How Your Thoughts Are Built & How You Can Shape Them | Dr. Jennifer Groh

What goes on in our brains when we think might be that we're running simulations related to the thought using that sensory, sensory motor infrastructure of the brain. Could you elaborate? So the theory is that like maybe when you think about a cat, for example, or you think the concept of a cat, that the mental instantiation of that, or the the brain mechanism instantiation of having that thought, is to run a little simulation in visual cortex that kind of includes what a cat looks like, a simulation and auditory cortex that what does a cat sound like. And as I'm telling you this, I'm, you know, if you use the word cat, um, what color cat are you thinking?

I'm thinking of a gray cat, but I keep smelling kitty litter. Okay. Because my sister had cats and it drove me the smell of kitty litter is just so aversive to me. Right? And so so you had no hesitation in telling me the color and adding an additional sensory quality.

It provides an explanation for why you might, you know, be driving on the freeway and having to merge into difficult traffic and telling your your passenger, okay, be quiet, I've gotta, I gotta pay attention now. Like, why would speech impair you from visual motor if it wasn't all part of a kind of cognitive system? that's that's in operation and maybe you need to shift some resources away from processing the conversation and towards some, you know, actually dealing with the here and now sensory emotor task. Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

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