The Empowering Neurologist Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Why Your Brain Feels Broken: The Metabolic Truth Behind Burnout and Depression with Dr. Robin Berzin | E217 Jun 09, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com.

✉️🌱Thank you to our sponsors: EVY - Go to https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

3X4 Genetics - https://3X4genetics.com/DrPerlmutterfor a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

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Dr. Perlmutter’s groundbreaking new book, Brain Defenders, is now available for pre-order. Discover how to protect your brain and future health - reserve your copy today at https://www.braindefenders.com.

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What if your anxiety, brain fog, and burnout aren't mental health problems, but metabolic ones?In this episode, Dr. Robin Berzin joins Dr. David Perlmutter to make the case that the brain and body are not separate systems, and that treating them as if they are is costing millions of people their health.

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00:00 - Introduction

00:46 - Brain Defenders: A New Framework for Brain Health

03:00 - Welcoming Dr. Robin Berzin

05:23 - Why Smart, Motivated People Still Feel Terrible

08:37 - From Columbia Med to Founding Parsley Health

12:15 - The Problem With 15-Minute Appointments and Stacks of Prescriptions

14:37 - What Is Functional Medicine, Actually?

17:07 - Precision Medicine: Treating the N of One

19:45 - How AI Is Changing the Doctor's Ability to Connect the Dots

22:41 - State Change: Shifting Your Mind Through Your Body

25:35 - Why Anxiety and Depression Start in the Body

27:09 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline

29:43 - Exercise, Sugar, and Nutrient Deficiencies as Mental Health Levers

32:30 - SSRIs as a Tow Truck, Not a Destination

34:16 - Psychedelics and Trauma: Tools in the Toolkit

36:01 - Metabolic Flexibility and Why Losing It Wrecks Your Hormones

38:04 - Sleep, Wearables, and the One Night That Breaks Your Metabolism

40:37 - Continuous Glucose Monitors as a Mirror for Your Choices

42:19 - 3X4 Genetics: Your DNA Is a Roadmap, Not a Verdict

44:37 - Alzheimer's as Type 3 Diabetes: The Metabolic Brain Connection

46:21 - The Lab Work Your Doctor Isn't Ordering

49:22 - Fasting Insulin, Heavy Metals, and the Tests That Actually Matter

51:14 - What's Next: AI, Wearables, and the Future of Functional Medicine

53:56 - If You Feel Stuck: Own Your Biological Data

55:34 - Closing Thoughts

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Dr. Robin Berzin, MD is a functional medicine physician and health tech entrepreneur leading the push to bring root-cause, precision medicine into mainstream healthcare. She earned her MD at Columbia, completed internal medicine residency at Mount Sinai, and trained in functional medicine under the field's top practitioners. Before medicine, she produced the Oprah and Friends Dr. Oz Radio Show, and she later worked in health tech during med school, sharpening her understanding of how digital platforms could expand access to personalized care.Today, she is founder and CEO of Parsley Health, the only national functional and longevity medicine clinic in the U.S., delivering virtual care across all 50 states plus physical clinics in NYC and LA. Under her leadership, Parsley has grown to nearly 30 clinicians and 40 health coaches and nurses, treated over 50,000 patients, and built a team-based, insurance-accessible model that puts functional medicine within reach beyond the wealthy. She also sits on the medical advisory board of Whoop.She is the author of State Change, which challenges the divide between mental and metabolic health and offers a practical framework for transforming mood, energy, and cognition through the body. Her work is widely featured across major health and wellness media, and she is recognized as a defining voice in the future of preventive, personalized medicine.

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The Laws of Thought: What AI Reveals About the Human Brain with Tom Griffiths, PhD | E216 Jun 02, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

====

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - Go to https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

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for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

What if AI isn't on a path to become a better human — but a fundamentally different kind of mind altogether? In this episode, Tom Griffiths joins me to challenge how we think about intelligence itself — and to make a compelling case that AI systems are best understood not as smarter or dumber than humans, but as "alien organisms" solving problems in ways our brains never could.

Tom Griffiths is a cognitive scientist, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Psychology and Computer Science at Princeton University, and head of Princeton's AI Lab. He is the co-author of the international bestseller Algorithms to Live By and author of the new book The Laws of Thought — an ambitious survey of three centuries of attempts to capture human thinking in mathematics.

We dig into the three mathematical frameworks scientists use to model thought, why a human toddler can learn language from a fraction of the data a large language model requires, what "resource rationality" reveals about mental health and decision-making, and what we stand to lose — and gain — as we increasingly outsource our thinking to machines.

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00:00 - Introduction

00:46 - A New Way to Think About Brain Health: Brain Defenders

05:27 - Welcoming Cognitive Scientist Tom Griffiths

06:04 - The Great Mystery: Can Math Explain How We Think?

08:23 - Three Threads of Cognitive Science: Rules, Networks, Probability

10:17 - Why AI Needs 10,000x More Data Than a Child

12:27 - Intuition Decoded: How Neural Networks Mirror Implicit Learning

15:03 - The Creativity Gap: Why AI Can't Think Outside the Box

18:06 - 40 Hz Light Therapy and Cognitive Decline

20:07 - Inductive Bias: The Evolutionary Head Start of the Human Brain

22:41 - Mental Health Through Three Levels of Analysis

25:25 - Resource Rationality: Why Humans Aren't Actually Irrational

29:33 - Free Will Through the Lens of the Laws of Thought

31:35 - Rethinking Education With Cognitive Science

34:33 - Evolutionary Mismatch: The Mind Meets Modern Technology

37:23 - AI as Alien Intelligence: A New Mental Model

38:04 - Personalized Brain Health: 3X4 Genetics

39:55 - Uncertainty: The Hidden Engine of Human Cognition

43:34 - Bayesian Inference: The Math of "Best Guessing"

44:37 - The Biggest Misconceptions About Intelligence

47:14 - Algorithms to Live By: Optimizing Daily Decisions

49:22 - Five Years From Now: The AI Forecast

51:33 - The Calculator Effect: What Happens When We Outsource Thinking

53:56 - Metacognition: Becoming the Manager of AI

55:34 - Closing Thoughts

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Is Psychiatry Looking in the Wrong Place? A Radical Rethink of Brain Health with Dr. Daniel Amen | E215 May 12, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter

and the code perlmutter26 will be auto-applied to your order to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

3X4 Genetics - https://3X4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

Why is psychiatry the only medical specialty that doesn't look at the organ it treats? In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen joins me to challenge how mental health is diagnosed and treated — and to make a compelling case that "depression" is as vague a diagnosis as "chest pain."

Dr. Amen is a double-board-certified psychiatrist, 18-time New York Times bestselling author, and founder of Amen Clinics, where his team has performed nearly 300,000 SPECT brain scans — the largest functional brain imaging database in the world.

We dig into what these scans actually reveal: hidden traumatic brain injuries patients never reported, the inflammatory aftermath of COVID, why SSRIs work for some and fail for others, and why the brain you have today is not the brain you're stuck with.

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00:00 - Introduction

01:42 - Psychiatry's Missing Link: The Organ of Treatment

03:22 - The Divergence of Neurology and Psychiatry

05:18 - Beyond Symptoms: Patterns of Brain Health

08:34 - Machine Learning and Autism Insights

10:45 - The Role of the Cerebellum in Thought Coordination

12:46 - The Impact of Undiagnosed Traumatic Brain Injury

14:58 - Reversing Damage: NFL Brain Study Results

16:26 - What SPECT Imaging Reveals About Metabolic Activity

17:38 - COVID-19 and Infectious Causes of Psychiatric Issues

22:11 - Neuroplasticity: Growing a Healthier Brain at Any Age

25:54 - New Technologies: 40 Hz Light and Sound Stimulation

28:27 - Metabolic Health: How Weight Affects Brain Volume

30:25 - Chronic Stress and the Overactive Limbic Brain

31:38 - Predicting Suicide Risk Through Imaging

33:41 - Volunteering and the Default Mode Network

35:01 - Concerns Over Psilocybin and Marijuana Scans

40:12 - Chronic Pain: Breaking the "Doom Loop"

43:12 - Lightning Round: Daily Habits for a Better Brain

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Daniel G. Amen, MD is a double board-certified psychiatrist, clinical neuroscientist, and brain imaging specialist whose pioneering clinical use of SPECT (single-photon emission computed tomography) has built the world's largest functional brain imaging database, with nearly 300,000 scans on patients from 155 countries. A graduate of Southern California College (now Vanguard University), Dr. Amen earned his medical degree from Oral Roberts University School of Medicine. His training includes a general psychiatric residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. Currently, Dr. Amen serves as founder and CEO of Amen Clinics, with eleven locations across the United States, and is the founder of BrainMD and Amen University.

He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a multiple-time New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into 50 languages, and the lead researcher on the world's largest brain imaging and rehabilitation study on professional football players. His work has been published in Molecular Psychiatry, Translational Psychiatry, PLOS One, and the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.

___________________________

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Rewiring Connection: How Friendship Shapes the Brain and Heals the Mind with Barnet Bain | E214 Apr 28, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter

and the code perlmutter26 will be auto-applied to your order to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

3X4 Genetics - https://3X4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

Loneliness is no longer a private struggle, it’s a public-health issue that we’ve discussed quite a bit in my recent books. Research increasingly links social isolation to cognitive decline, depression, cardiovascular disease, and shortened lifespan. Yet despite these findings, we rarely explore how to build and sustain meaningful connection in a modern world designed for distraction.

That’s why I invited Barnet Bain to join me on The Empowering Neurologist podcast.

Barnet is a filmmaker, author, and educator whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and lived human experience. You may recognize his work from films such as What Dreams May Come or Milton’s Secret, but his newest contribution may be his most relevant yet.

His book, How to Be a Friend (In an Unfriendly World), is not about social performance or personality traits. It’s about safety, presence, listening, and emotional responsibility, qualities that directly influence nervous-system regulation and mental health.

What makes this work especially important is that it reframes friendship as a skill set rather than a personality trait. Bain shows how fear, shame, unresolved trauma, and cultural conditioning quietly erode our relationships, and how conscious awareness can restore them.

From a neurological perspective, this matters deeply. The brain is a social organ. Connection shapes stress responses, inflammation, cognition, and emotional regulation. Friendship isn’t a luxury, it’s foundational.

This conversation isn’t about having more friends. It’s about being a better one. To others. And to yourself. In a world that feels increasingly fast, cold, and fragmented, this is a conversation worth having.

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00:00 Intro

02:58 Why Friendship Matters for Health and Resilience

06:24 From Columbia to the Practice of Presence

10:41 Friendship as Non-Transactional Love

14:20 The Childhood Stories That Shape the Self

21:39 Ad: Optoceutics

23:39 Projection, Parenting, and Conditional Love

30:08 Friendship as a Crucible for Self-Awareness

35:42 Why Connection Feels Harder in Modern Life

39:03 Safety, Self-Knowledge, and the Ground of Friendship

41:34 Ad: 3X4 Genetics

44:34 Boundaries, Values, and the Meaning of Honor

49:16 Friendship, Self-Forgiveness, and Inner Change

56:25 Presence as the Greatest Gift

58:34 Why Feeling Is Harder Than Doing

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Barnet Bain is a Canadian filmmaker, author, and educator. His film credits include “Milton’s Secret” (director, writer), Oscar winner “What Dreams May Come” (producer), Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding TV Movie “Homeless to Harvard” (executive producer), “The Celestine Prophecy” (writer, producer), and “Jesus,” translated into more than 2,245 languages and often cited as the most widely seen film in history by The New York Times.

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You’ve Been Pooping All Wrong (And It’s Affecting Your Brain) with Dr. Trischa Pasricha | E213 Apr 14, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter

and the code perlmutter26 will be auto-applied to your order to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

3X4 Genetics - https://3X4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

On this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, I spend time with Dr. Trisha Pasricha, gastroenterologist and author of the provocative and important new book, You’ve Been Pooping All Wrong. Yes, the title makes you smile, but the science inside should make all of us pay attention.

Dr. Pasricha is part of a new generation of neurogastroenterologists exploring one of the most fascinating frontiers in medicine: the deep, bidirectional communication between the brain and the gut. Raised as the daughter of renowned gastroenterologist Dr. Pankaj “Jay” Pasricha and trained at Johns Hopkins, she brings both personal insight and rigorous science to a topic that too often lives in the shadows.

What makes this book so important is that it dismantles myths we’ve carried since childhood. For example, at one point in the book she describes how students taking an oral exam nearly doubled their intestinal permeability, simply from psychological stress. That single experiment powerfully illustrates how the brain can alter gut biology in real time.

And in another unforgettable section, she shares her early research showing that when subjects lied, their stomach’s electrical rhythm shifted into chaos, an arrhythmic pattern detectable on electrogastrogram. The stomach as a lie detector! That’s not just fascinating, it underscores how emotionally and neurologically integrated our digestive system truly is.

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00:00 Intro

03:05 Why We Need to Talk About Pooping

07:17 The Stigma Around Bowel Symptoms

09:31 Why Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer Is Rising

12:11 Should Screening Start Earlier?

14:59 Colonoscopy vs. Stool and Blood Tests

18:34 Ad: Optoceutics

20:35 Why Colonoscopy Still Matters Most

31:00 What “Leaky Gut” Really Means

34:42 What Worsens Intestinal Permeability

36:10 Ad: 3X4 Genetics

38:09 Gut Permeability, Inflammation, and Brain Disease

48:45 Could Fecal Transplants Help Parkinson’s?

56:52 The Different Causes of Constipation

1:02:23 The Myth of One Bowel Movement a Day

1:05:42 Final Takeaways on Gut and Brain Health

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Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH is an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the “Ask A Doctor” columnist for The Washington Post where she translates complex medical topics into must-read insights—with a touch of humor—for millions each week. A graduate of Harvard College, Dr. Pasricha earned her medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her training includes an internal medicine residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and gastroenterology and motility fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital. Currently, Dr. Pasricha serves as director of the Institute for Gut-Brain Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, leading an NIH-funded research laboratory at the forefront of gut-brain science. Her work has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Network Open, and Nature Reviews.

___________________________

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Psychedelic Therapy and Trauma A New Frontier in Mental Health with Dr. Will Van Derveer | E212 Mar 31, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter

and the code perlmutter26 will be auto-applied to your order to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

3X4 Genetics - https://3X4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

00:00 Intro

01:06 The Promise of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

05:16 Why Psychedelics Faced Decades of Pushback

09:40 Psychedelic Therapy Requires Guidance

11:27 The Failure of the “Pill Fixes Everything” Model

15:31 Risks of Unregulated Psychedelic Retreats

24:20 Psychedelics Within Integrative Medicine

25:30 Ad: Optoceutics

27:31 What “Integration” Really Means

30:08 Why Psychiatry Still Resists Psychedelics

38:52 Why Lifestyle Still Matters After Therapy

41:45 Psychedelics and Addiction Treatment

50:50 Microdosing vs Full Therapeutic Doses

53:52 Ad: 3X4 Genetics

57:28 The Rise of Ketamine Clinics

1:00:54 Ibogaine: Risks, Duration, and Safety

1:04:50 Final Thoughts on Psychedelic Responsibility

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Will Van Derveer, MD is a psychiatrist and author of Psychedelic Therapy: Restore Your Mental Health and Reclaim Your Life which will be published by ShambhalaPublications in the Spring of 2026.

He is co-founder of Integrative Psychiatry Institute, which has provided comprehensive training for 2500 mental health professionals in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy several thousand professionals in other continuing education programs.

He is medical director of Integrative Psychiatry Center of Boulder, CO, providingintegrative psychiatry for a broad range of conditions and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD.

In addition to his clinical practice and teaching, he has staffed clinical trials sponsoredby MAPS, investigating MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD.

Dr. Van Derveer is co-host of the Higher Practice Podcast, where he explores what it takes to achieve optimal mental health.

___________________________

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Carbs For Exercise? Let’s Challenge This Idea with Dr. Andrew Koutnik | E211 Mar 17, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter

and the code perlmutter26 will be auto-applied to your order to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

Fresh Pressed Olive Oil - https://www.getfresh389.com

For a complimentary bottle of one of the greatest olive oils I've ever discovered.

3X4 Genetics - http://3X4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

00:00 Intro

04:49 Andrew Koutnik’s Story Obesity Type 1 Diabetes and Metabolism

09:44 Ketogenic Diets and Type 1 Diabetes

20:15 Sponsor Break - Optoceutics

21:28 Why This Goes Far Beyond Type 1 Diabetes

26:59 Why Low Carb Diabetes Care Was Abandoned

31:49 Ketosis vs Diabetic Ketoacidosis

35:10 Sponsor Break - Fresh Pressed Olive Oil

37:04 How to Measure Ketone Levels

39:13 Are Breath Ketone Tests Reliable

40:15 What Beta Hydroxybutyrate Actually Does

42:39 Exogenous Ketones and High Altitude Performance

45:49 Sponsor Break - 3X4 Genetics

48:33 MCT Oil and Ketone Production

52:52 The Carb Loading Myth in Sports Performance

1:00:06 Metabolic Flexibility and Keto Adaptation

1:03:17 Rethinking Hypoglycemia in Keto Adapted Athletes

1:07:19 How Carbohydrates Shut Down Fat Burning

1:09:58 Body Fat vs Glycogen as Fuel

1:14:34 What This Means for Endurance Athletes

1:16:17 Fat Metabolism as a Survival Mechanism

1:18:09 The New USDA Dietary Guidelines

1:20:46 Ultra Processed Food and Alzheimer’s Risk

1:22:40 Final Thoughts on Metabolic Flexibility

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Dr. Andrew Koutnik is a research scientist focused on how nutrition, metabolism, and lifestyle can optimize human health, performance, and resilience. Living with type 1 diabetes for over 17 years, his work bridges personal experience with cutting-edge science across chronic disease and extreme environments.

He earned his PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of South Florida and has led research funded by organizations including NASA, the Department of Defense, and the NIH, contributing to over 100 scientific publications and presentations. His work spans exercise physiology, cardiometabolic health, and therapeutic nutrition.

At Florida State University, Dr. Koutnik studies dietary strategies for diabetes, obesity, and performance under metabolic stress, collaborating with leading institutions worldwide. His mission is to advance evidence-based approaches that empower individuals to improve metabolic health and performance.

___________________________

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Why Exercise May Be More Powerful Than Any Alzheimer’s Drug with Dr. Majid Fotuhi | E210 Mar 03, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter

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Fresh Pressed Olive Oil - https://www.getfresh389.com

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for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you know that one of the central themes we return to on The Empowering Neurologist is this: your brain is far more adaptable, resilient, and improvable than conventional wisdom ever allowed us to believe.

This week, I’m thrilled to share a conversation with someone who has spent more than three decades proving exactly that. Dr. Majid Fotuhi, neurologist, neuroscientist, Harvard- and Johns Hopkins-trained physician, and now author of the new book The Invincible Brain, has dedicated his career to helping people reclaim their cognitive potential. His message aligns powerfully with the philosophy behind my upcoming book, Brain Defenders: that the trajectory of your brain is not predetermined, and that meaningful change is possible at any age.

In our interview, we explore the groundbreaking ideas that shaped The Invincible Brain. Dr. Fotuhi lays out why intelligence is not fixed, how memory can be strengthened through surprisingly simple practices, and why Alzheimer’s disease is not the single, linear condition we once imagined, but rather a complex “soup” of abnormalities with multiple entry points for intervention.

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00:00 Intro

01:44 Choices influencing brain trajectory and resilience

04:25 Redefining intelligence beyond IQ

08:20 Synergy of memory and habit change

13:09 Challenging genetic determinism with epigenetics

18:00 Ad Break: Optoceutics

20:23 Alzheimer's as a metabolic and inflammatory soup

29:45 Ad Break: Fresh Pressed Olive Oil

38:04 Exercise and metabolism in brain health

43:45 Ad Break: 3x4 Genetics

49:38 Brain training and five pillars of brain health

54:55 Mindset as key to becoming a superager

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Dr. Majid Fotuhi earned his PhD in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University in 1992 and his Medical Degree from Harvard Medical School in 1997. Currently, he serves as an adjunct professor at the Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University, while also teaching at George Washington University and Harvard Medical School. With 37 years of experience in teaching, clinical practice, and neuroscience research, Dr. Fotuhi has pioneered a multidisciplinary approach to enhancing brain vitality and cognitive performance at any age.

His groundbreaking “Brain Fitness Program” combines a comprehensive baseline “Brain Portfolio” assessment with 12 bi-weekly brain training sessions. This program targets lifestyle optimization and cognitive stimulation to improve memory, focus, and overall brain health. Dr. Fotuhi’s program has delivered measurable success for patients dealing with memory loss due to aging, concussions, and ADHD, as documented in several peer-reviewed journals.

___________________________

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Toxins Rewrite Your Genes (And Trigger Brain Disease) with Dr. Sarah Marzi | E209 Feb 17, 2026

Show notes

🧠 Stay ahead with the latest in science, nutrition, and wellness by subscribing to Dr. Perlmutter’s newsletter at: www.drperlmutter.com. ✉️🌱

Thank you to our sponsors:

EVY - https://www.optoceutics.com/perlmutter

and the code perlmutter26 will be auto-applied to your order to get $200 off & free shipping (90 days risk-free).

Fresh Pressed Olive Oil - https://www.getfresh389.com

For a complimentary bottle of one of the greatest olive oils I've ever discovered.

3X4 Genetics - http://3X4genetics.com/DrPerlmutter

for a special offer when you sign up to decode your genetics and get personalized, science-backed health recommendations.

====

On this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, I’m joined by Dr. Sarah Marzi, a neuroscientist at King’s College London and a principal investigator at the UK Dementia Research Institute, whose work is transforming how we understand neurodegenerative disease risk.

Dr. Marzi’s research focuses on gene regulation in the human brain, particularly within microglia, the immune cells that orchestrate inflammation, synaptic pruning, and repair. Her studies show that genetic risk for diseases like Alzheimer’s is concentrated not in protein-coding genes, but in regulatory regions of the genome, epigenetic switches that control immune behavior in the brain.

This conversation with Dr. Marzi is not just about disease. It’s about agency. Understanding epigenetics helps explain how lifestyle, environment, and immune balance can influence brain destiny. It’s science that empowers prevention, resilience, and hope.

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00:00 Intro

03:12 Epigenetics and Neurodegenerative Disease

04:49 Why Alzheimer’s Is Not a Single Gene Disorder

09:18 Protein Aggregation and Brain Cleanup Failure

10:55 Microglia vs Neurons in Alzheimer’s

19:04 Blood Brain Barrier and Inflammatory Signaling

20:39 ApoE Genetics Explained

23:37 Human Microglia Transplanted Into Mouse Brain

30:02 Vitamin D Receptor and Protective Gene Programs

38:18 Environmental Toxins and Parkinson’s

44:59 C1q Activation and Synapse Loss

49:33 Why Substantia Nigra Is Uniquely Vulnerable

51:39 Paraquat, Mitochondria and Converging Toxic Pathways

53:00 Epigenetic Memory of Toxic Exposure

54:09 Histones and Gene Regulation in Alzheimer’s

57:41 Oligodendrocytes as a Hidden Player

59:32 Why Single Target Drugs May Fail

01:02:10 Detecting Disease Through Blood and Machine Learning

01:04:41 Can Lifestyle Modify Epigenetics

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Dr Sarah Marzi is a Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience at King’s College London and a Group Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute. Her work focuses on how our genes and environment change cellular processes in the brain and can predispose us to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and motor neuron disease.

An expert in epigenetics – the chemical switches that turn genes on and off – Dr Marzi uses cuttingedge genomic techniques on human brain tissue as well as cell and animal models. Her team combines these experiments with advanced statistics, bioinformatics and AI to map the earliest molecular changes that make brain cells vulnerable to disease, particularly in immune cells of the brain called microglia. This work aims to reveal how both genetic variants and environmental exposures, including pesticides, contribute to disease risk and to uncover new avenues for therapy.

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Optimizing Fertility: What Actually Moves the Needle with Rachel Swanson | E208 Feb 03, 2026

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On this episode of The Empowering Neurologist, I sit down with one of the most influential voices in modern nutrition and women’s health, Rachel Swanson, MS, RD, LDN. Her new book, Trying! A Science-Based Plan to Optimize Your Fertility, is poised to reshape how we think about fertility, moving it out of the narrow confines of hormone-focused conversations and into the broader landscape of systems biology, metabolism, environmental exposure, and cellular health.

Swanson’s work begins with a powerful premise: fertility is not a mystery, and it’s certainly not something women should feel powerless about. Instead, she argues, fertility is a measurable, improvable expression of whole-body health. And her book provides the first integrated blueprint to understand and support that health.

The conversation starts with the microbiome, which Swanson calls the “mission control headquarters” of fertility. Who knew that our gut bacteria were playing an important role in determining fertility? Drawing from her book, she describes how the gut, vaginal, and even oral microbiomes create the biochemical environment that influences hormone balance, inflammation, implantation, egg quality, and partner sperm health.

What makes this book, and this podcast episode, so compelling and empowering is Rachel’s rare combination of scientific precision and heartfelt dedication to women’s autonomy. She refuses to oversimplify fertility into quick fixes or fad-driven advice. Instead, she offers deeply practical strategies rooted in peer-reviewed research and years of high-level clinical practice.

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00:00 Intro - Rachel Swanson04:38 Fertility as Whole-Body Health11:37 Metabolic Health Comes Too Late18:48 Ad - EVY21:17 The Microbiome as a Foundation of Health27:28 PCOS Is a Metabolic Disease, Not Just Hormonal35:15 Ad - Fresh Pressed Olive Oil37:07 Menstrual Products and the Vaginal Microbiome40:41 Inflammation and Metabolism Drive Fertility49:06 Ad - 3x4 Genetics50:26 Personalized Fertility Over One-Size-Fits-All56:16 Closing Thoughts

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Rachel Swanson, MS, RD, LDN, is a registered dietitian and one of America’s most sought-after nutritionists, known for optimizing human performance through science-backed, personalized care. Her clients include celebrities, professional athletes, and Fortune 500 executives who trust her expertise in concierge medicine and private practice.

Rachel is a highly principled, intellectually rigorous, and passionately empowering expert, whose communication and sentiment are consistently driven by a profound conviction in her book's unique, holistic framework as the transformative solution to outdated and fragmented fertility advice, reflecting a deep commitment to women's health and autonomy.

___________________________

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