How Hormones & Status Shape Our Values & Decisions | Dr. Michael Platt
In this episode of the Huberman Lab podcast, neuroscientist Dr. Michael Platt joins Andrew Huberman to discuss the many fundamental neural similarities humans share with other primates. From the brain circuits involved in social cognition, decision-making, and perceiving hierarchies and status, to the behaviors and cognitive processes stemming from these neural networks, Platt illuminates the evolutionary origins and profound connections underlying humanity's social dynamics.
Platt draws insights from comparative neuroscience, delving into the factors that capture and influence our attention, behavior, and perception of social contexts. He provides a nuanced perspective on how our biological wiring not only reflects our social nature, but also contributes to innate biases and tendencies that shape our choices, values, and group dynamics.
This is a preview of the Shortform summary of the Feb 17, 2025 episode of the Huberman Lab
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Human and Primate Behavior In Comparative Neuroscience
Neuroscientists Michael Platt and Andrew Huberman discuss the neural similarities between humans and other primates, highlighting the sophistication of our shared neural circuits and social cognition.
Shared Neural Circuits Govern Similar Behavior, Cognition, and Emotions
Platt illustrates the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional parallels between humans and primates by achieving indistinguishable results when conducting identical lab tasks. Both prioritize social cues critical for survival and reproduction, guided by analogous economic principles governing social attention and valuation.
Not a Computer, But a 30-Million-Year-Old "Swiss Army Knife"
Rather than a computer metaphor, Platt likens the human brain to a highly optimized 30-million-year-old "Swiss army knife," equipped with neural tools honed for efficient operation. Huberman emphasizes vision's role in assessing others' emotional states and intentions, discussing factors that capture and retain our attention, like the innate primate focus on faces.
Shared Circuitry for Attention, Perception, and Social Context
Platt and Huberman note shared neural circuitry related to attention, perception, and focus. Both humans and primates can pay attention to a location while peripherally monitoring their surroundings -- a skill necessitated by complex social environments requiring prioritization of attention.
Brain Size and Complexity Underlie Human Social Cognition
Larger Prefrontal Cortices Allow Context-Based Assessment
While experiments show separate brain areas affected by behaviors and social observations in monkeys -- suggesting context dependence in attention and perception -- FMRI data reveals shared neural activation patterns between humans and primates when perceiving faces and processing rewards. Larger prefrontal cortices in humans enable more flexible, context-based decision strategies.
Increased Brain Size Reflects Advanced Social Cognition
Platt and Huberman link brain and cortex size to social complexity, with larger sizes in non-monogamous primates indicating more intricate mating strategies that require greater cognitive flexibility and context management. This brain scaling reflects the need for sophisticated social cognition.
The Neuroscience of Decision-Making
Valuation Process Guides Decisions
According to Platt, the brain computes expected values of choices based on past experiences to guide decision-making, integrating insights from behavioral economics. Factors like arousal, fatigue, and real-world complexity influence this valuation process.
Balancing Speed and Accuracy
Platt discusses the speed-accuracy tradeoff, with fast decisions risking insufficient information but slow ones losing value. Environments affect the time invested in processing information to balance decision speed and thoroughness. Arousal can cause overweighting noise as signal, while fatigue biases towards rash choices.
Real-World Complexity Exceeds Lab Scenarios
Platt cautions that extrapolating simplified lab conditions to real life is challenging due to the manifold variables like experiences, anticipated outcomes, social pressures, and competing interests involved in real-world decisions.
Neurobiology of Social Cognition and Group Dynamics
Neural Circuitry for Tracking Hierarchies
Platt's research indicates the brain has dedicated circuitry for tracking social relationships and hierarchies. Neurons in the prefrontal cortex flexibly encode rich social context like others' identities and actions. "Social accounting" systems seem to guide reciprocal exchanges between primates based on power dynamics.
Hormones Shape Behavior and Hierarchy
Huberman and Platt acknowledge hormones' impact on social behaviors and hierarchies. For example, [restricted term] can intensify traits like dominance or submission in primates.
In-Group Biases Are Innate
Platt describes experiments demonstrating humans' innate in-group biases, with heightened empathy towards one's own group compared to apathy or schadenfreude towards out-groups -- even for arbitrary groups. Companies leverage these tribal tendencies to cultivate brand communities.
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Actionables
- You can enhance social cognition by playing cooperative board games that require understanding others' intentions and strategies. These games often mimic complex social interactions and hierarchies, allowing you to practice assessing different social cues and decision-making in a fun, low-stakes environment. For example, games like "Diplomacy" or "The Resistance" involve negotiating, forming alliances, and understanding the group dynamics, which can translate to better social cognition in real-world scenarios.
- Improve your attention and perception by engaging in mindfulness exercises that focus on sensory experiences. By concentrating on the details of your immediate environment, such as the texture of an object or the nuances of a sound, you train your brain to filter out distractions and enhance your perception. This practice can be as simple as spending five minutes a day focusing on the different flavors in your meal or the sensation of your feet touching the ground as you walk.
- Develop a better understanding of in-group biases by initiating conversations with individuals from diverse backgrounds. Create a personal challenge to speak with someone from a different culture, age group, or profession each week. This exposure can help you recognize and adjust your innate biases, as well as appreciate the complexity of real-world social interactions beyond what you might encounter in controlled lab scenarios.
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Human and Primate Behavior In Comparative Neuroscience
Michael Platt and Andrew Huberman delve into the neural connections between humans and other primates, unveiling the sophistication of our neural circuitry and social cognition.
Humans and Old World Primates Share Neural Circuit Similarities
Humans share many behavioral, cognitive, and emotional similarities with other old world primates, particularly in neural circuits.
Humans and Monkeys Show Similar Behavior, Cognition, and Emotions in Labs
Platt illustrates the relationship between humans and other primates by conducting identical lab tasks with both groups, achieving indistinguishable results. Both humans and monkeys prioritize social cues critical for survival and reproduction. Michael Platt discusses the importance of similar economic principles that guide social attention and valuation for both monkeys and humans.
The Human Brain Is Like a 30-million-Year-Old "Swiss Army Knife," Not a Computer
Criticizing the computer metaphor for the brain, Platt prefers likening it to a Swiss army knife, equipped with neural tools optimized over 30 million years. Huberman stresses the role of vision in assessing the emotional states and intentions of others, discussing what grabs and retains our attention. Primates naturally focus on faces, with variations observed in disorders like autism or schizophrenia. The design principles of the brain, aimed at overcoming limitations and operating efficiently, play a pivotal role in determining our focus, learning, and memory.
Attention, Perception, and Focus In Humans and Monkeys Share Neural Circuitry
Michael Platt and Andrew Huberman discuss shared neural circuitry related to attention, perception, and focus between humans and primates. They note our ability to pay attention to a location while monitoring the periphery, a shared trait with other old world primates. They discuss the complexity of social environments that necessitates prioritizing attention.
Brain Size and Complexity Differences Reflecting Sophisticated Human Decision-Making and Social Cognition Compared To Primates
Michael Platt reveals that experiments have shown two separate areas of the brain affected by a variety of behaviors and social observations in monkeys. This research suggests that visual neurons require context to p ...
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Human and Primate Behavior In Comparative Neuroscience
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Counterarguments
- The analogy of the brain as a "Swiss Army Knife" may oversimplify the adaptability and plasticity of the human brain, which is capable of learning and mastering new skills throughout an individual's life, unlike a fixed tool.
- While humans and old world primates share many neural circuit similarities, the extent to which these similarities translate into comparable cognitive abilities and consciousness levels is still debated.
- The emphasis on vision for assessing emotional states and intentions may overlook the importance of other senses and forms of communication, such as auditory cues or tactile interactions, which can also be significant in social cognition.
- The focus on face recognition as a primary indicator of social attention may not account for cultural differences in social cues and the importance of other factors in social interaction.
- The argument that larger prefrontal cortices are directly linked to more sophisticated decision-making does not consider the efficiency or different strategies that smaller-brained species may employ, which can also be effective.
- The association between brain size and complexity with non-monogamous behavior and strategic mating could be seen as a simplification, as it does not account for the wide range of social structures and mating strategies across primate species.
- The use of FMRI experiments to draw parallels between human and monkey neural circuitry may not fully capture ...
Actionables
- You can enhance your social attention by practicing people-watching in public spaces to better understand non-verbal cues and social interactions. Choose a comfortable spot in a park or a cafe and observe the behaviors and interactions of people around you. Take note of body language, facial expressions, and group dynamics to improve your ability to read social situations, much like our primate relatives.
- Improve your peripheral attention by playing interactive video games that require you to focus on a central task while monitoring the edges of the screen. Games like those that simulate driving or strategic combat can help train your brain to pay attention to a location while still being aware of the periphery, a skill shared with our primate cousins.
- Develop context-based assessment strategies ...
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The Neuroscience of Decision-Making, Valuation, and Behavioral Economics
The neuroscience of decision-making combines an understanding of how our brains calculate expected values with the emerging insights from behavioral economics. This amalgamation is shedding light on why we make the choices we do, and how external factors like arousal, fatigue, and real-world complexity influence our decisions.
Brain Computes Expected Value to Guide Decisions
Michael Platt states that in decision-making situations, our brains assess options based on their properties and past experiences, computing the expected value of choices to guide decisions. Huberman echoes this, noting the brain overlaps visual and conceptual images on mental maps, affecting perception and decisions. When facing choices, humans often exhibit loss aversion, focusing more on potential loss than gain, a bias which is not economically rational.
In the lower brain, neurons signal the expected value of choices, as demonstrated in foraging behavior where animals weigh current resources against the average environmental offerings. This signaling process is also seen in modern behavior akin to foraging, such as web surfing. During decision-making, the anterior cingulate cortex may emit an urgency signal that influences the decision to stick with the current option or to search for a new one.
Moreover, attention influences decisions and the valuation of choices, with stimuli that capture our attention affecting decisions. Studies have quantified the value of social information in decisions, showing the brain's response to images that imply expected values, such as attractive mates or dominant individuals.
Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff: Balancing Time and Information In Decision-Making
The conversation shifts to the speed-accuracy tradeoff, where faster decisions may lead to mistakes due to insufficient evidence, and Platt discusses the marginal value theorem related to foraging behavior. This reflects how the environment's richness influences the time invested in information processing and the balance between decision speed and thoroughness.
Huberman touches on the human assessment of value in others, considering factors like social context and individual differences. Moreover, the conversation includes mention of a feedback process, where the brain updates its valuation system based on the prediction outcomes of decisions.
Arousal and Fatigue Bias Decisions Towards Speed Over Accuracy
Platt and Huberman discuss how arousal and fatigue affect decision-making. Under high arousal, the brain might overweigh irrelevant data, causing it to mistake noise for signal. This can make individuals rush to decisions and mistakenly correlate unrelated events. When fatigued, decision-makers tend to favor speed over accuracy, a phenomenon observed during an experiment with wrestlers who, when tired, made more mistakes.
In a financial context, a company changed customer behavior to reduce fear and encourage good risks by manipulating visual displays. Huberman notes that mistakes he made in podcasting were generally due to acting quickly or under fatigue, suggesting the importance of consider ...
Here’s what you’ll find in our full summary
The Neuroscience of Decision-Making, Valuation, and Behavioral Economics
Additional Materials
Clarifications
- In decision-making, expected value is a concept that involves calculating the potential value of different choices based on their properties and past experiences. The brain computes the expected value of options to guide decisions, weighing potential gains and losses to make choices. This process helps individuals assess the probable outcomes of their decisions and choose the option that is perceived to have the highest expected value. Expected value computation is a fundamental aspect of decision-making that influences how individuals evaluate and select between different alternatives.
- Loss aversion bias in decision-making is a cognitive bias where individuals prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains. This bias leads people to weigh potential losses more heavily than potential gains when making decisions. It can result in risk-averse behavior and influence choices in various contexts, impacting financial decisions, investment strategies, and everyday choices. Loss aversion is a key concept in behavioral economics and plays a significant role in understanding human decision-making processes.
- Neuronal signaling of expected value in the lower brain involves the activity of neurons that encode the anticipated value of different choices or actions. This signaling process helps organisms, including humans, weigh the potential outcomes of decisions based on past experiences and environmental cues. The lower brain regions, such as the basal ganglia, are involved in this computation of expected value, guiding decision-making processes. Understanding how neurons signal expected value provides insights into how our brains evaluate options and make choices in various situations.
- The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) plays a crucial role in decision-making by evaluating the potential outcomes of different choices and signaling the brain about the urgency or importance of a decision. It is involved in conflict monitoring, error detection, and adjusting behavior in response to changing circumstances. The ACC helps in processing emotional and motivational information, guiding individuals towards decisions that align with their goals and values. Dysfunction in the ACC can lead to difficulties in decision-making, impulse control, and emotional regulation.
- The speed-accuracy tradeoff in decision-making involves balancing the need to make quick decisions with the necessity of making accurate choices. When decisions are made rapidly, there is a risk of errors due to insufficient information processing, while taking more time can enhance accuracy but may lead to delays. This tradeoff is crucial in various contexts, influencing how individuals prioritize between acting swiftly and ensuring the correctness of their decisions. Understanding this tradeoff helps in optimizing decision-making processes by considering the trade-offs between speed and accuracy.
- Factors influencing human assessment of value in others can include social context, individual differences, and the perceived relevance of certain traits or characteristics. These factors can shape how individuals evaluate and prioritize qualities in others, impacting decision-making processes and social interactions. Additionally, cultural norms, personal experiences, and emotional states can also play a role in how individuals assess the value of others in various contexts. Understanding these influences can provide insights into the complexities of human social cognition and behavior.
- Arousal and fatigue can impact decision-making by influencing how the brain processes information. High arousal levels may lead to rushing decisions and misinterpreting irrelevant data. Fatigue can cause individuals to prioritize speed over accuracy, potentially leading to more mistakes. These factors can affect the quality of decisions made under conditions of heightened arousal or fatigue.
- Real-world decision-making involves navigating through a multitude of uncontrolled factors like recent experiences, social pressures, memories, and urgency, which are often absent in controlled lab experiments. Lab ...
Counterarguments
- The concept of expected value may not fully capture the complexity of human decision-making, as it often assumes rationality and fails to account for emotional, intuitive, and subconscious processes that can influence choices.
- While loss aversion is a well-documented phenomenon, some research suggests that it may not be universal and can vary across different cultures, contexts, and individual personality traits.
- The analogy between foraging behavior in animals and modern human activities like web surfing may oversimplify the complexity of human motivations and cognitive processes involved in such activities.
- The role of the anterior cingulate cortex in emitting an urgency signal is an area of ongoing research, and there may be other brain regions and mechanisms involved in the sense of urgency during decision-making.
- The influence of attention on decision-making may not always lead to optimal outcomes, as sometimes attention can be captured by irrelevant or misleading information, leading to poor decisions.
- The valuation of social information can be subject to cultural biases and stereotypes, which may distort the true value of social cues in decision-making.
- The speed-accuracy tradeoff may not always be a conscious or deliberate balance; sometimes, it can be influenced by factors outside of an individual's awareness or control.
- The marginal value theorem and other economic models may not always accurately predict human behavior, as they often rely on assumptions of rationality and optimal decision-making.
- The idea that the brain updates its valuation system based on outcomes may be too simplistic, as learning from outcomes can be influenced by cognitive biases, memory errors, and individual differences in learning styles.
- The effects of arousal and fatigue on decision-making may not be uniform across all individuals, as some people may have higher tolerance for stress or better coping mechanisms for fatigue.
- Real-world decisio ...
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Neurobiology of Social Cognition, Affiliation, and Group Dynamics
Understanding the intricate nature of social cognition, affiliation, and group dynamics is pivotal as it relates to the neurobiological processes of our brain. Recent discussions with neuroscientists emphasize the significance of the brain's circuits for these social functions, the impact of hormones on behavior and hierarchy, and the brain's response to in-group and out-group dynamics.
Brain Has Circuits For Tracking Social Relationships and Hierarchies
Neuroscientist Dr. Michael Platt's work explores the impact of power dynamics and hierarchies on decision-making, supporting the notion that the brain possesses specific circuits for managing social relationships and hierarchies. He discusses cues to status among non-human primates, such as dominance and subordination or indicators of mate quality, as evidence of how primates track social hierarchies.
Prefrontal Cortex Neurons Encode Social Interaction Details
In the lab, neuroscientists monitored thousands of neurons wirelessly in the prefrontal cortex of monkeys as they interacted socially. This research demonstrates that the neural responses are flexible, able to simultaneously reflect a variety of social and environmental factors, suggesting that individual neurons multitask regarding social interaction cues. The neurons process a multitude of social information like their own actions, what others are doing, the identities of those individuals, and the broader social context.
Furthermore, during an experiment, researchers tracked every grooming interaction between monkeys over several months. They discovered that monkeys balanced their grooming time with each other; some exchanges were settled almost immediately, while others took weeks. This behavior implies a "social accounting" system that precisely tracks the give-and-take in relationships. When there's a power differential, such as between an alpha and a beta male, the exchange may not be immediate, but it symbolizes a potential future support arrangement.
"Social Accounting" Balances Primate Affiliative Exchanges
Platt's research suggests that this cerebral social accounting system is akin to human transactional behavior and functions based on expectations of reciprocity, which maintains affiliative relationships. He explains that this transactional approach extends to humans, who often are motivated to climb social hierarchies and whose happiness can be correlated with income, a reflection of social standing.
Hormones Like [restricted term] and [restricted term] Shape Behavior and Hierarchy
While the concept of [restricted term] as a hormone that reduces anxiety, promotes affiliation, and flattens hierarchies in primates was not explicitly discussed, other hormones and their influence on behavior were addressed.
[restricted term] Intensifies Traits, Boosting Dominance or Submission
Conversations about hormones' effects on social behavior and hierarchy included a discussion on [restricted term]'s role in signaling status among primates. For example, the redness of a male monkey's perineum and the size of their testes, which serve as a proxy for [restricted term] levels, can predict their status. Monkeys display behavior that correlates with [restricted term] levels, indicating that the hormone may influence traits associated with dominance or submission. A study involving the administration of [restricted term] gel showed that it can affect decision-making, aligning with the idea that [restricted term] exaggerates pre-existing traits.
Reduced Heading: [restricted term] Eases Anxiety, Fosters Affiliation, Levels Hierarchies In Primates
Although the discussion on [restricted term]'s specific effects was absent, the dialogue between Huberman and Platt did acknowledge hormo ...
Here’s what you’ll find in our full summary
Neurobiology of Social Cognition, Affiliation, and Group Dynamics
Additional Materials
Clarifications
- Neural responses in the prefrontal cortex reflect a variety of social and environmental factors by encoding information related to one's actions, the actions of others, individual identities, and the broader social context. This means that individual neurons in the prefrontal cortex can process multiple aspects of social interactions simultaneously, showing flexibility in responding to various stimuli. The prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role in integrating and interpreting complex social cues, contributing to our understanding of social behavior and relationships. Researchers have observed these neural responses in studies involving social interactions among primates, shedding light on how the brain processes and navigates social dynamics.
- Monkeys engage in a "social accounting" system to keep track of social interactions like grooming exchanges. This system helps monkeys maintain balanced relationships by monitoring the give-and-take dynamics. It involves a form of reciprocity where interactions are not always immediately reciprocated, especially in cases of power differentials. The monkeys' behavior suggests a nuanced understanding of social dynamics and the maintenance of social bonds through calculated exchanges.
- [restricted term] levels in primates can influence behaviors associated with dominance or submission. Higher [restricted term] levels are often linked to traits like aggression and assertiveness, which can contribute to dominant behaviors in social hierarchies. Conversely, lower [restricted term] levels may be associated with more submissive behaviors in primates. Studies have shown correlations between physical indicators of [restricted term] levels, such as the redness of a male monkey's perineum or the size of their testes, and their social status within a group.
- In-group bias in human social behavior describes the tendency for individuals to favor and show more empathy towards members of their own group. Out-group apathy or schadenfreude, on the other hand, involves feeling less empathy or even taking pleasure in the mis ...
Counterarguments
- The extent to which the brain has specialized circuits for social relationships and hierarchies might be overstated, as social cognition likely involves a complex network of brain regions rather than isolated circuits.
- While prefrontal cortex neurons have been shown to encode social interaction details, it's important to consider that other brain areas also contribute to processing social information, and the full picture is more distributed across the brain.
- The concept of "social accounting" in primates may not fully capture the complexity of human social interactions, which are influenced by a wider range of cultural, emotional, and cognitive factors.
- The comparison between primate social accounting and human transactional behavior might oversimplify human relationships, which can be altruistic or motivated by factors other than reciprocity.
- The role of hormones like [restricted term] in shaping behavior and hierarchy is complex and not fully understood; other factors such as social context, experience, and environmental influences also play significant roles.
- The idea that [restricted term] exaggerates pre-existing traits is a simplification, as the hormone's effects can vary greatly depending on the individual and the situation.
- While humans do exhibit in-group biases, the degree and impact of thes ...
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