December 14, 2023
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In this episode, Wendy speaks with neuroscientist Robin Nusslock. Robin has long been interested in the mind through both scientific and Buddhist lenses, and he trained with Richie Davidson. His work focuses on the brain’s role in our emotional life, how stress impacts many of our bodily systems, as well as social determinants of health. This conversation covers many topics, including:
- his long interest in mind & Buddhism;
- basic pathways of how stress gets into the body;
- how the brain learns threat and safety;
- effects of early life trauma on brain and behavior;
- our brain’s reward systems and relevance to Buddhist ideas;
- craving and addiction;
- pathways toward change, neuroplasticity and pause;
- social and environmental determinants of health;
- epigenetics and intergenerational trauma;
- biology is not destiny;
- how we can intervene and promote flourishing;
- family-level interventions;
- reducing exposure to adversity;
- economic interventions (e.g., universal basic income);
- teaching science and research to Tibetan monastics;
- studying lucid dreaming with monks;
- and fruits of the exchange between Buddhism and science.
Robin Nusslock is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University where he directs the Affective & Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory. His research examines how the brain creates emotion and how these brain systems are implicated in health and well-being. He also studies how stress affects the emotional brain, and bidirectional signaling between the brain and the immune system in generating risk and resilience for mental and physical health problems. Robin is interested in the confluence between science and Buddhism, and he is the Co-Director of Research Training for the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI). This initiative fosters collaborations between academic scientists and Tibetan Buddhist monastics and trains monastic scientists in methods for studying the human brain. Robin has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on the neuroscience of emotion and health, and his research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for over ten years. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, and his research has been featured in both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Resources
Faculty website
Lab website
Emory-Tibet Science Initiative
- Paper: Early-life adversity and physical and emotional health across the lifespan: A neuro-immune network hypothesis
- Paper: From neural circuits to communities: An integrative multidisciplinary roadmap for global mental health
- Paper: The Affective Neuroscience of Poverty
- Paper: Integrating Authentic Research into the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative