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Enhance Your Learning Speed & Health Using Neuroscience Based Protocols | Dr. Poppy Crum

Episode 248 Sep 29, 2025 2h 36m 17 insights
My guest is Dr. Poppy Crum, PhD, adjunct professor at Stanford, former Chief Scientist at Dolby Laboratories and expert in neuroplasticity—our brain’s ability to change in response to experience. She explains how you can learn faster and ways to leverage your smartphone, AI and even video games to do so. We also discuss “digital twins” and the future of health technology. This episode will change the way you think about and use technology and will teach you zero-cost protocols to vastly improve your learning, health and even your home environment. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Poppy's Cheat Sheet: https://go.hubermanlab.com/xCwHF1e
Actionable Insights

1. Conscious Tech Brain Shaping

Actively reflect on how the technologies you use, especially AI and immersive tech, are shaping your brain and cognitive processes. This awareness is crucial for navigating technological integration and ensuring it aligns with your personal growth.

2. Prioritize Cognitive Enhancement

When using technology, always aim to make yourself cognitively smarter and more effective, gaining new insights, rather than simply replacing existing cognitive skills for speed. This approach ensures deeper learning and prevents cognitive dependency.

3. Engage Germane Cognitive Load

During learning, whether with or without AI, actively put in the mental effort to build mental schemas and representations of information. This ‘germane cognitive load’ is essential for true understanding, generalization, and long-term retention.

4. Leverage AI for Self-Testing

Use AI tools to generate custom tests from your learning materials and practice self-testing away from the source material. This method significantly boosts memory consolidation and helps identify and strengthen your cognitive weaknesses.

5. Build AI Computer Vision Apps

Utilize AI to quickly create computer vision applications on mobile devices for real-time data analytics on physical skills, such as swimming strokes or running gait. This democratizes access to performance data, providing insights for neural training.

6. Integrate Real-time Auditory Feedback

Incorporate AI-driven real-time auditory feedback from sensors into your physical training routines. This helps your brain build greater resolution and sensitivity to subtle performance differentiations, accelerating skill acquisition.

7. Create Digital Representatives

Develop or utilize ‘digital twins’ (digital representatives of relevant data from physical systems like your body, home, or skills) to gain continuous, real-time insights. This enables proactive problem-solving and a deeper understanding of system behavior before issues become critical.

8. Frame Change as Critical

When striving for significant behavioral or cognitive changes, frame the desired outcome as critically important to your success or well-being. This mindset can dramatically accelerate neuroplasticity and the formation of new habits.

9. Utilize AI Voice Analysis

Explore future AI-powered voice analysis tools for early detection of potential health issues (e.g., neural degeneration, diabetes, heart disease) or shifts in mental state (e.g., suicidality). These tools can identify subtle cues imperceptible to humans, enabling proactive intervention.

10. Optimize Awake States Dynamically

Seek or develop integrated systems that combine data from your internal state, local environment, and external environment to dynamically optimize your awake states. This can lead to personalized adjustments in your surroundings to enhance focus, relaxation, or performance.

11. Advocate for Non-Contact Sensors

Support the development and integration of non-contact sensors in living and working environments. These unobtrusive sensors can provide continuous data on physiological and cognitive states, enabling proactive adjustments without requiring wearables.

12. Embrace Quantified Aspirational Goals

Adopt quantifiable metrics (e.g., sleep scores, step counts, focused work bouts) as aspirational targets for self-improvement. This approach can create engaging goals and encourage positive behavioral changes.

13. Train Stress Control with Biofeedback

Engage in or develop training environments, potentially gamified, that provide real-time biofeedback on physiological responses (e.g., heart rate, breath rate). This directly trains your neural system to manage stress and self-regulate.

14. Develop Specific Expertise

Intentionally develop expertise in specific areas or skills. Your brain will allocate more dedicated and specific neural resources to support these activities, enhancing your sensitivity and performance in those domains.

15. Recognize Environmental Auditory Shaping

Be aware that your environment’s unique ‘sonic imprints’ (e.g., city noise levels, specific animal sounds) can subtly shape your hearing sensitivities and neural processing over time.

16. Engage Diverse Sensory Experiences

Actively seek out and engage in diverse and challenging sensory experiences, especially those that require your brain to adapt or override existing neural patterns. This fosters greater neuroplasticity and the development of new sensory maps.

17. Understand Pupil Size as Arousal

Be aware that changes in pupil size, independent of lighting, serve as a deterministic indicator of arousal and cognitive load. This physiological response reflects your mental engagement and can be a target for future biofeedback.