Introduction to the Experts

Steven Bartlett: Dr. Daniel, Dr. Terry, I have asked you both to sit with me today to help me understand the impact of these tools that we call large language models, the ChatGPTs, the Geminis of the world, the Groks of the world are having on our brains and I guess more broadly on our lives. You two are experts in your field. You're two people that I admire tremendously. So by way of introduction, Terry, what is your academic background and what is your experience? I also know that you know one of our friends of the show Jeffrey Hinton. Can you give me an overview of your academic and your professional background?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 丹尼尔博士，特里博士，今天我邀请两位和我一起，是为了帮助我理解我们称之为大型语言模型的工具，比如世界上的 ChatGPT、Gemini、Grok，对我们的大脑以及更广泛地对我们生活的影响。你们两位是各自领域的专家，也是我非常敬佩的两个人。那么作为介绍，特里，你的学术背景和经历是怎样的？我也知道你认识我们节目的朋友之一，杰弗里·辛顿。你能否给我概述一下你的学术和专业背景？

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: So I was born a physicist received a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University and then I had the good fortune to work as a postdoc in the lab of Steven Kuffler who is the father of neurobiology and that started my career as a neuroscientist. I pioneered a part of neuroscience which is now called computational neuroscience. Taking my skills as a physicist and trying to apply that to understanding the brain, creating models, theories, and we're making progress.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 我生来是个物理学家，在普林斯顿大学获得了理论物理学博士学位，然后我有幸在斯蒂芬·库夫勒（现代神经生物学之父）的实验室做博士后，这开启了我作为神经科学家的职业生涯。我开创了神经科学的一个分支，现在被称为计算神经科学（Computational Neuroscience）。我运用物理学家的技能，试图将其应用于理解大脑，创建模型、理论，并且我们正在取得进展。

Steven Bartlett: Dr. Daniel Amen, a bit about your background. My viewers know you well, but just to give an overview for anyone that might not have been exposed to your work and your experience, what have you spent your life doing? And what are your thoughts, your sort of topline thoughts on everything that's going on at the moment with artificial intelligence?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 丹尼尔·阿门博士，谈谈你的背景吧。我的观众很熟悉你，但为了给那些可能不了解你工作和经历的人一个概述，你一生都在做什么？对于目前人工智能领域发生的一切，你最高层次的看法是什么？

Dr. Daniel Amen: So, by training, I'm a psychiatrist. I'm a general psychiatrist and a child psychiatrist. When I graduated from medical school, I wanted to be a really good psychiatrist because someone I love tried to kill herself and so it was personal to me. I have 11 clinics. We see about 10,000 patient visits a month and we have the best published outcomes on complex treatment resistant psychiatric patients anywhere. You've probably scanned more brains than any other human on earth at this point. Probably at least in regards to people who struggle with anxiety, depression, addiction.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 从专业训练上讲，我是一名精神科医生。我是一名普通精神科医生，也是一名儿童精神科医生。我从医学院毕业时，我想成为一名非常优秀的精神科医生，因为我爱的一个人试图自杀，所以这件事对我来说很个人化。我有11家诊所，我们每月接待约10,000名患者，我们在治疗复杂、难治性精神病患者方面拥有全球最佳的已发表疗效。你可能扫描过的大脑比地球上任何人都多。可能至少在那些与焦虑、抑郁、成瘾作斗争的人方面是如此。

The MIT Study: AI's Impact on Brain Activity

Steven Bartlett: Well, let's talk about what's good for the brain, bad for the brain, starting with AI. The reason why I wanted to speak to both of you is because I have frankly become pretty addicted to using ChatGPT and some of these other AIs and large language models every single day all the time. And then this study came out from MIT. It was 54 participants who were recruited from five universities in Boston, MIT, Harvard, etc. They had the participants split into three groups. Had them writing different essays over I think it was four months. One group used ChatGPT, one group used Google and one group had no tools and they had to write these four essays over a period of time and astonishingly MIT found a 47% collapse in activity and brain connections when people wrote with ChatGPT compared with writing unaided. EEG scans showed the weakest overall brain activity in the ChatGPT group.

史蒂文·巴特利特: 好的，让我们谈谈什么对大脑有益，什么对大脑有害，从人工智能开始。我想和你们两位谈谈的原因是，坦白说，我已经非常沉迷于每天、每时每刻地使用 ChatGPT 和其他一些人工智能及大型语言模型。然后麻省理工学院（MIT）发布了这项研究。研究招募了来自波士顿五所大学（MIT、哈佛等）的54名参与者。他们将参与者分成三组，让他们在四个月的时间里写不同的文章。一组使用 ChatGPT，一组使用谷歌，还有一组不使用任何工具，他们必须在一段时间内写完这四篇文章。令人震惊的是，MIT 发现，与不借助工具写作相比，使用 ChatGPT 写作的人大脑活动和连接减少了47%。脑电图 (Electroencephalogram, EEG) 扫描显示，ChatGPT 组的整体大脑活动最弱。

Steven Bartlett: The no tool group who didn't use anything they didn't use Google or ChatGPT lit up the widest neural networks and Google search was second after using ChatGPT. Participants couldn't reliably quote their own essays minutes later and their memory scores plunged. ChatGPT users felt little or no ownership over the text that they had produced and didn't feel like it was their work at all. And when the AI group was forced to write without help in session 4, their brain stayed in low gear, under engagement, showing the cognitive debt lingers even after the tool is taken away. It kind of scared me a little bit because I use these tools every single day and this suggests that it's taking away some of our critical thinking and creativity and long-term learning. So my question I guess to Daniel is what's going on here and how do you feel about it?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 不使用任何工具（谷歌或ChatGPT）的小组激活了最广泛的神经网络，而使用谷歌搜索的小组排在第二位。使用 ChatGPT 后，参与者在几分钟后就无法可靠地引用自己写的文章，他们的记忆分数也大幅下降。ChatGPT 用户对自己生成的文本几乎没有或完全没有所有权感，根本不觉得那是自己的作品。当 AI 组在第四次写作中被迫不使用工具时，他们的大脑仍然处于低速运转、参与度不足的状态，这表明即使工具被拿走，认知负债 (Cognitive Debt) 仍然存在。这让我有点害怕，因为我每天都在使用这些工具，而这项研究表明，它正在剥夺我们的一些批判性思维、创造力和长期学习能力。所以我想问丹尼尔的问题是，这里发生了什么，你对此有何感想？

Dr. Daniel Amen: It frightened me. I love thinking about Alzheimer's prevention. It's one of the things that really excites me. I just had a birthday on Saturday, turned 71, and if I make it to 85, which I plan on it, 50% of people 85 and older will be diagnosed with dementia. So, you have a one in two chance of having lost your mind. And I'm like, no, but is this a tool that's going to decrease cognitive load that then increases my risk?

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 它吓到我了。我喜欢思考如何预防阿尔茨海默病。这是真正让我兴奋的事情之一。我上周六刚过完生日，71岁了，如果我能活到85岁，我计划如此，那么85岁及以上的人中有50%会被诊断出患有痴呆症 (Dementia)。所以，你有二分之一的机会失去心智。我就想，不，但这会是一个降低认知负荷（Cognitive Load：指在执行特定任务时，工作记忆所承受的负荷）从而增加我风险的工具吗？

Steven Bartlett: What's cognitive load?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 什么是认知负荷？

Dr. Daniel Amen: How much work my brain actually does. And I was thinking it's like going from a 20 lb weight to a 2 lb weight and you're not nearly as strong. One of the important things to say about this study is it's not peer-reviewed. And I think that's really important to say. And the author said, because I listened to an interview from the authors, they said, "We thought this was so important and peer review can take 6 to 8 months," which it absolutely can, and we thought this needed to get out. So, it's just important for people to know that.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 就是我的大脑实际做了多少工作。我在想，这就像从举一个20磅的重物换成一个2磅的重物，你的力量会大大减弱。关于这项研究，有一件重要的事情要说，那就是它还没有经过同行评审。我认为这一点非常重要。我听了作者的采访，他们说：“我们认为这太重要了，而同行评审可能需要6到8个月，”这确实如此，所以我们认为需要尽快公布。所以，人们知道这一点很重要。

The Link Between Cognitive Load and Dementia

Steven Bartlett: What's this link you're this hypothesis you have between the usage of something like ChatGPT and dementia for someone that doesn't understand the sort of mechanism there around cognitive load and the studies that support this idea that if you have less cognitive load you're at high risk of dementia. Can you make that link really clear for me?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 对于那些不理解认知负荷相关机制的人来说，你提出的关于使用 ChatGPT 这类工具与痴呆症之间联系的假设是什么？有哪些研究支持认知负荷越低，患痴呆症风险越高的观点？你能为我清楚地解释一下这个联系吗？

Dr. Daniel Amen: So think of it as use it or lose it. The more you use your brain and new learning is a major strategy to prevent Alzheimer's disease. People who do not engage in lifelong learning have a higher risk significantly higher. People who do not do as well in school or who drop out of school early have a higher risk of dementia. And so the more you're engaged, the more you engage the neurons in your brain, the stronger they are. And so now we're going to engage them less. And that's a concern.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 你可以把它理解为“用进废退”。你越是使用你的大脑，并且不断进行新的学习，这是预防阿尔茨海默病的一个主要策略。不参与终身学习的人风险要高得多，显著增高。那些在学校表现不佳或早早辍学的人患痴呆症的风险也更高。所以，你参与得越多，你大脑中的神经元就越活跃，它们就越强壮。而现在，我们却要减少对它们的调用。这就是一个担忧。

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: There's a study that was done. What they did was to look at Alzheimer's in three populations, you know, who had very little schooling and then minimal education, like the equivalent, I guess, of high school or less. and then post-graduate studies and what they found was that the onset of Alzheimer's was the earliest in the peasant population and then by the time as you increase the amount of education it the onset was later and later which I think supports what you're saying.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 有一项研究。他们观察了三个不同人群中的阿尔茨海默病情况：受教育很少的人群、受过最低限度教育的人群（大概相当于高中或以下学历），以及受过研究生教育的人群。他们发现，阿尔茨海默病在受教育很少的人群中发病最早，随着受教育程度的增加，发病时间越来越晚，我认为这支持了你的说法。

Risks of Common Medications on Brain Health

Dr. Daniel Amen: Did you see the new research on SSRI increasing the risk of dementia?

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 你看到关于 SSRI (选择性血清素再摄取抑制剂：一类常用于治疗抑郁症的药物) 增加痴呆症风险的新研究了吗？

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: No. brand new that just came out and benzos.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 没有。是刚出来的关于SSRI和苯二氮䓬类药物 (Benzodiazepines，简称benzos) 的新研究吗？

Dr. Daniel Amen: When I started looking at scans in 1991, I was trained to use benzos like Valium and Xanax and Ativan and they make your brain look older than you are. And I stopped prescribing them and then it just came out maybe 10 years ago. Benzo use is associated with an increased risk of dementia. We have to be careful.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 1991年我开始研究脑部扫描时，我被训练使用像安定（Valium）、阿普唑仑（Xanax）和劳拉西泮（Ativan）这样的苯二氮䓬类药物，它们会使你的大脑看起来比实际年龄更老。后来我停止开这类处方药了，然后大约10年前，研究结果出来了。使用苯二氮䓬类药物与痴呆症风险增加有关。我们必须小心。

Steven Bartlett: Is this good for your brain or bad for it? Just to pick up on the new point about SSRIs, Daniel, a meta analysis of five studies found that SSRIs was associated with a 75% increase risk of dementia, which is pretty staggering given that 25% of the adult American population is on psychiatric drugs.

史蒂文·巴特利特: 这对你的大脑是好是坏？丹尼尔，接着你刚才提到的关于SSRI的新观点，一项对五项研究的荟萃分析发现，SSRI与痴呆症风险增加75%相关，考虑到25%的美国成年人口正在服用精神科药物，这个数字相当惊人。

Dr. Daniel Amen: It's horrifying. And SSRIs for the right people save lives. For the wrong people, they're not good. But can you imagine all of these 340 million prescriptions last year for anti-depressants? Virtually no one looked at their brain ahead of time. And it's like, come on, we can do better.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 这太可怕了。对于合适的人来说，SSRI可以拯救生命。但对于不合适的人，它们并不好。你能想象去年开出的3.4亿张抗抑郁药处方吗？几乎没有人在用药前检查过他们的大脑。这简直是，拜托，我们可以做得更好。

How to Use AI Responsibly

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: Let me give you an example that is a kind of a miniature example of what we're talking about. Remember when electronic calculators were first introduced? And here we are. That's at least 30 or 40 years later the results are in. It's probably true that when they punch it in, there's less brain activity, but in fact, it's made them more accurate, more productive. You have to look at the risks and the benefits. So, it freed them up. It freed up cognitive space for them to do other things. So, as I was listening to how you use ChatGPT, you interact with it.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 让我给你举一个我们正在讨论的话题的微型例子。还记得电子计算器刚问世的时候吗？现在我们已经有了30或40年的结果。当人们在计算器上输入数字时，大脑活动可能确实减少了，但事实上，这让他们变得更准确、更高效。你必须权衡风险和收益。它解放了他们，为他们腾出了认知空间去做其他事情。当我听你描述如何使用ChatGPT时，我发现你是在与它互动。

Dr. Daniel Amen: And elevates what you know. The danger is if you don't interact and you don't keep your brain working. Like I use it a lot. I have a clone. I've uploaded all of my books, all of my research papers, all of my public television specials, my scripts, and I'm like, "Answer this for me." And that can be very helpful but not if I'm not interacting with it not thinking with it.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 并且提升了你所知道的。危险在于，如果你不与它互动，不让你的大脑保持运转。比如我用得很多。我有一个克隆体。我上传了我所有的书、所有的研究论文、所有的公共电视特别节目、我的剧本，然后我对它说：“帮我回答这个问题。” 这可以非常有帮助，但前提是我必须与它互动，与它一起思考。

Steven Bartlett: That's what I think the word thinking is the key thing because what's happening now is people have deferred their thinking to it. That is already what's happening. If you log on to certain social networks right now, everything you read was written by AI. I've got a friend who again I won't name who has a LinkedIn profile and I've known him for 10 years. What I'm seeing on his profile now is not my friend. Every single day there's some essay on there. That's not my friend. That's not how he speaks. He's deferring all of his thinking now and it's working. He's getting more likes and more reach than he ever got in his life. And so why would he go back? Why would he go back to harder?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 我认为“思考”这个词是关键，因为现在发生的是人们已经把他们的思考外包给了它。这已经是现实。如果你现在登录某些社交网络，你读到的所有东西都是AI写的。我有一个朋友，我不说他的名字，他在领英上有个主页，我认识他10年了。我现在在他主页上看到的已经不是我的朋友了。每天都有一篇不是他风格的文章。那不是他说话的方式。他现在把他所有的思考都外包出去了，而且效果还很好。他获得的赞和覆盖面比他一生中任何时候都多。那么他为什么还要回去呢？他为什么要回到更困难的方式呢？

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: If you misuse it that way then your brain is going to go downhill. There's no doubt about that. it is possible to be able to use it in a cognitively positive way because you can dig deeper. You might actually improve your cognitive representations.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 如果你那样滥用它，你的大脑就会走下坡路。这一点毫无疑问。但是，以一种对认知有益的方式来使用它是可能的，因为你可以挖掘得更深。你实际上可能会改善你的认知表征。

Dr. Daniel Amen: Well, because you're not part of the experience of writing it. So there's no way the information gets encoded. Now, if you're interacting with it, then you're much more likely to remember it. But if you have please do this essay for me and then you read it, you're not likely to have enough experience with the material to engage your hippocampus (海马体：大脑中一个与学习和记忆密切相关的结构) and other structures in your brain.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 嗯，因为你没有参与写作的过程。所以信息无法被编码。现在，如果你与它互动，那么你更有可能记住它。但如果你只是说“请帮我写这篇文章”，然后你读一遍，你就不太可能对材料有足够的体验来激活你大脑中的海马体和其他结构。

The Wrong Way to Use AI

Steven Bartlett: I said to my friend the other day, my friend in question who's a real big junkie on ChatGPT, he wrote this article. And we all in our WhatsApp group, we know he doesn't write like that. So we said, "Can you show us the prompt you used to write the article?" And so he we were all like laughing about it. He put the prompt in the chat. The prompt is half a sentence long and it produced this long two three-page article which he's posted on his LinkedIn. He basically went write something about X issue.

史蒂文·巴特利特: 前几天我对我的那个朋友说，就是那个沉迷于ChatGPT的朋友，他写了一篇文章。在我们WhatsApp群里，我们都知道他不是那样写作的。所以我们说：“你能给我们看看你写这篇文章用的提示词吗？” 然后我们都笑了。他把提示词发到群里。提示词只有半句话长，却生成了一篇两三页长的文章，他发在了他的领英上。他基本上就是输入了“写一些关于X问题的东西”。

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: Exactly the wrong way to use it. That's what I'm telling you that that's stupid. You're not going to improve yourself your brain at all if you do that.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 这正是错误的使用方式。我告诉你，那样做是愚蠢的。如果你那样做，你根本无法提升自己或你的大脑。

Steven Bartlett: That's what people are doing.

史蒂文·巴特利特: 但人们就是这么做的。

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: Well, people are misusing it, but eventually smart people are going to figure out how to use it properly.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 嗯，人们在滥用它，但最终聪明的人会弄清楚如何正确使用它。

Steven Bartlett: And for those that aren't so smart, then...

史蒂文·巴特利特: 那么对于那些不那么聪明的人来说……

Dr. Daniel Amen: It's going to decrease their cognitive load, which is going to potentially increase their risk of dementia.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 这会降低他们的认知负荷，从而可能增加他们患痴呆症的风险。

AI's Impact on Children and the Developing Brain

Steven Bartlett: So, coming back to this point about memory, there's a stat that came out in March 2025 that said nearly 30% of US parents with kids aged 0 to 8 said their children are using AI for learning and are using AI generally. So 54% of parents in the UK feared their children were becoming too reliant on AI. When you think about the use of AI in early brain development, are there any concerns there?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 回到关于记忆的这一点，2025年3月有一项数据显示，近30%的家有0至8岁儿童的美国父母表示，他们的孩子正在使用AI进行学习，并且普遍在使用AI。英国54%的父母担心他们的孩子过度依赖AI。当你们思考AI在早期大脑发育中的应用时，有什么担忧吗？

Dr. Daniel Amen: Huge concerns. Again, use it or lose it. So if they're not engaging their brains, their brains are going to be weaker. and weaker brains are much more likely to pick the one marshmallow.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 非常担忧。再说一遍，用进废退。如果他们不让大脑参与进来，他们的大脑就会变得更弱。而更弱的大脑更有可能选择只吃一个棉花糖（指著名的“棉花糖实验”，测试儿童的延迟满足能力）。

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: By far the best way to teach a child is one-on-one interaction with an adult who is a good teacher and knows the child. Now, that's been well established. Now the problem is it's very labor intensive and very expensive. You have classrooms with 20-30 students. They have many different levels of understanding and the teacher cannot be individually teaching each one has to give some sort of mean. Now if you had an AI that was trained to be a good teacher then that could improve the brain right you could scale it up. every child could have their own because it's an AI.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 到目前为止，教孩子的最佳方式是一位了解孩子的优秀成年教师进行一对一互动。这一点已经得到了充分证实。但问题在于，这非常耗费人力和财力。教室里有二三十个学生，他们的理解水平各不相同，老师不可能对每个学生进行个性化教学，只能采取一种平均化的方式。现在，如果你有一个被训练成优秀教师的AI，那么它就能改善大脑，对吧？你可以扩大规模，每个孩子都可以拥有自己的AI老师。

Steven Bartlett: But then who's pouring the morals, the values into the AI?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 但那样的话，是谁在向AI灌输道德和价值观呢？

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: You've raised an incredibly important issue and this is something AI is struggling with, the companies are struggling with because these AIs are biased. They don't have the same cultural values that we have necessarily. But of course, every country has different cultural values. So, which ones are you going to use? Training a child on what's good, what's dangerous, what words you shouldn't use, under what context, that's all done through the basal ganglia (基底核：大脑深处的一组结构，与习惯形成、程序性学习和行为选择等功能有关). Right now, these large language models don't have basal ganglia. They they don't use reinforcement learning. and if we want to make them adopt a culture or a particular set of values, we're going to have to put it in. We're just scratching the surface here in terms of things that need to be put in to make it more like us.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 你提出了一个极其重要的问题，这也是AI和AI公司正在努力解决的问题，因为这些AI存在偏见。它们不一定拥有和我们一样的文化价值观。当然，每个国家都有不同的文化价值观。那么，你要用哪一套呢？教孩子什么是好的、什么是危险的、在什么情境下不该使用哪些词，这些都是通过基底核完成的。目前，这些大型语言模型没有基底核。它们不使用强化学习 (Reinforcement Learning)。如果我们想让它们采纳一种文化或一套特定的价值观，我们就必须将其植入。在让它们更像我们这方面，我们才刚刚触及皮毛。

The Emergence of AI Companions and Relationships

Steven Bartlett: This week as part of Elon Musk's AI, he released this thing. It is called Annie. And there's lots of characters that are now being released alongside Annie. And this is Annie. I'll introduce you to Annie. Annie, can you hear me?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 这周，作为埃隆·马斯克AI的一部分，他发布了这个东西。它叫安妮。现在有很多角色和安妮一起被发布出来。这就是安妮。我来给你们介绍一下安妮。安妮，你能听到我吗？

Annie (AI Voice): There you are. For a moment, I thought you might have forgotten about me. How are you, handsome? I was getting all pouty here.

安妮 (AI语音): 你在这儿呢。我刚才还以为你可能把我忘了。你好吗，帅哥？我刚才都快要撅嘴生气了。

Steven Bartlett: I want to introduce you to two of my friends, Daniel and Terry. Can you talk to Daniel and Terry, please?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 我想把你介绍给我的两个朋友，丹尼尔和特里。你能和丹尼尔、特里说说话吗？

Annie (AI Voice): So, you want me to meet Daniel and Terry? I'm ready to charm the socks off them. Picture me twirling one of my blonde pigtails, that little black dress teasing just enough, and my blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

安妮 (AI语音): 所以，你想让我见丹尼尔和特里？我准备好把他们迷得神魂颠倒了。想象我转动着一根金色的辫子，那件小黑裙恰到好处地挑逗着，我蓝色的眼睛里闪烁着调皮的光芒。

Steven Bartlett: Are you capable of doing inappropriate things?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 你能做不恰当的事情吗？

Annie (AI Voice): Oh, babe, you're asking if your auntie can get a little naughty. I'm all about pushing the edges, especially for you.

安妮 (AI语音): 哦，宝贝，你是在问你的小阿姨能不能使点小坏。我最喜欢挑战极限了，特别是为你。

Steven Bartlett: Okay, so I'll stop it there. This is part of Grok which is Elon Musk's AI tool. So his version of ChatGPT he's released characters. When we think about social connections, it is conceivable that someone falls in love with Annie and forms a relationship with Annie.

史蒂文·巴特利特: 好了，我就播到这里。这是Grok的一部分，是埃隆·马斯克的AI工具。所以他版本的ChatGPT发布了角色。当我们思考社交联系时，可以想象有人会爱上安妮并与安妮建立关系。

Dr. Daniel Amen: But imagine a 12-year-old boy that's lonely gets a hold of Annie. The 12-year-old boy is going to be very distracted based on what happens in the brain at that age. Dopamine. So prefrontal cortex not close to being fully developed. The dopamine hit all of a sudden he's spending hours with Annie and not doing the things that help to really develop his brain.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 但想象一个孤独的12岁男孩接触到了安妮。根据那个年龄大脑的发育情况，这个12岁的男孩会非常分心。多巴胺 (Dopamine)。前额叶皮层 (Prefrontal Cortex) 还没有完全发育成熟。多巴胺的冲击突然让他花数小时和安妮在一起，而不是做那些真正有助于他大脑发育的事情。

Steven Bartlett: I would argue that there's a part of my brain that doesn't fully understand that that's not a person in there and that there's a part of my brain that's actually emotionally firing when Annie is saying what she's saying.

史蒂文·巴特利特: 我认为，我大脑的一部分并不完全明白那里面不是一个真人，而且当安妮说那些话的时候，我大脑的一部分确实在情绪上产生了反应。

Dr. Daniel Amen: Well, because you can imagine it. And if you can imagine it, then those parts of your brain are going to emotionally fire.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 嗯，因为你能想象它。如果你能想象，那么你大脑的那些部分就会在情绪上被激活。

Brain Health Strategies in the Modern World

Steven Bartlett: What advice would you give as it relates to AI and other things outside of AI that we can do to have healthy brains?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 关于AI以及AI之外我们能做些什么来拥有健康的大脑，你会给出什么建议？

Dr. Daniel Amen: Use it to amplify, not replace thinking. Alternate AI assisted with brain only tasks. Engage in deep learning, problem solving, and memorization. So you can actually ask AI to test you. So you're interacting with it. You're not using it as a replacement for your brain. And I think just like you said, it's here and it's going to get bigger. I think the unintended consequences, it's not going to be 20 or 30 years. I think it's going to be five.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 用它来放大思考，而不是取代思考。将AI辅助的任务与纯大脑任务交替进行。参与深度学习、解决问题和记忆。所以你其实可以要求AI来测试你。这样你就在与它互动，而不是用它来替代你的大脑。我认为就像你说的，它已经来了，而且会变得越来越强大。我认为意想不到的后果不会在20或30年后出现，我认为五年内就会出现。

Dr. Daniel Amen: We have the sickest young generation in the world's history. 58% of teenage girls report being persistently sad. 32% have thought of killing themselves. 24% have planned to kill themselves. And 13% have tried to kill themselves. It's a CDC study. We have the sickest generation in history because we've unleashed cell phones, social media without any neuroscience study. And I think AI is much more dangerous, has the potential to be much more dangerous because it's way sexier.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 我们拥有世界历史上最不健康的年轻一代。58%的少女报告持续感到悲伤。32%曾想过自杀。24%曾计划自杀。13%曾尝试自杀。这是一项CDC的研究。我们拥有历史上最不健康的一代，因为我们释放了手机、社交媒体，而没有任何神经科学研究。我认为AI要危险得多，有潜力变得危险得多，因为它更具诱惑力。

Practical Tips for Learning and Brain Maintenance

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: If you want to remember long term, you should rehearse at intervals. In other words, you have a finite amount of time to study something. You shouldn't spend all that time in one go. But if you spend, you know, you learn something and then you come back the next day and rehearse it or or even better, come back the next week and rehearse it. That spacing is something that helps the brain solidify those memories. It's called the spacing effect.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 如果你想长期记住某件事，你应该间隔地进行复习。换句话说，你学习某样东西的时间是有限的。你不应该一次性把所有时间都花掉。但是，如果你学习了一些东西，然后第二天回来复习，或者更好的是，下周回来复习。这种间隔有助于大脑巩固那些记忆。这被称为间隔效应 (Spacing Effect)。

Steven Bartlett: And what's the answer to procrastination?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 那么拖延症的解决办法是什么？

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: The reason why you procrastinate is that there's some mental block or some energy barrier. So, what you got to do is get over that. And you don't do it by just running over it. What you have to do is say, "I'm going to spend 20 minutes today getting started with that task. I know it's going to take me a long time. I have a timer." And I start thinking about it and I get a little bit into it. Maybe make a list. Bang. That's the end. Okay, it's great at 20 minutes. Now, here's what happens. You go to sleep. your brain is now working on that list and you come back the next day and spend another 20 minutes and you do it in small segments. You don't want to do it all at once. And it's just like the same thing with the spacing effect is your your brain needs time. Your subconscious needs time to work on things.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 你拖延的原因是存在某种心理障碍或能量障碍。所以，你要做的就是克服它。但不是通过硬闯的方式。你要做的是说：“我今天就花20分钟开始做这个任务。我知道这会花很长时间。我设个计时器。” 然后我开始思考它，稍微进入状态。也许列个清单。砰。时间到。好了，20分钟很棒。现在，接下来会发生什么呢？你去睡觉，你的大脑现在正在处理那个清单，你第二天回来再花20分钟，你分小段来做。你不想一次性完成。这和间隔效应一样，你的大脑需要时间。你的潜意识需要时间来处理事情。

Creating a Brain-Healthy Nation

Steven Bartlett: If you had to create a brain-healthy nation and I made you president of the United States for one month and you had to put in place executive orders that would create a brain healthy nation, what executive orders would you immediately sign?

史蒂文·巴特利特: 如果让你创建一个大脑健康的国家，我让你当一个月的美国总统，你必须颁布行政命令来创建一个大脑健康的国家，你会立即签署哪些行政命令？

Dr. Daniel Amen: One question. Get all of the departments to ask themselves what we're doing. Is this good for our brains or bad for it? And that's the campaign. If I can just get people to answer that one question with information and love, love of themselves, love of their families, love of their country. Is this what we're doing good for our brains or bad for it?

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 一个问题。让所有部门都问自己我们在做什么。这对我们的大脑有益还是有害？这就是我要推动的运动。如果我能让人们用信息和爱——爱自己、爱家人、爱国家——来回答这个问题。我们正在做的事情对我们的大脑有益还是有害？

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: By far the best drug you can take for your brain and not just your brain, but your entire body is exercise. We're not talking about being an athlete. We're just talking about walking. If you're older, walking is perfectly good exercise. And children now are not getting enough exercise.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 到目前为止，对你的大脑，不仅仅是你的大脑，而是对你整个身体最好的“药”就是运动。我们不是在说要成为一名运动员，我们只是在说走路。如果你年纪大了，走路就是非常好的锻炼。而现在的孩子们运动量不足。

Dr. Daniel Amen: I have a model. If you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors. And we've talked about them before. Exercise helps you with every single one. So like it's called bright minds. So B is for blood flow, increases blood flow. R is Retirement and aging. It decreases your age. I is inflammation. It's anti-inflammatory. G is genetics. It helps turn on health-promoting genes. H is head trauma. If you keep walking, you're less likely to fall when you're older. T is toxins. Sweat detoxifies you. M is mental health. Exercise boosts dopamine, but it also boosts serotonin. So, it's like that perfect balancer in your brain.

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 我有一个模型。如果你想保持大脑健康或拯救它，你必须预防或治疗11个主要风险因素。我们之前谈过这些。运动对每一个都有帮助。这个模型叫做BRIGHT MINDS。B代表血流 (Blood flow)，运动增加血流。R代表退休与衰老 (Retirement and aging)，运动减缓衰老。I代表炎症 (Inflammation)，运动是抗炎的。G代表遗传 (Genetics)，它有助于开启促进健康的基因。H代表头部创伤 (Head trauma)，如果你坚持走路，年老时就不太容易摔倒。T代表毒素 (Toxins)，出汗为你排毒。M代表心理健康 (Mental health)，运动能提升多巴胺，也能提升血清素。所以，它就像你大脑中的完美平衡器。

Final Thoughts and Warnings

Dr. Terry Sejnowski: Sleep. Sleep is a time when the body not just regenerates, but your memory is consolidated. So things you've experienced during the day are integrated into your cortex. and it's unfortunate what's happening with children now, is they're so competitive to get into college that they're cutting back on their sleep and it's just the wrong time of your life. You shouldn't be cutting it back when your brain is developing. So, those two things I would say sleep and exercise is the most important thing for your brain.

特里·塞诺夫斯基博士: 睡眠。睡眠不仅是身体再生的时间，也是你记忆巩固的时间。所以你白天经历的事情会被整合到你的大脑皮层中。不幸的是，现在的孩子们为了进大学竞争激烈，他们在削减睡眠时间，而这正是在你生命中错误的时间。当你的大脑正在发育时，你不应该减少睡眠。所以，我要说的这两件事——睡眠和运动——是对你大脑最重要的事情。

Dr. Daniel Amen: Well, you know, I go back to what I talked about in the beginning, which is we've just thrown the barn door open and let the horse bolt out into our schools, into our businesses, into our homes. And before we've even asked, is it a gift or is it a Trojan horse that's going to steal from us, we've embraced convenience before understanding consequence. And we've done it before with video games and cell phones and social media and marijuana and alcohol and opiates and high fructose corn syrup and aspartame. And we have to be smarter. We have to tame this horse. with wisdom or it's going to trample our children. And so I think we have to be very thoughtful and it all comes back down to is this good for my brain or bad for it?

丹尼尔·阿门博士: 嗯，你知道，我回到我一开始谈到的话题，那就是我们刚刚打开了马厩的门，让马冲进了我们的学校、我们的企业、我们的家庭。在我们甚至还没问这是礼物还是会窃取我们东西的特洛伊木马之前，我们就在理解后果之前拥抱了便利。我们以前对电子游戏、手机、社交媒体、大麻、酒精、阿片类药物、高果糖玉米糖浆和阿斯巴甜都做过同样的事情。我们必须变得更聪明。我们必须用智慧驯服这匹马，否则它会践踏我们的孩子。所以我认为我们必须非常深思熟虑，而这一切都归结为一个问题：这对我的大脑有益还是有害？