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The Neuroscience of Everyday Life Lectures 1-36
Trascripts of 36 lectures by Professor Wang in 2 volumes
608 pages, Paperback
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October 31, 2022
Awe-inspiring !
December 25, 2020
PS: The version I read is waaaay shorter! Apparently it's only the course guidebook :(
The book is easy to read and comprehend, more like an introduction to neuroscience.
To understand the neuroscience of our daily lives, one has to understand the basics, that's why the author starts with some explanatory chapters on neurons and neurotransmitters.
While I was reading the chapter entitled "juicing the brain", the following phrase bothered me :
"Nicotine use leads to dependency because it causes plastic events of the brain." Which I think lacks accuracy. For starters, the plasticity of the brain is something seen with/as an answer to many activities/consumption of substances, and it [the plasticity] doesn't mean the occurrence of dependency ! The latter is a much complex mechanism, in which we find the liberation of dopamine (conveying a sense of reward), the capacity to induce reinforcing effects, and the negative consequences of abstinence that can have a crucial motivational significance for the maintenance of the addictive behavior (for this last part , I thank google).
Fan fact: the term plasticity was first coined by William James.
Back to the book:
The author also explains briefly, how we sense the exterior world, how the latter induces electrical signals that can be interpreted by the organism (in our case: the human being).
"Hearing is sensitive to vibrations; with this sense, vibrations are converted into spikes. In this case, the sensor cells are in the cochlea in the inner ear. Hair cells are the primary sensor cells. Vibrations in the hair cells trigger secretion of a neurotransmitter. Then, the target neurons, the ganglion cells, re spikes that are transmitted along the auditory nerve into the brain."
"Perceived sensations depend on context to help us determine whether something is a good or bad event or whether something is important or not important. The brain infers the most likely primary event that happened based on prior assumptions about what should happen and what is expected."
However, this system is not 100% accurate, for it can be tricked easily, which raises the question of the reliability of the system. Taking for example the optical illusions: ¨in general, and other illusions, too, take advantage of the complexity of the system. The general principle is that the multiplicity of visual pathways can be fooled by cleverly designed visual stimuli to give you a feeling of an optical illusion."
I liked the diversification of the topics, from learning and memory to sexual behaviors and religion:
"using your non-dominant hand for two weeks to brush your teeth can lead to increased willpower. People who tried this reported other benefit, such as reducing their impulsive spending.." , I've been using my non-dominant hand to do some tasks for a while, but I've never known that it was impacting my willpower :3 this finding is so thrilling :3 I'm not even going to look for other ressources on that matter x) (However, it doesn't seem to have an important effect on my impulsive perfumes' trading habits :'(
"Stress and depression hasten the death of neurons, but active parenting and exercise can encourage neuron generation and synapthic strenght.. Our emotional control improves with age".
"During orgasm, men might experience a reduction in vigilance." :3
In the chapter about sex and love, the author mentions the role of vasopressin in forming a monogamous bound, imo it would've been better to talk about the other part of the story : vasopressin and polygamous.
Another interesting topic was the one about the out-of-the-body experiences, an explanation of the phenomenon was ¨The temporal and parietal lobes of the cortex are involved in visual and face processing, as well as emotional events. Oxygen deprivation is likely to interfere with activity in neural structures, and the temporal and parietal lobes seem particularly susceptible to oxygen deprivation. This association between oxygen deprivation and paranormal experiences may be associated with either temporal parietal seizures or temporal lobe seizures. …Near-death experiences are characterized by the feeling of leaving your physical body and seeing your life flashing before you. They have been estimated to happen in 9–18% of persons near the point of death. One possible explanation is that general oxygen deprivation can lead to widespread activity throughout the brain, and it’s easy to imagine that this kind of activity could account for accelerated thought processes.¨
The conciseness, albeit welcomed, presented some inconvenients : in the chapter about pain, the author talked about the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of some illnesses, without providing the mechanism (if known) or the hypothesis explaining the reasons it works!
In the chapter about decisions, it was pointed out how we take decisions before even knowing it, I think it would have been better to include some examples of our daily lives (I feel fortunate for reading "before you know it)
Reading this book awakened the memory of savoring an appetizer : it's good and enjoyable yet not enough : it makes you crave for more!
The book is easy to read and comprehend, more like an introduction to neuroscience.
To understand the neuroscience of our daily lives, one has to understand the basics, that's why the author starts with some explanatory chapters on neurons and neurotransmitters.
While I was reading the chapter entitled "juicing the brain", the following phrase bothered me :
"Nicotine use leads to dependency because it causes plastic events of the brain." Which I think lacks accuracy. For starters, the plasticity of the brain is something seen with/as an answer to many activities/consumption of substances, and it [the plasticity] doesn't mean the occurrence of dependency ! The latter is a much complex mechanism, in which we find the liberation of dopamine (conveying a sense of reward), the capacity to induce reinforcing effects, and the negative consequences of abstinence that can have a crucial motivational significance for the maintenance of the addictive behavior (for this last part , I thank google).
Fan fact: the term plasticity was first coined by William James.
Back to the book:
The author also explains briefly, how we sense the exterior world, how the latter induces electrical signals that can be interpreted by the organism (in our case: the human being).
"Hearing is sensitive to vibrations; with this sense, vibrations are converted into spikes. In this case, the sensor cells are in the cochlea in the inner ear. Hair cells are the primary sensor cells. Vibrations in the hair cells trigger secretion of a neurotransmitter. Then, the target neurons, the ganglion cells, re spikes that are transmitted along the auditory nerve into the brain."
"Perceived sensations depend on context to help us determine whether something is a good or bad event or whether something is important or not important. The brain infers the most likely primary event that happened based on prior assumptions about what should happen and what is expected."
However, this system is not 100% accurate, for it can be tricked easily, which raises the question of the reliability of the system. Taking for example the optical illusions: ¨in general, and other illusions, too, take advantage of the complexity of the system. The general principle is that the multiplicity of visual pathways can be fooled by cleverly designed visual stimuli to give you a feeling of an optical illusion."
I liked the diversification of the topics, from learning and memory to sexual behaviors and religion:
"using your non-dominant hand for two weeks to brush your teeth can lead to increased willpower. People who tried this reported other benefit, such as reducing their impulsive spending.." , I've been using my non-dominant hand to do some tasks for a while, but I've never known that it was impacting my willpower :3 this finding is so thrilling :3 I'm not even going to look for other ressources on that matter x) (However, it doesn't seem to have an important effect on my impulsive perfumes' trading habits :'(
"Stress and depression hasten the death of neurons, but active parenting and exercise can encourage neuron generation and synapthic strenght.. Our emotional control improves with age".
"During orgasm, men might experience a reduction in vigilance." :3
In the chapter about sex and love, the author mentions the role of vasopressin in forming a monogamous bound, imo it would've been better to talk about the other part of the story : vasopressin and polygamous.
Another interesting topic was the one about the out-of-the-body experiences, an explanation of the phenomenon was ¨The temporal and parietal lobes of the cortex are involved in visual and face processing, as well as emotional events. Oxygen deprivation is likely to interfere with activity in neural structures, and the temporal and parietal lobes seem particularly susceptible to oxygen deprivation. This association between oxygen deprivation and paranormal experiences may be associated with either temporal parietal seizures or temporal lobe seizures. …Near-death experiences are characterized by the feeling of leaving your physical body and seeing your life flashing before you. They have been estimated to happen in 9–18% of persons near the point of death. One possible explanation is that general oxygen deprivation can lead to widespread activity throughout the brain, and it’s easy to imagine that this kind of activity could account for accelerated thought processes.¨
The conciseness, albeit welcomed, presented some inconvenients : in the chapter about pain, the author talked about the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of some illnesses, without providing the mechanism (if known) or the hypothesis explaining the reasons it works!
In the chapter about decisions, it was pointed out how we take decisions before even knowing it, I think it would have been better to include some examples of our daily lives (I feel fortunate for reading "before you know it)
Reading this book awakened the memory of savoring an appetizer : it's good and enjoyable yet not enough : it makes you crave for more!
March 2, 2023
A long GC at 36 parts, and it is a little dated because this science moves so fast. A lot happens in neurosciences in 8-10 years. Still, a very solid foundation for the material. Wish I'd had access to this before some of the more targeted courses on the subject.
April 3, 2026
It turns out that this course has a large scope and is easy to understand. It turns out though that I didn't learn much as it's all just a general overview of the basics - and I questioned anything that was new to me as I just didn't really trust this lecturer based on differences between his information and more recent information (I think this was made 2010). And it turns out that the further we went into the course, the more irritated I became with the lecturer.
It turns out that Wang dismisses ADHD as just ordinary underdeveloped frontal lobes that all children have and that adhd "resolves itself" when kids grow up. He suggests multiple times that kids shouldn't be given meds for ADHD.
It turns out that autism is the worst thing ever, requiring someone to "overcome" their autism or "recover from" their autism. Autistic people have "symptoms" that they "suffer from". He mentions Asperger's"Disease" at one point. And that treasure from Baron Cohen is there too - autism is extreme maleness! 🙄
It turns out that we apparently know that there are biological, innate reasons for gendered toy preferences in children. We know this because of a study with a particular type of monkey where the boy monkeys in the study play with cars appropriately and girl monkeys play with dolls. Without much more info and more replicated studies I'm calling shenanigans on that one. For starters they've used one particular type of monkey - vervet monkeys (later also done with macaques). Monkeys and apes vary hugely in culture and sex differences etc.. You can't just take one type and link it to humans. Cars and dolls aren't relevant to monkeys? What does a boy monkey rolling a car along show anyone?? That they like rolling? Do they know what cars are? Are they used to seeing people? If so, might they have picked up gender rolls from the people around them? Might the researchers have treated them differently, spoken to them differently, expected different things from them, just like with humans? If not - let's say they didn't pick up gender roles from humans, how do we know they didn't just pick them up from other monkeys? Why assume that monkeys's behaviours are always innate and not learned? But besides all of that - why personify and interpret their behaviour with certain toys in this way? Just like how we don't know why chimps dance about at waterfalls and heavy rain, we can't know why the monkeys in the study did what they did. I would be very interested in seeing solid evidence for biological gendered preferences. That really would be fascinating. I just don't see how the study mentioned is such evidence. (There have since been more studies of this kind - some show similar results, some show unclear results, some show literally the opposite results).
So it also turns out that some of the information given and studies referred to are outdated. Some of them were never replicated and some of them have been interpreted differently over time. The marshmallow willpower thing for eg - that was never replicated and is generally thought to not hold up to scrutiny.
There was HM - his postmortem brain study led to new findings that may or may not mean reinterpretation is required. There were a few others here and there that didn't stand up to the scrutiny of time.
It turns out that I really didn't like Wang's opinions peppered all over the place. Regardless of whether I personally agreed or disagreed with those opinions, I just didn't think they should be there. He was careful to word things in such a way that you can never point to anything where he explicitly states an opinion, but he does manage to get them across implicitly. There was *way* too much conjecture throughout (for eg he was strongly suggesting that Moses and the burning bush and other various religious or spiritual 'miracles' or visions were due to epilepsy!) I just don't think a person in the powerful position of expert teacher should be leading their students in anything not based purely on data.
It turns out that, in fairness to Wang, he does try to challenge male centrism by using the pronoun "she" as the norm. However, male centrism does still show in other ways throughout. Not hugely, but it is there. Eg Point and Shoot for sns and pns - Actually, that reminds me of another issue I had - a few different times he says something like "premed students like to say..." but they would only like to say.. because someone (Wang?) tells them in the first place! So why not own it and say "I tell my premed students.... and they find it funny" or whatever?
I listened to this on audible, not DVD, and it turns out that it was mostly fine. It does refer to videos and images throughout, however while it would certainly be advantageous to have those visuals, it works just fine without them.
Also, if you haven't guessed, the *constant* "it turns out"s absolutely did my head in 😂
It turns out that Wang dismisses ADHD as just ordinary underdeveloped frontal lobes that all children have and that adhd "resolves itself" when kids grow up. He suggests multiple times that kids shouldn't be given meds for ADHD.
It turns out that autism is the worst thing ever, requiring someone to "overcome" their autism or "recover from" their autism. Autistic people have "symptoms" that they "suffer from". He mentions Asperger's"Disease" at one point. And that treasure from Baron Cohen is there too - autism is extreme maleness! 🙄
It turns out that we apparently know that there are biological, innate reasons for gendered toy preferences in children. We know this because of a study with a particular type of monkey where the boy monkeys in the study play with cars appropriately and girl monkeys play with dolls. Without much more info and more replicated studies I'm calling shenanigans on that one. For starters they've used one particular type of monkey - vervet monkeys (later also done with macaques). Monkeys and apes vary hugely in culture and sex differences etc.. You can't just take one type and link it to humans. Cars and dolls aren't relevant to monkeys? What does a boy monkey rolling a car along show anyone?? That they like rolling? Do they know what cars are? Are they used to seeing people? If so, might they have picked up gender rolls from the people around them? Might the researchers have treated them differently, spoken to them differently, expected different things from them, just like with humans? If not - let's say they didn't pick up gender roles from humans, how do we know they didn't just pick them up from other monkeys? Why assume that monkeys's behaviours are always innate and not learned? But besides all of that - why personify and interpret their behaviour with certain toys in this way? Just like how we don't know why chimps dance about at waterfalls and heavy rain, we can't know why the monkeys in the study did what they did. I would be very interested in seeing solid evidence for biological gendered preferences. That really would be fascinating. I just don't see how the study mentioned is such evidence. (There have since been more studies of this kind - some show similar results, some show unclear results, some show literally the opposite results).
So it also turns out that some of the information given and studies referred to are outdated. Some of them were never replicated and some of them have been interpreted differently over time. The marshmallow willpower thing for eg - that was never replicated and is generally thought to not hold up to scrutiny.
There was HM - his postmortem brain study led to new findings that may or may not mean reinterpretation is required. There were a few others here and there that didn't stand up to the scrutiny of time.
It turns out that I really didn't like Wang's opinions peppered all over the place. Regardless of whether I personally agreed or disagreed with those opinions, I just didn't think they should be there. He was careful to word things in such a way that you can never point to anything where he explicitly states an opinion, but he does manage to get them across implicitly. There was *way* too much conjecture throughout (for eg he was strongly suggesting that Moses and the burning bush and other various religious or spiritual 'miracles' or visions were due to epilepsy!) I just don't think a person in the powerful position of expert teacher should be leading their students in anything not based purely on data.
It turns out that, in fairness to Wang, he does try to challenge male centrism by using the pronoun "she" as the norm. However, male centrism does still show in other ways throughout. Not hugely, but it is there. Eg Point and Shoot for sns and pns - Actually, that reminds me of another issue I had - a few different times he says something like "premed students like to say..." but they would only like to say.. because someone (Wang?) tells them in the first place! So why not own it and say "I tell my premed students.... and they find it funny" or whatever?
I listened to this on audible, not DVD, and it turns out that it was mostly fine. It does refer to videos and images throughout, however while it would certainly be advantageous to have those visuals, it works just fine without them.
Also, if you haven't guessed, the *constant* "it turns out"s absolutely did my head in 😂
February 4, 2023
The lectures are intended for listeners who don´t know anything about neuroscience and as such are very good starting point for diving into the subject. The listener is familiarised with basic features and functions of various parts of brain, of course all in rather simplified but sufficient form for a layman. So you will find out what are synapses, what is pain, how memory functions, you get snippets of information on consciousness, free will and more.
I would recommend this set of lectures to anyone who wants to find out what is what, where and why so they might upgrade to go on to enjoy Andrew Huberman podcasts. Just kidding, you can enjoy them anyway.
I would recommend this set of lectures to anyone who wants to find out what is what, where and why so they might upgrade to go on to enjoy Andrew Huberman podcasts. Just kidding, you can enjoy them anyway.
October 25, 2019
Quick read. Interesting.
Favorite quotes:
“Self-control is a better predictor or later success that IQ.”
“Consolidation requires time between learning sessions...that is why two 4 hour study sessions are more productive that one 8 hour session.”
“We only use 10% of our brains is a myth...we need all of our brain to function and a lot of brain activity is occurring even when we are focused one task...in general, we require 100% of our brains.”
“Using your non dominant hand for two weeks to brush your teeth can lead to increased will power.”
Favorite quotes:
“Self-control is a better predictor or later success that IQ.”
“Consolidation requires time between learning sessions...that is why two 4 hour study sessions are more productive that one 8 hour session.”
“We only use 10% of our brains is a myth...we need all of our brain to function and a lot of brain activity is occurring even when we are focused one task...in general, we require 100% of our brains.”
“Using your non dominant hand for two weeks to brush your teeth can lead to increased will power.”
October 28, 2022
While I love everything neuroscience, it was clear the audio version was recorded while the author was teaching a course, and not specifically for the audio book. Little vocal tics, stutters, and throat clearings were included, and the author has an unfortunately dry tone. Even more frustrating was that he frequently referenced images/slides that were not included with the accompanying PDF. Why have a PDF if you don’t include important visuals? The material was interesting enough to warrant 3 stars.
July 22, 2025
Neuroscience of Everyday Life is a series of lectures by Sam Wang covering a wide swath of research and history related to your brain.
The audio lectures sounds much like a live recording of the material. As such, you lose the visual references and the delivery leaves a lot to be desired.
The material is very much at a 100 level intro course, so it covers a lot of ground without diving into anything too deeply. That makes it very accessible to those just getting into the topic, but will be review for individuals who are already familiar with phycology and basic neuroscience.
The audio lectures sounds much like a live recording of the material. As such, you lose the visual references and the delivery leaves a lot to be desired.
The material is very much at a 100 level intro course, so it covers a lot of ground without diving into anything too deeply. That makes it very accessible to those just getting into the topic, but will be review for individuals who are already familiar with phycology and basic neuroscience.
August 22, 2022
غالب فصول الكتاب جيدة، لكن عندما تطرّق البروفيسور الى الهوية الجنسية والمؤثرات عليها حاول -بشكل فاشل- ان يقدم بعض المعذرة للشذوذ.
وفي فصل الديانة والروحية، خرج من دائرة العلم الى دائرة التكهنات والافتراضات، وقام يقول ان الوحي الذي أنزل على الرسل، وكلام الله عز وجل مع موسى عليه السلام، كل ذلك يمكن ان يفسر بنوع من انواع الصرع والاختلاجات العصبية.
وظن نفسه يكحل العين فعماها بذكر مؤلفات الملحدين الجدد امثال دوكنز ودانيت!
وفي فصل الديانة والروحية، خرج من دائرة العلم الى دائرة التكهنات والافتراضات، وقام يقول ان الوحي الذي أنزل على الرسل، وكلام الله عز وجل مع موسى عليه السلام، كل ذلك يمكن ان يفسر بنوع من انواع الصرع والاختلاجات العصبية.
وظن نفسه يكحل العين فعماها بذكر مؤلفات الملحدين الجدد امثال دوكنز ودانيت!
October 19, 2022
Not the best lecturer in terms of delivery but packed with lots of fascinating and practical science-based information for everyday life. I listened to this on audiobook but having the video or a reference to a model of the brain would have been really helpful. This is one I'll need to revisit and study more in depth. Mind-blowing stuff!
April 19, 2023
I am absolutely fascinated by the brain and I love learning more about how it works and what everything means. This was a great discussion on the brain and neuroscience. It is related to my field and how what I do can cause changes in people's brains. The author was not completely up on the latest treatment for mental health disorders but it is a different side of treatment that I do.
August 17, 2020
This is a well-prepared and delivered introduction to neuroscience (and I've listened to a lot). It's well-structured and neatly delivered. The course doesn't go too deep into biology but rather stays high level, curious and applicable to everyday life.
January 13, 2020
Mostly review
April 12, 2021
Of many phaenomena, I would have liked a bit more about the neuron- and neurotransmitters-level explanations.
October 26, 2022
A great round up
October 30, 2022
An extremely wide and deep subject - there is a need for a second read to pick up what the brain left behind the first time. Sam Wang's knowledge is impressive.
June 10, 2023
Good introduction course to the topic. It's packed with a lot of information in 36 lectures. From the basics how neurons work to specific topics like near death experiences.
November 1, 2023
10 out of 10! Sam Wang presents a lot of complex information in a very easy to understand and interesting way. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learnt a lot from it.
Currently Reading
September 15, 2024Listening to the Audible Edition.
it is suggested to cover one chapter a day of the 36 chapters.
it is suggested to cover one chapter a day of the 36 chapters.
December 4, 2024
Broad stroke lecture flush with general research, case studies and bad professor jokes which make it enjoyable and digestible. Published 15 years ago.
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