Dr. Tim Royer of Neurocore goes inside Pete’s brain!
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You Made It Weird #226: Inside Pete’s Brain with Dr. Tim Royer of Neurocore
Episode 226:
You Made It Weird
Inside Pete's Brain with Dr. Tim Royer of Neurocore
Inside Pete's Brain with Dr. Tim Royer of Neurocore
the filename of this one is wrong should be 226 (but is 126!)
This episode was so good!!! Really digging the bonus episodes
Really interesting episode. I could get behind this kind of “in the field” episode. I know it’s harder to convey something visually based over a podcast but I really enjoyed this
Also, I’d love to see an episode with Andy hull. He’s another great “existential musician”. I think he’s a little more in the realm of Christianity but it’s something he obviously, logically, and healthily struggles with. Their (Manchester orchestra (his band)) latest release is called “HOPE” which is a soft version of their album “COPE”. I’d be thrilled if you’d at least check it out.
This podcast is like therapy for me and is constantly helping me through my own existential issues and pursuits of different ambitions. So, thank you immensely, Pete.
Interesting. It would have been a fun segment on your TV show. Just want to say that there were a lot of pseudoscience.
There is no such thing as left-brain/right-brain. We use our entire brain all the time. You can’t just use left hand to activate your right brain. But it can be beneficial to train any muscle you’ve neglected, and learning new skills always leads to new neuronal growth.
Another major mistake is about the brain using 75% of energy. That can’t be possible. An average man needs 2000 kcal a day, that would means the brain use 1500 kcal while each pound of the rest of the body use only 3 kcal a day. It’s a general rule of thumb that each pound of body use 10-15 kcal a day. But I can see the idea. The brain weighs only about 3 pounds, but use about 20% of body’s energy – 10 times the rest of the body. It’s incredibly expensive organ biologically.
Cognitive behavioral therapy can do wonders for many people, but I’m not sure if seeing your brainwaves is necessary. No one is entirely sure about meaning of brainwaves.
I have not been able to find any peer-reviewed research from Royer or this type of therapy. I would be skeptical. The truth is that people feel better when they get more attention from care provider. Their patients’ improvements can very well be placebo effect. Besides, their patients are self-selected group that already believe in these things, which foster more placebo effect.
Source for all of this pls?
The first thing that should make anyone skeptical is not that @adora could not provide sources, but rather that a search on scholar.google.com shows that Dr. Tim Royer has no publications. If his neuroscience is solid, he should have public, defendable, published results. The second thing that should make anyone skeptical is a question that is not asked on the podcast: “What are alpha, beta, and delta waves measuring?” Much like “quantum physics” are used as hand-wavy explanations for nothing, “alpha waves” are nonsensical unless you describe the physical element in the brain being measured. Finally, it’s important to consider that Dr. Royers is a Ph.D. in clinical and not experimental psychology. He does not have as much education in experimental regimen as opposed to therapy. That has often been good enough a reason for me to decide that someone is a quack not a researcher.
In retrospect, it’s unfair of me to criticize Dr. Tim Royer of having no publications without citing my own. If you do a search on scholar.google.com for “russell e. warner pedagogy” you will see I have the fourth result. And I’m not saying that there is no merit in what neurocore is doing, I’m saying that people should be skeptical of the science involved. We have a saying in science that is “Correlation is not causation” Dr. Royer is measuring correlation between brain waves and cognitive activity. That is not as solid science as explaining in the first place what brain waves measure. Skepticism is appropriate here.
I wasn’t requesting sources as some kind of retort. I genuinely wanted to know more.
I am skeptical too, honestly. It’s a fascinating subject, but being unable to find peer-reviewed research makes me a little wary, plus I tend to be cautious when things promise to improve performance. Looking to professional athletes using this isn’t a flawless recommendation; after all many use pseudoscientific therapies despite evidence against efficacy (Power Balance bracelets, for instance), so this may be another. It’s a charming and interesting episode, but I would need better evidence to be convinced.
There is absolutely a such thing as right brain and left brain. They are separate and they can only communicate through the corpus callusum. They are not completely different, they are somewhat mirror-images of each other, but they there are still some things which specialize to one side of the brain. It is true that you are never only using one side of the brain. It’s not like while you are painting you are only using one side, and while speaking you only use the other side, but the sides still do different thing and communicate through the corpus callosum.
There have been people with severe epilepsy who have had their corpus callosum severed to stop the seizures, but this means that their left and right brain can no longer communicate. They have done some experiments with these people, for example where they left put objects in a place so that only the right of left eye can see it. And then, depending on which eye can see the object, they may be able to grab the object but not name it, or name the object but be unable to grab it. If they were able to view it with both eyes, they could name and grab the object with either hand.
CBT works when people are calm and rational. I’ve worked in settings (prison schools and juvenile detention) in which CBT is the protocol. When people are activated (reacting to real or perceived threat) the “cognitive” is overridden by the primitive and the midbrain. While this is an oversimplification, many, if not most, of the traditional approaches to changing unwanted behavior have iffy long-term efficacy.
Through all the light hearted conversation in this episode, and super fun science talk, this is honestly one of the most vulnerable things I’ve seen (heard) you do, Pete. Really fun to listen to — and wow. So amazingly vulnerable. Hats off, man! Much, much respect.
Point of clarification: I’m not saying the next episode should be, “Pete gets a colonoscopy”. This episode was super vulnerable, and also just vulnerable enough. (c:
Get Joe Rogan on your podcast. I’d love to see the two of you mix it up.
It’s simply amazing that this noninvasive treatment can have such a large effect. I adore your podcast. It has shown me the value of approaching the beliefs with curiosity.
“There are more neuronal connections in your brain, than stars in the universe.” Holy shit. Discovery Channel told me there are more stars in the universe, than grains of sand on Earth. That’s so many neuronal connections! Thank you.
Wildly inaccurate though, as there are about 100 trillion (10^14) neuronal connections in the brain and at a minimum a septillion (10^24) stars in the universe, and most likely much much more since we cannot see the entire universe. I know I am being nitpicky but I can’t let it go when someone is off by a factor of a 10 billion haha.
This episode was interesting, but I feel like perhaps Dr. Royer was overstating his findings. I have only taken two neurobiology courses but I think boiling one frequency of brain wave down to a creativity or focus number is an extreme oversimplification. I also cannot find any published neurological research by Dr. Royer or anything referring to Neurocore. I would definitely advise anyone thinking of purchasing Dr. Royer’s products to be careful, and do more extensive research of their own.
Holy shit, Ryan, you’re not being nitpicky at all. That was an excellent comment. You’re right on about the stars; as soon as he said that, my Spidey Sense went crazy.
But yeah, in your comment, you were calm and measured without a hint vitriol. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with correcting inaccuracies as long as you’re not a dick about it, and there was an alarming number of inaccuracies here for someone who Rob Bell claims is a global expert (paraphrase) on the subject.