We are more isolated from one another than ever before — by our technology, by our political divides, and most of all, by our choices.

This week on the show, we talk with neuroscientist Ben Rein about why this social isolation is terrible for our health — implicated in not only rising rates of mental illness, but also heart disease, dementia and more.

We discuss Ben's new book, "Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection", published earlier this week, and try to work out a plan for an improved social diet to restore our brains — and our society — to good health.

Learn More:

• Ben Rein's website
• Publisher's website
• References from the book
• Social Journaling template

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We are honored to have won a silver Signal Award for best science and education podcast of 2025, as well as an audience choice award — thanks so much to everyone who voted for the show!

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We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Before the written word — and possibly even before speech — humans have communicated through drawing. From crude scratches in the dirt or on cave walls to the arcane symbology of the laboratory whiteboard, our instinct for conveying our thoughts visually is pretty extraordinary.

We see or understand something in the world, we build an idea in our mind of what we think we see, and then using our hand and the utensil we re-create it to communicate the share our perception with others. Along the way, we add in our own understanding and experience to craft that communication in ways that might not correspond with a specific object in the world at all.

How we do this — and how we can learn to be better visual communicators — is at the heart of our conversation with Judy Fan, who runs the Cognitive Tools Lab in Stanford University's Department of Psychology.

We've been nominated for a 2025 Signal Award for Best Science & Education Podcast! Vote for us in the "Listener's Choice" category by October 9.

Learn More:

• Cognitive Tools Lab, Stanford Department of Psychology
• Fan, J., et al. (2023) "Drawing as a versatile cognitive tool." Nature Reviews Psychology. (pdf)
• Hawkins, R., Sano, M., Goodman, N., and Fan, J. (2023). Visual resemblance and interaction history jointly constrain pictorial meaning. Nature Communications. [pdf]
• Fan, J., et al. (2020). Relating visual production and recognition of objects in human visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience. [pdf]
• Fan, J., Yamins, D., and Turk-Browne, N. (2018). Common object representations for visual production and recognition. Cognitive Science. [pdf]
• More recent papers

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Imagine if you couldn't distinguish between dreams and reality. If you couldn't tell whether what you were seeing or hearing was really there in front of you. What if you discovered you couldn't trust your own perceptions?

Psychosis is something three out of every a hundred people will experience at some point in their lifetimes. But what exactly is it, and is it something people can learn to live with?

Today we're fortunate to have on the show Dr. Jacob Ballon, the founding co-director of Stanford Medicine's Inspire Clinic, and Shannon Pagdon, a doctoral student, peer counselor, and advocate for those living with psychosis.

Learn More:

• Learn about the Inspire 360 Program at Stanford Medicine
• Explore Pagdon's Psychosis Outside the Box project and additional stories of the lived experience of psychosis from the Hearing Voices Network
• Read: "Psychosis 101: Unmasking one of the brain's most mysterious Malfunctions" (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• Watch: "Demystifying Psychosis" (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• Read: "Two key brain systems are central to psychosis, Stanford Medicine-led study finds" (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• Watch: "Schizophrenia: Early signs and treatment options" (Stanford Center for Health Education, 2022)

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.