Couverture de Steve Ramirez: How Memory Shapes Grief, Addiction & Who You Are

Steve Ramirez: How Memory Shapes Grief, Addiction & Who You Are

Steve Ramirez: How Memory Shapes Grief, Addiction & Who You Are

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What if your memories aren't recordings of the past, but edits you rewrite every time you recall them?

On this episode of Unstoppable Brain, Dr. Kyra Bobinet sits down with Steve Ramirez, neuroscientist and associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University and author of How to Change a Brain. Steve is known for pioneering research on manipulating memories in the brain, which he started with his late lab partner and friend, Xu Liu.

Steve talks openly about losing Xu at 37, the drinking that followed, and the intervention by his wife and childhood best friends that saved his life. He explains how recovery taught him that "the opposite of addiction is connection," and how building new positive memories helped him grow a life around his grief.


They also get into the science: why every recall changes a memory a little, how psychedelic-assisted therapy may hold the memory "file" open longer for editing, what engrams are, why lost memories may still be in the brain (the library is intact, but the librarian is on strike), and how short-form content and the attention economy are affecting our memory and decisions.


If you've been through loss, are working on changing a habit, or just want to understand how your brain builds who you are, this conversation is for you.

What you'll learn

• Why a single memory can move you to tears or euphoria in seconds, and affect your whole body
• How grief works like a fixed bubble that a bigger life can grow around
• Why Steve says the opposite of addiction is connection, and what finally helped him get sober
• How recalling a memory is like hitting "Save As" on a Word file, and why every recall changes it
• How psychedelic-assisted therapy may help people work with memories that are "too hot to touch"
• The ethics of memory manipulation, from clinical healing to social media ads
• What an engram is, and why memory works like a 3D web or a symphony instead of one spot in the brain
• Why the brain may use memories mainly to predict the future
• How "lost" memories in Alzheimer's, addiction and childhood amnesia have been restored in research
• How short-form content affects attention and memory, and the "fast food" way to think about it
• Why flawed memory is a reason to give each other more grace and curiosity in arguments


Time Stamps

00:30 Welcome and introduction to Dr. Steve Ramirez
01:30 Why scientists talk in jargon
03:00 The main message of How to Change a Brain
04:15 Honoring Xu Liu, Steve's late lab partner
05:00 Death as a teacher: Kyra's story of losing a friend
06:45 We all become memories
08:30 How Xu's legacy lives on in the science
09:30 Using grief to help others
10:30 Trauma, PTSD and the hippocampus
12:45 "One plus one equals three": the partnership with Xu
14:45 Losing Xu and the slide into drinking
17:30 The intervention that saved his life
18:00 Recovery Elevator and "the opposite of addiction is connection”
19:30 COVID drinking as collective grief
21:00 Emotion and memory: Antonio Damasio
21:45 Growing your life around grief
23:15 Seeing life "in 4K with sober eyes”
24:15 Building positive memories after loss
26:30 Therapy, language and naming feelings
27:00 Psychedelic-assisted therapy and "too hot" memories
29:00 Eternal Sunshine and the ethics of erasing memories
29:30 Recalling a memory is like hitting "Save As”
32:00 Ethical vs. manipulative uses of memory science
33:45 Myth or fact: do memories change every time we recall them?
36:00 Memory as the brain's best prediction
37:45 What is an engram?
40:15 Can you lose your sense of self without a hippocampus?
41:45 Are we the same person over time?
43:45 What is the "DNA of memory”?
45:30 The library is intact, the librarian is on strike
47:00 Backup copies of memories in the brain
49:15 Shout-out to optogenetics and Karl Deisseroth
50:00 Short-form content and memory
52:15 Short-form media as "fast food”
53:15 The attention economy, gambling and manipulation
54:30 Being metacognitive about your scrolling
57:15 Flawed memory, arguments and giving each other grace
58:30 Reasons for hope and learning from each other
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