Light up your brain: interview
When poet John Donne wrote that no man is an island, he really meant that humans need to connect with other humans in a physical manner to thrive. Our brains synchronise and create electronic impulses through personal interaction – meetings, discussions, or even brief eye contact with strangers on the street. “Put down your phones and look up at each other”, says Dr Fiona Kerr, a founder of the NeuroTech Institute, who advises how to make the most of human senses and keep growing our brains till our last days.
Alex Reszelska: We know that the world that we experience is not the real world but a mental construction filtered through our physical senses. So how are our senses changing when everything else around us – especially technology – shifts so rapidly?
Fiona Kerr: I have always liked to think about people as these electrochemical bags full of senses. We are designed to pick up information from the environment that we are living in so that we can function to the maximum of our capabilities. We have an amazing set of basic senses, but as a researcher, I am most interested in these additional, more complex ones. For example, the immune system has just been called “the sixth sense”, which is a fascinating development. We now know that the skin, which is our largest sense organ, is connected directly not only to our brain but also to our immune system. The fact that the brain is getting the information from the outside world through our skin and into the body, and the other way around, is such an amazing synchronisation. This beautiful dance between inside and outside is constant.
So, the skin would be a gateway of communication between people, with touch as the crucial base of that communication.
There are many different ways in which human beings connect and communicate – besides facial expression and voice. Human beings operate like radars – so even from afar, we pick up signals and begin to synchronise on a neural level. Everyone knows that feeling: you are in a crowd, and suddenly, you lock eyes with someone – it feels like a jolt. This is a part of your brain standing up and saying: a potential incoming social activation! But people synchronise not only by vision and physical proximity, but also through neural synchronisation. When we share the same space, through ‘dynamic resonance’ we give off chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin and pheromones. This creates electric impulses like neural wifi, which light up our brains.
“The immune system has just been called the sixth sense, which is a fascinating development.”
This would mean that we influence each other not only by touching, talking, or looking at each other but also by our sheer presence.
Yes, we change each other all the time – our bodies, brains, all of our physiology. Human interaction means that through this resonance and neural synchronisation, we literally build each other’s brains. Especially when we touch and look at each other, we’re transmitting so much – our state of mind, our creative ideas or the feelings of closeness, acceptance and love. That’s why people like going to busy café places or concerts, as these group experiences offer so much dynamic resonance for us.
Can we transfer negativity or illnesses like depression?
Of course, we influence each other both for the better and for the worse. You can produce beautiful, positive effects in someone else’s brain by increasing oxytocin and serotonin, and through lowering their cortisol levels you can even improve their capability to deal with pain or sadness. But then we can also have a negative impact by stimulating chemicals such as cortisol and adrenalin that increase stress, and by transmitting specific frequencies that then modulate the other person's mood through brain-to-brain coupling.
What happens when, instead of real-life physical contact, we only engage with people online?
When we see a word written to us on a chat screen and hear the same word spoken out during a conversation, it holds the same meaning but has quite a different impact on us. Finnish research shows that a different part of the brain lights up when people look at each other over a screen than when we look at each other face to face.
Is technology to blame for what has happened with our communication styles?
Technology is an amazing opportunity for humanity, but it can also become a challenge. The phone, for example, is a maximally sticky device designed to keep our eyes on the screen all the time and to capture our peripheral vision. But it is us who hold the keys to our relationship with technology. When we put our phones down, interact with people, and also if we just simply allow ourselves to look around, our minds enter the state of abstraction called the ‘daydreaming’ mode. This is our natural default state when creative concepts, complex problem-solving, and new insights are born.
What happens to our senses when we grow old? And how is our brain coping with ageing?
We can actually preserve our senses really well if we try. I recently wrote an article called “The Cognitive Fountain of Youth”, which discussed how to keep on growing our brains after 60. We can shape our brains all of our lives primarily by paying attention and doing the things that turn on the ‘good’ chemicals.
It sounds like physical exercise and meditation rolled into one!
It could be. We definitely have to move, as our brains use high levels of oxygen and glucose to turn on a protein called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor). This chemical helps to build new neurons and connections (neurogenesis). For the first few years, babies’ brains are awash in it.
The second important thing is to keep on learning. Learning a new language is an excellent idea, as your brain will never recognise it as a first language, so it’ll always be translating in real-time, making an effort and ‘exercising’.
The third pillar of eternal brain youth is our microbiome – the ecosystem of microorganisms that live in our gut, which is our second brain. Our diet is critical to brain health and should include fresh, unprocessed, crunchy (chewing elicits needed brain chemicals, so mushy food equals mushy brain!), and also fermented food with live bacteria. The fourth pillar is sleep, obviously. But the fifth and most crucial part of brain health is direct human interaction. You can put a Sudoku pad on your lap and do it 100 times a day, but it’ll never have the same effect as putting it on the table and playing with your friends. So when you’re older, as long as you’re moving around, learning new things, eating and sleeping well and interacting with others, you can really crack that code of cognitive youth.
*Dr Fiona Kerr is a thought leader in cognitive neuroscience, human connectivity, and the impacts of technologisation. She combines her role as the founder of the NeuroTech Institute and research fellow at SAHMRI with consulting, speaking, and science education.
The interview was first published in Renaissance, a magazine exploring the beauty of age.