Biology & Treatments for Compulsive Eating & Behaviors | Dr. Casey Halpern

(uptempo music) 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. Today my guest is Dr. Casey Halpern. Dr. Halpern is the Chief of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. His laboratory focuses on bulimia, binge eating disorder, and other forms of obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Normally, when we hear about eating disorders or obsessive-compulsive disorders of other kinds, the conversation quickly migrates to pharmacologic interventions, and serotonin, or dopamine, or talk therapy interventions, many of which can be effective. The Halpern Laboratory, however, takes an entirely different approach. While they embrace pharmacologic and behavioral and talk therapy interventions, their main focus is the development and application of engineered devices to go directly into the brain and stimulate the neurons, the nerve cells, that generate compulsions, that cause people to want to eat more even when their stomach is full. In other words, they do brain surgery of various kinds, sometimes removing small bits of brain, sometimes stimulating small bits of brain with electrical current, and even stimulating the brain through the intact skull, that is, without having to drill down beneath the skull, in order to alleviate and indeed sometimes cure these conditions. Today's discussion with Dr. Halpern was an absolutely fascinating one for me because it represents the leading edge of what's happening in modification of brain circuits and the treatment of neurologic and psychiatric disease. For instance, they just recently published a paper in Nature Medicine, one of the premier journals out there, entitled Pilot study of responsive nucleus accumbens deep brain stimulation for loss-of-control eating. The nucleus accumbens is an area of our brains that we all have, in fact, we have two of them, one on each side of the brain, that is intimately involved in the release of dopamine for particular motivated behaviors. And while most often we think about dopamine for the release of behaviors that we want to engage in, in this context, they are using stimulation and control of neuronal activity in nucleus accumbens to control loss-of-control eating, something that when people suffer from it, despite knowing they shouldn't eat, despite not even wanting to eat, they find themselves eating. So again, this represents really the leading edge of where neuroscience is going and certainly is going to be an area of neuroscience that's going to expand in the years to come. And Dr. Halpern and the members of his laboratory are among a very small group of scientists in the world that are using the types of approaches that I described a minute ago and that you're going to hear more about in today's episode in order to resolve some of the most difficult and debilitating human conditions. During today's discussion, you will also learn about the use of deep brain stimulation and other approaches for the treatment of movement disorders such as essential tremor, Parkinson's disease, and various types of dystonias, which are challenges in generating particular types of movement. So whether or not you or somebody that you know suffers from an eating disorder, from obsessive-compulsive disorder, or from a movement disorder, today's episode is sure to teach you not only about what's happening in those arenas but also in the arenas of neuroscience generally. In fact, I would say today's episode is especially important for anyone that wants to understand how the brain works and what the future of brain modification really looks like for all of us. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is ROKA. ROKA makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality. The company was founded by two All-American swimmers from Stanford, and everything about ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses were created with performance in mind. 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Airbnbs and hotels, please put Eight Sleep mattresses on your beds, and I'll be more apt to stay in those hotels and Airbnbs. With that said, if you'd like to try an Eight Sleep mattress cover, you can go to eightsleep.com/huberman. Check out the Pod 3 cover to save $150 at checkout. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman, and please note that Eight Sleep currently ships in the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. Again, eightsleep.com/huberman to save $150 at checkout. Today's episode is also brought to us by InsideTracker. InsideTracker is a personalized nutrition platform that analyzes data from your blood and DNA to help you better understand your body and help you reach your health goals. Now, I've long been a believer in getting regular blood work done, for the simple reason that many of the factors that impact your immediate and long-term health can only be assessed with a quality blood test. 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To find the supplements we discuss on the Huberman Lab Podcast, you can go to Live Momentous, spelled O-U-S, livemomentous.com/huberman, and I should just mention that the library of those supplements is constantly expanding. Again, that's livemomentous.com/huberman. And now, for my discussion with Dr. Casey Halpern. Casey, I should say Dr. Halpern for those listening, welcome.