the product of "insane"and tremendously ignorant moral/social considerations. While, by contrast, he extols the illuminations from advancing scientific brain and behavior research in radically transforming our worldview. The implied suggestion is that many of our current beliefs about human nature and behavior may in the same manner suddenly or gradually change in the near future as an effect of new research data.
If we read Professor Sapolsky’s six previous books, all the way to his recent magnum opus BEHAVE (2017), we cannot fail to be struck by his passionate interest in the repercussions of progressing neuroscience in undermining the fallacies now accepted as given dogma in many of our current social practices and moral beliefs - and especially the failings of the legal system to update some of its backward rules.
In this critical manner, he joins the wave of scientific criticisms animating many scientists in brain research, such as, for instance, the empirical psychologist Daniel Kahneman.
ROO BOOKAROO, June 28, 2022.
You're truly an inspiration! I love your lectures.
1 :26.30 shout out to Johnathan Haidt!
Listening to this lecture was actually very intriguing, although I haven’t finished highschool yet.
I love my frontal cortex after watching this video, i'm gonna try and keep it safe
1:27:00 to 1:29:00 outlines the importance of the socratic method/street epistemology. Becoming rational is not very different from just taking the beliefs you already have and asking yourself "can I justify this belief?"
brilliant man and seminar.
The key diagram, which is the central focus of this whole important lecture, is the one on the right-hand side blackboard. It remains out of the camera angle for nearly all the 1h 45' of the lecture. Finally, the camera operator deigns to take in the full diagram at 53:12. This is the key illustration of the critical connections at work between the limbic system and the frontal cortex, with activation of various dopamine pathways. This cameraman consents to let the diagram shine in its full glory for 2 seconds from 53:15 to 53:17, to abandon it entirely at 53:20, never to be seen again.
Nothing more frustrating for a dedicated student of this whole course on Behavioral Neurobiology, offered on TH-cam by Stanford Un., who is following the series of the 25 (or 27) lectures. Viewing that diagram early on, as soon as it becomes the center of the discussion, would have been essential to any viewer. After all, our Incredibly Learned Professor has lavished all his attention on his self-made sketch to make it nearly self-explanatory. Whatever drawings are on the boards are so critical for viewers who are not in the classroom to allow them to fully follow Prof. Sapolsky's rapid-fire presentations.
Note that this neglect persists throughout the whole series of the lectures. This is the irritating weakness of all those videos. If the explanation is correct that this operator is a film student at the university who's given a chance for developing camera skills, it is tempting to believe that this student is under 25, with a frontal cortex not yet fully mature, and has not yet completely understood the dynamics of teaching and those of viewing videos of those lectures. For this operator, the interest is not in the intellectual teaching process of our Incredibly Learned Professor, but in following his photogenic personality at the center, finding satisfaction only in focusing on his beard, pony tail, and moving arms.
Even when our Incredibly Learned Professor, in his Aristotelian ambulatory style, rushes from the left towards the right to point with his left arm to the famous diagram, the camera, obstinately stays focused on Prof. Sapolsky's fascinating figure, barely condescending to include some portion of the arm pointing towards the diagram, but never switching to a full take of the sketch, that we got only for a few fleeting seconds, way towards the end. What a pity.
Hes so easy to understand I just love him ngl
Wow the reality of metaphor is extremely interesting, I hope I get to write an essay about that one day
Gosh I love his brain 🥰
I’m on 2018.
2019 we still out here.
This is like a time machine. I'm from 2019.
@@PeterGregoryKelly 2020
2021!
We survived last year
If the camera man took a slightly wider shot, he wouldn't make the viewer feel like he's watching a tennis match... 🙏♥️
this is filmed a decade ago ,D
Just a few notes arising from the last, truncated, Army story :
I remember it as the Abrams M-1 tank.
Coursing predators , whether alone or in groups, are most prominently dependent on their attentional skills. Playing/fighting skills also (social playing/fighting) depend upon developed AND innate reflex arcs. So, social and environmental learning adds to - practice improves some - reflex arc development.
Working and playing with wolf, I saw distinct learned cognition of whether an object was animate vs objects that were predictable (and thus not composed of edible parts). Adult wolves are bored by preditable inanimate movement, although always attentive to new stimuli.
There is another attentional difference between wolves and neotenous domesticated dogs. Wolves appear to have far faster reflexes under cognitive control, as their bite strength varies superbly in situations of blinding speed equivalent to serious lethal encounters. Dogs aggressively engaging a wolf will find themselves bearing serious wounds so quickly that most humans do not even see the strike. Yet most wolf social fighting is air bites, hip and shoulder checking. Firing a tennis ball at a wolf, the faster one throws it, the more accurate the midair catch, while a dog is better at gauging gravitational arcs, far poorer at pure speed accuracy.
But, back to strategy. Strategy of lion prides, wolf packs, and coyotes have all been attributed to both individual responsiveness (attention) and in some cases, clear dispersal to strategic points and tactical drive or deception of prey. Corner-cutting is attentional, reflexive/cognitive, agile.
Hyenas, by the way, can kill female lions when a group of hyenas encounters a lioness. However, EVERY time a big male lion encounters any amount of hyenas, at least one hyena will be dead, the male lion uninjured. Thus you have evolutionary support for males' roless in lion prides, especially when you include the continuing protection of present cubs. Successful lion prides mostly have two males, one of which is reproductive, and the other usually a sibling of his. An adult male reproducer is in severe trouble if he is solo male in a pride.
Wolves, although males are 20% to near 50% larger, also retain a cubs-first eating pattern, enforced most often by the reproductive female.
Painted dogs are the most social predator, with many interesting and to us, often admirable, social traits. They are critically endangered due to heavy human fragmentation of habitat.They do the most alloparenting of any complete (both sexes. Gender is a word meaning the ending of words in romance and germanic languages, and is not properly applied to actual males, females, or intersex individuals) social animal. Wolves are also highly altruistic, with strong alloparenting, although this has been attributed to the closer relatinoship in the smaller wolf packs.
Interestingly hyenas (spotted are the largest of four species) are closer to the Felidae than to Canidae, just as the highly social likon is a felid. They both hunt in canid-like ways, although lions really retain the ambush characteristics of felids. Once, before the dispersal of Canidae, ancient hyena species numbered over 30 species. It seems that canids entering the scene outcompeted the more doglike hyena species, leaving only the four.
Unlike wolves, the two larger hyenas are known to eat humans when opportune. They are as mythologized in Africa in the same vilifying way as wolves and coyotes are by Europeans and Euroamericans, another case of the misattribution of fiction as fact mentioned by Sapolsky in the limbic/FC-ACC discussion.
Just today a pair of wolf biologists published a letter calling for neurological/evolutionary study of the hypothesis that some , but not all, humans hereditarily have antiwolf responses (I am inclined to bet that epigenetic and cultural misattribution of amygdala-mediated predator fear is in the mix. Maasai and more ancient Mediterranean boys and heroes equated overcoming of lions with manhood test, and Inuit/Inupiat, spearing a polar bear, are analogous traditions. The Euro- gun hunting arising in the 1800s is a safe aberration of something having to do with predators and social protection)
Yes, That makes a lot more sense. The Sherman had other virtues. For example the German Tiger II was only made in tiny numbers - about 500. There were about 50,000 Shermans made.
Is Jordan Peterson your hero?
When you say the lion is uninjured in his encounter with multiple hyenas, what exactly do you mean? Untouched, unharmed, unbroken..?
So well, I was taking notes of the lecture, very focused and my sister threw a matchbox at me. First I was scared but then I felt anger.
Now I tried this on my sister, I yelled her name and she just flinched and looked up at me in confusion. (She was listening to music)
Second time when I yelled at her she was making food.( This time she got angry).
So my observation is that when you are focused( activated foetal cortex) and someone disturbs you, you immediately get angry(amygdala activates) because you loose the focus (deactivation of frontal cortex). And the other emotions like fear or anxiety can lead to anger because now your amygdala is activated.
I love when he goes 'ooooh'.
He is indeed amazing.
Judges and jurys should be forced to watch these lectures!
my brother in law is a lawyer, and i asked him if any of this type of research could be presented to a jury in a criminal trial. his response was it could be used for mitigating circumstances during sentencing, but not for the determination of guilt unless it was an insanity defense. we're in Canada where we don't have the death penalty, but i wonder how many people texas executes for biological issues
Judges being Elected(and having sponsored campaigns) and Jurys being lay people who aren't compensated for any of the time it takes to inform them self's contribute to the US systems failings.
@@captain34ca
My home state of Hessia still has the death penalty on the books but is subject to Federal and European laws prohibiting them from executing (hanging) anyone, it's embarrassing but no longer deadly.
Taxpayers shouldn't complain when we take their money to feed, house, make remorseless killers comfortable long into the old age. Especially, terrorists captured overseas, we should accommodate them every way possible. If we deny any prisoner a 100,000 dollar sex change operation, we're clearly monsters.
@@jameseames4754
Firstly you are monsterous and secondly, even if you keep pardoning war criminals and executing innocents, social security is cheaper to provide than the amount of suppression it would take to make Tax payers equally safe.
Not only do you increase safety/decrease systemic costs currently accepted by covering basic needs (including Healthcare, like other nations since 1883) but doing the same in regions bombed for as long as inhabitants can remember ("peace building") would undermine terrorist recruitment.
For the "washing your hands of your sins", or "warm personality", did they test these little trials with any cultures that did not have these same metaphores in their cultures? That would be one interesting study, whichever way it goes - whether the warm tea just physically made them feel better, so it made them like them more, or if it takes the metaphor in their language for that strange routing of pathways to occur.
There are few human cultures in which there is no cultural link at all between washing and moral purity, which makes such tests difficult (but also maybe partly answers the question). Some studies tend to show that the parts of the body that ones needs to wash to reduce guilt may vary from one culture to another. For instance, in East Asian cultures, people will wash their faces rather than their hands.
maybe it will sound stupid but can sum body dairect my to an article on how do develop the ability to balance amigdola frantel cortex sickle
dont rember standford after altering past life like this
Does that mean "dont do it, dont do it " when you get angry, we get dopamine?
that ending left me with so many questions
1:04:10 How is he so confident in assuming that by age 5, the differences between kids' size and activity of the frontal cortex are CAUSED by socioeconomic statuses of each family? So basically if an always economically poor couple wins the lottery and then they have a kid, at age 5 he will have a superdeveloped frontal cortex?
It seems to me he's dismissing too much the genetic factors while making such an assumption.
If I'm not mistaken he didn't say it was caused by socioeconomic status but correlated with it. It means that it is only one of the factors inducing frontal cortex's atrophy, but one that predicts it pretty well. In the end it kinda makes sense, sociology has long shown that socioeconomic status is a pretty good proxy for estimating quality of life, average stress in environment, impact of bad events etc. The brain sure must be impacted by these during early development.
Money doesn’t cause happiness, poverty doesn’t cause depression.
Spike through brain...not good..learned in Intro to Psych as undergrad. PHotos of him in my textbook. Sort of a Ripleys Bdlieve It or. Not....fell in love with psych due to that book..a .lifetime passion!
whatever he talks about starting 1:24:00 is really cool. The stuff of metaphors
When I think of aggression I immediately think of slayer.
th-cam.com/video/NOfwWvd2rR8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=_xlHSUKF-_3F_Qok
"When I listen to slayer. My neighbors listen to slayer." -- blklrd7932
Sweetness.
What effects do diet and environment have on the PFC throughout it's entire growth?
The tanks were likely Abrams tanks not Sherman tanks. Sherman tanks were used in WW2. Abrams tanks have been used during the last ~30 years.
My aggression is being triggered by the person coughing loud af during the entire lecture
this is gold
Great lecture, but I am a bit bothered by how the word 'aggression' is not clearly defined.
I've gotten used to thinking (having studied military history and science) that if an infantryman in WWI shoots another at range, there is barely aggression per ce involved; bayonet one from the front, and there's a great deal of it. Meaning, it is not the brutality of the act, but the 'natural' resistance of the soldier - or person in general - as well as the distance, moral and physical, which are factors here. Things get really complicated when one considers the way modern, post-Vietnam, training in the West prepares service personnel to fire at their targets, virtually bypassing all other brain functions but the motor ones.
Point being, aggression is far more complex than having someone in the ropes and scared and striking them all the same; anyone can bludgeon another into virtually accidental death with a rifle butt. However, taking the rifle and the bayonet, staring somebody in the eye, and driving the bayonet into their body with the explicit intent to kill them is very different. Takes training, or a very specific type of person who does not, per ce, enjoy it, but gets addicted to battle and the adrenaline fix. Or, just a psychopath. But soldiers can be 'trained' into psychopaths, meaning emotion is cut out as a middle man, and everything is training and motor reflexes reinforced by conditioning and reward.
This is my pet peeve with virtually all lectures on evil and aggression (non-scientific terms, I'd add) and not only this one. I wonder if there are taboo types of killing for chimpanzees which they simply do not engage in, unless there is psychopathology involved.
You can aggressively wash the dishes or aggressively yell at someone or be diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Aggressive doesn't always equal violence or evil. It's just an action or response to situations that lacks restraint.
Phineas Gage AND Bobby Joe Long? You are treating me tonight, good sir.