<p><a href="https://peterattiamd.com/karldeisseroth/?utm_source=podcast-feed&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=220117-pod-karldeisseroth&utm_content=220117-pod-karldeisseroth-podfeed"> View the Show Notes Page for This Episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://peterattiamd.com/subscribe/?utm_source=podcast-feed&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=220117-pod-karldeisseroth&utm_content=220117-pod-karldeisseroth-podfeed"> Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content</a></p> <p><strong>Episode Description:</strong></p> <p>Karl Deisseroth is a world-renowned clinical psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author of <em>Projections: A Story of Human Emotions</em>. In the episode, Karl explains his unique career path that led to the development of optogenetics—a revolutionary technique that uses specialized light-sensitive ion channels to precisely control the activity of select populations of neurons. Karl provides a concise overview of how optogenetics works and how it can be used to better understand mental illness, to identify the neurons responsible for specific behaviors, and to guide development of new treatments. Karl uses his experience as a practicing psychiatrist to provide deep insights into depression, anxiety, autism, and personality disorders and explains the role of optogenetics in mapping out brain regions responsible for common mental health afflictions.</p> <p><strong>We discuss:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Karl's journey through medical school and interest in the brain [5:00];</li> <li>A profound medical school experience that changed Karl's career path to psychiatry [17:30];</li> <li>Karl's commitment to research and challenges overcome early in his career [27:00];</li> <li>The state of psychiatry and mental health therapies when Karl started his lab in 2004 [33:15];</li> <li>Neuroscience 101: fundamentals of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology [38:15];</li> <li>Traditional techniques for identifying the brain regions involved in specific behaviors [47:15]; </li> <li>Intro to optogenetics and how to get a gene into a neuron [51:15];</li> <li>How viruses helped make optogenetics possible [1:01:45]; </li> <li>How optogenetics was used to investigate the effects of dopamine neurons [1:15:45];</li> <li>Appreciating the power of optogenetics [1:22:00];</li> <li>Investigating and treating anxiety with optogenetics [1:26:45];</li> <li>Autism and autism-related anxiety, and the potential of optogenetics in treating autism [1:38:00];</li> <li>Optogenetics as a powerful tool for the discovery and creation of medical treatments [1:45:00];</li> <li>Karl's inspiration to write his book, Projections [1:48:00];</li> <li>Mania and bipolar disorder: evolutionary basis, symptoms, and the high prevalence in North America [1:52:45];</li> <li>Depression: evolutionary basis and insights from optogenetics [2:03:15];</li> <li>The effects of trauma early in life [2:18:45]; and</li> <li>More.</li> </ul> <p><a href="https://peterattiamd.com/newsletter/?utm_source=podcast-feed&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=220117-pod-karldeisseroth&utm_content=220117-pod-karldeisseroth-podfeed"> Sign Up to Receive Peter's Weekly Newsletter</a></p> <p>Connect With Peter on <a href="https://twitter.com/PeterAttiaMD">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/peterattiamd/">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/peterattiamd/">Facebook</a> & <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8kGsMa0LygSX9nkBcBH1Sg">YouTube</a></p>
Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize What Matters Most
To manage stress from demanding professional roles, cultivate something in your personal life that matters more than anything else, as this perspective can help reduce stress related to work challenges.
2. Embrace Scientific Mystery
Approach profound mysteries, especially those causing human suffering, with a scientific mindset, viewing them as positive challenges to be understood and solved, rather than aversive problems.
3. Causal Understanding Drives Treatment
Recognize that understanding the causal cellular mechanisms of brain function and dysfunction is the foundational step that unlocks the design of all future targeted treatments, including medications and brain stimulation.
4. Prioritize Creative Work
Dedicate consistent, protected time (e.g., two hours daily, even at unconventional times) to creative or fulfilling work, relishing the process of finding the right word or phrase, as this can be incredibly uplifting.
5. Read “Projections” Book
Read Carl Deisseroth’s book “Projections” to understand and feel altered mental states like mania, schizophrenia, pathological grief, and eating disorders, as it reads like poetry and offers a remarkable journey into mental illness.
6. Use Evolutionary Lens
When trying to understand complex human conditions, especially mental illness, consider thinking about them through an evolutionary lens to gain deeper insights into their origins and persistence.
7. Deconstruct Social Interaction
Understand social interaction as comprising distinct components, such as motivation/drive and cognitive understanding/insight, which may be controlled by different neural circuits.
8. Define Disorder by Impairment
Understand that in psychiatry, a symptom is only considered a disorder if it impairs social or occupational functioning, ensuring that only conditions requiring treatment are addressed.
9. Monitor Bipolar Transitions
Be aware that the transition from depression to mania can be the most risky time for self-harm in individuals with bipolar disorder, as they gain energy to act while still experiencing negative feelings.
10. Recognize Adaptive Passivity
Understand that withdrawing or entering a passive coping state can be adaptively beneficial up to a point, helping to conserve energy or avoid futile effort in genuinely hopeless situations.
11. Seek Supportive Mentorship
When pursuing a demanding dual path like physician-scientist, seek out mentors and environments that understand and accommodate the unique challenges, such as unpredictable hours and conflicting commitments.
12. Work Nights and Weekends
To pursue a demanding dual career path, be prepared to work nights and weekends, even if it means missing regular meetings, to keep both professional and research threads alive.
13. Integrate Life’s Demands
Strive to integrate demanding professional and personal commitments, finding ways for different parts of your life to work together and be compatible.
14. Consider Career Lifestyle
When choosing a career, consider the lifestyle and time commitment required, as some demanding specialties may reduce opportunities for deep philosophical thought or personal freedom over time.