Brains for Dinner Episode 4

Yesterday I was watching a talk about procrastination for book research (I wasn’t procrastinating, I swear). When the cameraperson panned the audience, I saw much younger versions of Andrea and I, and it gave me all the feels.

The talk was over a decade ago, and our lives were very different then—but seeing us there, taking it all in, brought me right back into the moment. I could feel the excitement I get when exposed to new ideas. And given that I had just finished delivering my first public lecture to nearly 800 people, I was also feeling a good deal of relief. As I listened to Randy provide the first theoretical explanation of procrastination I had ever heard, I looked forward to digging into the ideas more deeply afterward with Andrea. You can see our lectures on The Neuroscience of Good Decision Making here if you are interested.

Sharing these deeper dives with you is our vision for Brains for Dinner, and this episode is all about how feelings shape our memories and how memories shape our feelings. We’re particularly focused on the negative aspects of this cycle as they play out in PTSD. If you enjoy the episode, please let us know and, if you feel so compelled, share with others, so we know you find what we’re doing useful!

This episode was inspired, in part, by a collaboration with our colleague, clinical psychologist Lori Zoellner. Andrea and Lori recently published a paper called Remembering and Forgetting: A Dynamic Social Retrieval Theory of Posttraumatic Stress which you can read here! I also ask about what factors contribute to who will get PTSD and he mentions one of Lori’s other papers, which you can read here.

We also talk about our friend (and my former professor) Charan Ranganath’s book Why We Remember, which I highly recommend. I had the pleasure of interviewing Charan here in Seattle when his book first came out in February and it was a blast!

We hope you enjoy this episode and look forward to braining with you in the future <3

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chantelpratphd.substack.com