Karl Deisseroth: Depression, Schizophrenia, and Psychiatry | Lex Fridman Podcast #274

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

April 7, 2022

Duration

3h 21m

Channel

Lex Fridman Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Karl Deisseroth is a professor of bioengineering, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

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EPISODE LINKS: Karl's Twitter: https://twitter.com/karldeisseroth Karl's Website: https://web.stanford.edu/group/dlab Projections (book): https://amzn.to/3NKmdiJ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 0:48 - Mental disorders 9:21 - Intelligence 11:59 - James Joyce 20:36 - Writing 24:00 - Projections 27:35 - Translation 30:06 - Poetry 38:49 - Love 44:23 - Psychiatry 47:35 - Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung 56:19 - Data in cells 1:00:23 - Optogenetics 1:15:50 - Neuralink 1:28:39 - Psychedelics 1:35:02 - Depression 1:50:28 - Talk therapy and psychoanalysis 1:54:09 - Good Will Hunting 2:04:44 - Darkest moments 2:06:15 - Suicide 2:23:21 - Autism 2:42:58 - Schizophrenia 2:54:07 - Why we cry 3:01:19 - Consciousness 3:15:50 - Mortality 3:17:30 - Meaning of life SOCIAL:

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🎤 SPEAKERS

• Lex Fridman

  host

• Karl Deisseroth

  guest

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lex Fridman Podcast, featuring Lex Fridman and Karl Deisseroth, Karl Deisseroth: Depression, Schizophrenia, and Psychiatry | Lex Fridman Podcast #274 explores karl Deisseroth maps the brain’s darkness, beauty, and meaning Lex Fridman and Karl Deisseroth explore how severe psychiatric disorders like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism illuminate the normal functioning of the human mind. Deisseroth explains his pioneering work in optogenetics—controlling specific neurons with light—to causally probe motivation, perception, dissociation, and potentially religious or psychedelic experiences. They discuss psychiatry’s limits, why we lack lab tests for mental illness, and how talk therapy, medication, and brain stimulation interact with deep biological mechanisms. Woven throughout are reflections on love, consciousness, creativity, language, suffering, and the strange evolutionary logic behind crying, social behavior, and human diversity.

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