Jan 26, 2026 · 2h 25m
David Eagleman explains how the brain rewires itself for learning
Science & Tools of Learning & Memory | Dr. David Eagleman
Understanding the biological rules of neuroplasticity reveals how we can actively shape our brains to improve learning, memory, and cognitive adaptation.
- 1Neuroplasticity is an active process where neural networks constantly compete to colonize brain territory.
Don't miss
The discussion of Mriganka Sur's radical experiment at MIT, which proved the auditory cortex could learn to see when wired to visual inputs.
The brief
Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman hosts fellow neuroscientist David Eagleman to discuss the mechanisms of neuroplasticity, revealing how the human brain constantly rewires its structure to adapt to new inputs and environments.
The brain does not operate like a static computer; instead, it functions as a dynamic, self-configuring system. When sensory inputs change, neural networks aggressively colonize unused areas to preserve and optimize processing power.
This adaptive drive is illustrated by historic scientific breakthroughs and radical experiments, such as Mriganka Sur's research at MIT, which proved that visual inputs could be rerouted to and processed by the auditory cortex.
Understanding these biological rules of neuroplasticity allows researchers to develop better tools for learning, memory retention, and sensory substitution, transforming how we approach cognitive development.
What was said on this episode
40 statements · 18 positive · 14 negative · 1 mixed · 7 neutral
Continual challenge keeps the brain changing through plasticity.
“if you're constantly pushing and challenging it with things it doesn't understand, then it'll keep changing”
Listen at 0:22
Experience, culture, language, and neighborhoods shape brain wiring.
“It's every bit of experience that you have. It's your culture, it's your language, it's your neighborhood. All of that stuff gets absorbed by the brain and wires us up.”
Listen at 3:51
The brain constantly reconfigures itself throughout life.
“brain plasticity, for anyone who doesn't know, it's that the brain is constantly reconfiguring itself every second of your life”
Listen at 4:24
Neuroplasticity enables humans to build on previous discoveries.
“because we are able to figure out all the discoveries that have come before us because of this ability to reconfigure our own circuitry”
Listen at 5:32
Humans have roughly four times as much cortex as their nearest animal relatives.
“We have four times as much cortex as our nearest neighbors in the animal kingdom.”
Listen at 6:34
Unused cortical territory is taken over by other tasks.
“nothing lies fallow in the brain. All that gets taken over for different tasks.”
Listen at 9:59
Devoting more brain territory to a task improves performance.
“if you devote a lot of real estate towards something, you're going to get really good at it”
Listen at 11:03
Repeated practice produces exceptional skill.
“people get extraordinarily good by doing things over and over”
Listen at 16:52
Bilingual and trilingual children have lower vocabulary in each language on average.
“when children grow up, let's say trilingually or even bilingually, they end up having a lower vocabulary in both languages than if they grow up monolingually”
Listen at 17:35
On-demand information lets children learn when curiosity is high.
“what kids started getting a few decades ago was this opportunity to learn about something right when they were curious about it”
Listen at 19:38
Curiosity and engagement promote plasticity through neurotransmitter activity.
“brain plasticity really happens when you have the right cocktail of neurotransmitters present. And that cocktail happens to map onto curiosity or engagement.”
Listen at 19:52
Children should prioritize critical thinking and creativity for uncertain future careers.
“the main things they can concentrate on, I think, are critical thinking and creativity”
Listen at 24:25
AI debates can expose students to multiple sides and reduce ideological capture.
“AI is terrific at this, this, and by the way, it's really important so that students get a 360 view of issues instead of ideological capture.”
Listen at 25:13
Creativity consists of recombining existing knowledge in new ways.
“That kind of exercise is. That is creativity. That's all creativity is, is taking your storehouse of knowledge and doing remixes.”
Listen at 26:02
Seeking novelty is the central strategy for maintaining brain plasticity.
“Two words, seek novelty. That's the whole game, is you gotta continually challenge the brain.”
Listen at 29:01
Continued mental activity may compensate for Alzheimer's-related brain degeneration.
“they kept their brain active. So even as their brain was physically degenerating with Alzheimer's disease, they were building new roadways, they were building new bridges over these areas.”
Listen at 30:29
Retirement without cognitive challenge is associated with poorer outcomes.
“people who retire at 65 and they go home and they sit on a couch and watch the television. They don't have as good an outcome because they're not challenging their brain anymore.”
Listen at 30:44
Acetylcholine is likely the primary neuromodulator involved in plasticity.
“acetylcholine really feels to me like the main one involved in plasticity”
Listen at 34:08
Increasing dopamine can reduce risk aversion and promote risky behavior.
“when you crank up the dopamine, that changes your risk aversion such that people are taking”
Listen at 35:38
Complete infant-like plasticity would generally be undesirable for adults.
“I don't think we'd want the plasticity of an infant. Even though when you're doing, let's say, language learning, you say, oh, I wish I could learn this as well as I did when I was seven, but generally it's not a state that you would desire.”
Listen at 38:32
People should not rely on their future selves to resist temptations.
“I don't think we can trust our future selves.”
Listen at 48:15
Positive goals also benefit from external commitments and constraints.
“it's just as important with the positive things to hook things to that”
Listen at 49:13
Humans are generally poor at perceiving time accurately.
“we're actually quite terrible at it”
Listen at 1:06:47
Life-threatening situations do not increase perceptual processing speed.
“People do not see any faster in a life threatening situation.”
Listen at 1:09:31
Slow-motion experiences during danger result from memory rather than perception.
“turns out this is all a trick of memory”
Listen at 1:09:48
Time seems to accelerate with age because fewer novel memories are formed.
“this is why time speeds up as we as we grow older”
Listen at 1:11:15
Attending to experiences and forming memories can make life seem longer.
“If we really attend to things and write down memories instead of letting life just wash over us, we can seem as though we've lived longer.”
Listen at 1:17:44
Addictive drugs can induce receptor increases through brain plasticity.
“addiction is all about brain plasticity. You put a certain drug in your system and what your brain does is it upregulates the receptors for that drug”
Listen at 1:26:02
Social media can produce addiction-like repeated use despite diminishing enjoyment.
“it has the characteristics of an addiction where you keep going back to it even though you're not getting the high from it that you did the first time”
Listen at 1:29:09
Deaf people can learn auditory perception through skin-based sensory substitution.
“deaf people could learn how to hear that way”
Listen at 1:31:29
Blind people can learn echolocation using self-generated sounds.
“blind people, since almost 100 years now, can do this thing where they use clicks of their tongue or the tap of their cane or any kind of sound that they make and they listen very carefully for what's bouncing back to them and they can echolocate”
Listen at 1:38:38
Dreaming may protect visual cortex from sensory takeover during darkness.
“we hypothesize is that dreams are the brain's way of defending the visual cortex against takeover from the other senses”
Listen at 1:44:31
More neuroplastic animal species tend to have more REM sleep.
“the more plastic the animal. Like Homo sapiens, we've got tons of REM sleep”
Listen at 1:46:10
Traumatic memories can drift over time as much as ordinary memories.
“the traumatic memories of 9 11, even though those are amygdala memories, they drifted just as much as the memories of, you know, what they ate for lunch on September 10th”
Listen at 1:51:41
Suggestion can alter a person's memory of an event.
“planting something even accidentally in my case on purpose will influence your memory of what you think happened”
Listen at 1:54:26
Children are more susceptible than adults to memory manipulation.
“kids are actually more susceptible to memory manipulation”
Listen at 1:56:31
Group membership increases empathy for insiders and decreases it for outsiders.
“the size of the empathic response, if it's your in group is enhanced from what it was. And if it's any one of your out groups, it's diminished.”
Listen at 2:02:07
Government propaganda commonly dehumanizes opposing groups.
“across place and time, all governments do propaganda in exactly the same way, which is you simply dehumanize the other group”
Listen at 2:09:40
Dehumanizing labels can reduce empathy and facilitate violence against targeted groups.
“when you're dealing with an object now like, oh, the Tutsi, the famous thing that happened in Rwanda is the Tutsi were described as cockroaches”
Listen at 2:10:09
Cross-cutting group identities can increase concern for members of other groups.
“when things get complexified like this, we suddenly care more about certain groups and so on”
Listen at 2:16:50
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