bridges i got to go over what we have is something very recently that just came out as we record this show and it and this is with dr lieberman of columbia and here is something i really found interesting a president right now ok here's something i've really found interesting he said public schools can receive financial incentives to have students in special education or remedial education programs and families with lower incomes can receive subsidies and disability support their children have diseases  cognitive aspects and my question is is this part of the rise in a d d and is it something that's for real or is it something that is driven by those who are seeking to make money off of it the problem with all of these kinds of cognitive processing information processing it's there whether it's shows up or not because it's genetic so what makes it show up is really the issue not genetic level is not the same as what's being diagnosed because it doesn't necessarily manifest itself until you hit the wall without a process and so what we have going on in the united states and other parts of the developing world not so much in the undeveloped countries but in the developed countries where we have data loads or excuse given so if you were to like take a look at a personal data load per hour sixty's and seventy's and eighty's and ninety's it goes up exponentially ok before we get too far because you said an awful lot i have is are a big question and you've got a great big huge answer that is over my head so i get it so that when you say talk about battle over you talk about all the messages that come to my brain constant pain from watching television listening to the radio being on the internet etc i'm talking about the exposure that we have to information in the fifty's sixty's seventy's eighty's or cell phones we didn't start carrying around with us until ninety's so it's just carrying a cell phone with us is actually increasing our what we deal with if we're going to text message plus listen to voice messages plus have conversations plus plus and drive at the same time that's huge amount of data compared to what we used to deal with even population density increases data load because the more people you bump into in a given day the more you absorb a diagnosis in the d s m five which is the official diagnostic book for mental disorders i don't consider it a disorder because it has an upside that's very significant and a downside it's also very significant that's what gets people mostly in trouble is the downside but the non a d d brain in say somebody who has optimal dopamine function they don't have any problem of working memory but they also have a huge downside which is more hypertension more cardiovascular disease because of that more stroke because of cardiovascular disease more dimension because of strokes so i'm just saying there's a huge downside to optimal dope i mean it's different no working memory problems but it actually has a lot of downside so for instance people in europe how sixty percent white people in europe with you can say stay behind back in the old days didn't come across families that didn't migrate so much sixty percent higher blood pressure on average than white people in america what does that have to do with a notoriously people the lower blood pressure because they don't put out as much alarm bells in a given month people will optimal may do speaking of alarm bells when i ever i am on this particular station epidemic this was just the other day a few days ago on c n n b c they first off they talked about in two thousand and three the total number of kids age want to seventeen diagnosed with a d d was four point four million as of two thousand and eleven and six point four million kids i don't know what it is in two thousand and fourteen but here's something interesting that they they say they said a well respected physician on the c n b c program again it's an investment hole right now is one studying behavioral issues  attention spans for fifty years and he's not some quack as they say there's just popped up he's convinced that a d t doesn't even exist wow it's a much more diagnosed here in the united states and in other countries is that right so why is there more diagnose here than other countries well that's one parts to it related to inattentiveness in patients impulsivity although science has broken it down in a sense saying no it's not that's not the that's different things happening at the same time which has now been grouped into something called a duty that's a very difficult proposition that he has come up with because in science we try to come up with things that can be explained as simple as possible to explain all of those things as not having a common denominator is next to impossible then they actually do have a common denominator and it's poor dope i mean function function with tobacco you can treat it with a lot of different things that we find to be popular in america and other countries to but not necessarily in some countries where there isn't as much and when you say when you say you treat low doesn't mean levels with tobacco are used i mean that's not a prescription no the people discover that if they do tobacco a certain way they don't end up would withdraw all or addiction or tolerance but they can actually crunch numbers better after they take their break in the afternoon and have a smoke break so here's what we know and here's why we started this show off this way we start the show off with two descriptions of a d d essentially as money makers for the entities one of them is the public schools and another one is companies or pharmaceutical companies right and it's really it's really easy to be able to say well this bad thing happened so this person must have a d d so we need more eighty drugs as it's almost ironic in a way because if if we can actually let ourselves book understand the data better in terms of how much dopamine dysfunction there is in the western hemisphere we would be able to maybe restructure things a bit in our society so that we don't have to rely on medication to deal with a dopamine dysfunction that is causing us trouble in an environment were the downloads are so high would you say that again because because i want to make sure that that i understand it are you saying that we actually can adjust the incidence of a d t or the function so that a d t doesn't happen we can we can design this honestly if you want to take a look at different kinds of societies and cultures we currently have a culture that is basically taking advantage of our impulse control problems or impatience in other words our dopamine dysfunction so yes there's money that is being spent and it's ironic in a sense because it's kind of like trying to find it implodes the solution to an impulsive problem are serious is like when you start throwing money at things and not thinking about what you're doing you're basically reacting in an impulsive way rather than a planned way so we have this we want quick fixes for a day isn't that interesting because a do you always want quick fixes so it's kind of ironic that we're trying to do a quick fix on a problem or quick fix is a part of the diagnosis i want to make sure everybody knows that the name of the book as adult aided the fact book by dr ron stirling who is research there's quite a bit is available on amazon it's up on the screen right now dr sterling why is this such an interest to you why don't you just go and do what psychiatrists do which is to help people get better or is that what you're doing with this that's all i'm doing well  really didn't start taking a look at eighty it resulted from trying to look at culture in america so that led me down the path of looking at dopamine function in the western hemisphere me down a path of looking at a da and pretty much deciding that that was a priority for me to get that nailed down as much as possible explain it to people and give them we started out talking what's the common denominator to all of those things that are part of the diagnosis of e d and there is a common denominator so roads and bridges is about nerve cells and neural transmitters transmitter everybody knows the word but they don't know what it is it is literally a temporary simple chemical bridge between two nerve cells so nerve cells rely on that bridge to transfer data from one nerve cell to the next one if the bridge system has a problem you've got a problem if the nerve cells have a problem you have a problem so you have to have a good amount of cells all simers is actually loss of nerve cells not a neurotransmitter so you have to have good nerve cells and good bridges to have a fully functional efficient processing of information if you have a bridge problem you can automatically imagine what that would be like because everybody knows what happens when a bridge is not there and you get to the bridge and the river is flowing with the bridge is gone well that's the end of the street that's the end of the cargo that's the end of the information pathway and it tends to have to find some other way to go so bridge when you think of neurotransmitters as bridges you can really get what's going on in the eighty bra because it's the sub optimal dopa mean bridge system which affects the transportation of information you can't carry as much information on your roads your nerve cells if you have bridge the an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex which is where working memory is created let's bring up a graphic of the brain itself and let's talk about that in this particular one we're talking about the circuit boards of the threat monitor cent is that first off i don't even know what the threat monitor center is what does that mean well lis particular diagram is trying to show the two areas of the brain which are dope amine dependent so what's interesting about  found mostly in the prefrontal cortex or working memory is created and another area of the brain called the threat i call it the threat monitor center traditionally it's called the emotional brain and the fellow that the brain and how it works yes it's really cool stuff by now we have to go to the next level of it what can we do to to help people with something that they want changed and i'm not even saying to help people with a disease because it sounds like what you're saying that it's possible hypertension and things that are side effects of having a good deal for me system you talk about working memory that before we go i want what does that mean working memory is essentially how much you can hold temporarily space in your head it's the same as ram in a computer so if you know anything about ram a computer you know that a low ram computer really can't hold much in ram and therefore you're limited as to how many programs you can have open at the same time and other things so the working memory in the human is is exactly the same as around in a computer ramanna computer depends on electricity working mary depends on dover ok so let's go back to the graphic that we've got the circuit boards of the thread monitor center so how does that relate to dopamine well that's the other area of the brain that's doping me that relies on doesn't mean the dopamine bridge system to quotes work properly so the words work properly are problematic because what is proper it's hard to define that in that world because there is an upside to lo function in the threat monitor center and the upside is people who fit the criteria for a d have a do over and problem by definition that's the that's the problem have better ability to handle threats situations because of their remote baseline dope amine so when the threat comes in to anybody any person it will increase doesn't mean in the brain through the threat monitor because the threat monitor is monitoring all your sensory data so if you stick your hand in a fire you're going to get a ton of sensory data coming through your he monitors and your skin is going to flood your brain the parts of the threatened monitor system which are monitoring heat sensors in your skin will start pumping dope me you know well let's talk about something that we all know and love that that probably and immediately goes to the threat monitor center and that's professional football yeah well if you're looking at a professional football player one who always comes through in the clutch can you make a generalization about his dopamine levels i would say i don't know if i would bet money on it but i would probably come close to it that anybody who can handle competitive environment possible injury in other words threats high threat situation  in terms of possible injury and shame and all kinds of things can hurt in that situation yes a person who has starts off with a lower dose who mean level in that situation is going to do better in that situation than somebody was optimal those who mean who might just freeze or get longer reaction times or lose their cognitive ability get fuzzy literally jittery  are the general manager of the seattle seahawks where where i live would you be willing to take dopamine levels or if you were the head of the police department would you want to be taking dopamine levels of candidates yeah well you can't measure dopamine levels yet and that may never be able to because it it sits inside of the nerve cell as well as being outside of the nerve cell and it's constantly moving in and out so you can get pictures now that's why we have so much good information about it so two thousand and eight you can compare a group of brains to a group of brains but individual dopamine levels you can't really do yet you can get an idea of levels by genome typing but that's a ten thousand dollar proposition and it's coming down in price but it's the same time you know i don't think i want to say well people i don't think i'd want to see  people gina typing for the purposes of hiring for football or any other makes a lot of money we've already started up the show with with do things because there will be people with optimal though i mean who still can pull off good let's put it this way quarterbacks might quite often be more optimal to open me simply because they have to do a lot of thinking under conditions work but they don't have to worry quite as much about attack they have to worry about defense and staying alive and uninjured and doing their job so i'm just saying that you wouldn't want to gina type so much to try to figure out who might be the best in what situation because there will be people even with good doping me and who will still be high functioning in sports just not many of them i want to take this to even a more serious level though let's go to the farm incident of the early two thousand with there were so many different canadian soldiers who died under friendly fire right as the investigation went along and he played an issue in that did it not well sort of they didn't actually bring up as far as i know now i have looked at and written about it's in my book on page one hundred thirteen or so and the reason i even brought up the incident in my book is one of the things i say to people who fit the criteria for a t d is if you're going skydiving in the afternoon and you have of say your biology test in the morning so the reason i say that is because it's exactly the kind of this idea that this is a performance enhancing that increasing dopamine is performance enhancing is true for people who have a built in mean problem or people who don't it does not increase performance it decreases performance they've done study pilot one of our pilots a jet pilot who was on patrol standard patrol but he had been hit they were dispensing what are called go pills which can stand for a couple of different kinds of chemicals but d you're going to really mess him up because his function is going to go you know worse and it's exactly what happened if you look at what he did in that situation he did exactly what people do who have too much dopamine on board he's froze in a sense he got locked in inflexible disobeyed commands and misinterpreted data completely he was canadian troops for conducting practice at night and he thought they were him so it's not you know if the military has some data that they're not letting us know about i don't know but honestly as far as all of science goes if you want to stay and fight for to use caffeine if you're going to mess with your dopamine system you're going to mess with reaction times organization all kinds of judgment issues i want to go to this next graphic and it's a map of the world and we've got a d d really kind of center in the united states i think you've said that it's actually should grow throughout the western hemisphere but right right now right now here in the world situation is there is the group over in syria that is has moved very heavily into iraq and you know it's very very dangerous can we sitting here in the west make a statement about them and their and the isis certain subsects certain subcultures of jews have written credibly to mean function but so i don't know if you can assume things about that but yes you know there's still a lot of people that are fighting over territory and and and have a culture of you know hitting back essentially not negotiating i don't think you can generalize about a d n those cultures but in terms of the world prevalence of a d t again it's a sin to mattick versus symptomatic so you can testing presented them with testing loads and figured out who had the least working memory in the population you could figure out the prevalence that way but well you know when you have to wait for symptoms to arise you're waiting until the age you do brain bumps into a challenge that pushes it far enough that it doesn't work so well here's the bad guys is that we've got hours left of material and we've got thirty  question is what's next for medical science in terms of determining a d d the response to the a to the brain well i think it is becoming really clear since two thousand and eight progressively each year we keep coming up with more diagnosing and there's always a controversy was it really a dear god or are we manufacturing this in a sense we're not manufacturing it it exists and when the data loads get high enough it manifests itself so we're in a situation where that's happening and so the next thing for science is to sort of take a look at ice honestly the structure of our society well let that be the last word this dr ron sterling the name of the book is adult anything in fact book there is an awful lot more to this story everybody take care