Your host Leslie sits down with the founder of Sapien Labs, Tara Thiagarajan, to discuss their cutting edge research. The role that technology and environmental toxins play in mental health, among other things, are discussed. Links Mentioned in this Episode: SapienLabs.org Nature.com: The impact of socioeconomic and stimulus inequality on human brain physiology = https://sapienlabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-impact-of-socioeconomic-and-stimulus-inequality-on-human-brain-physiology.pdf You, Rewired: How Modernity Changes the Brain = https://interestingengineering.com/science/you-rewired-how-modernity-changes-the-brain Vox: A survey on global mental well-being shows that the kids are not all right = https://www.vox.com/23013483/mental-health-pandemic-young-people-sapien-labs World Economic Forum: Our world is in the grip of a mental health crisis - here’s what we can do to help = https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/world-mental-health-crisis-covid-19/ The Washington Post: The crisis of student mental health is much vaster than we realize = https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/05/crisis-student-mental-health-is-much-vaster-than-we-realize/
Your host Leslie sits down with the founder of Sapien Labs, Tara Thiagarajan, to discuss their cutting edge research. The role that technology and environmental toxins play in mental health, among other things, are discussed.
Links Mentioned in this Episode:
SapienLabs.org
Nature.com: The impact of socioeconomic and stimulus inequality on human brain physiology = https://sapienlabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-impact-of-socioeconomic-and-stimulus-inequality-on-human-brain-physiology.pdf
You, Rewired: How Modernity Changes the Brain = https://interestingengineering.com/science/you-rewired-how-modernity-changes-the-brain
Vox: A survey on global mental well-being shows that the kids are not all right = https://www.vox.com/23013483/mental-health-pandemic-young-people-sapien-labs
World Economic Forum: Our world is in the grip of a mental health crisis - here’s what we can do to help = https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/world-mental-health-crisis-covid-19/
The Washington Post: The crisis of student mental health is much vaster than we realize = https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/05/crisis-student-mental-health-is-much-vaster-than-we-realize/
You're listening to the sixth episode of the Third Season of The Nature of Nurture, a podcast for your mental health. I'm your host, Dr. Leslie Carr. And today is where we drop the mic. My interview guest is Tara Thiagarajan, the founder and CEO of an organization called Sapien Labs. They're doing cutting edge research and mental health that really supports the argument that I've been making and the case that I have been building throughout all three seasons of this podcast so far, that our life experiences matter. That our mental health as a result of a combination of factors up to and including the culture and the time that we live in and its values and expectations.
Sapien Labs is doing global research, currently focusing on internet enabled populations and on self-report data gathering using an online questionnaire called the M-hq.
They've done some other kinds of research as well, and you'll hear us get into that. But their focus these days is on trying to gather self-report data on overall mental health functioning from people all over the world, across cultures and age ranges, and their intention is to measure and evaluate psychological wellbeing in a holistic sense.
Looking not just at how or whether we're struggling, but whether we're succeeding and sometimes even thriving. Part of what the results are revealing is that younger generations of people are struggling all over the developed world. I won't get into why just yet because Tara and I talk about that quite a bit.
But the information in this podcast, the research that Sapien Labs is doing is really important, and I'm beyond excited to share it with you. If you've been following this podcast since the beginning, and I know that many of you have been, this episode is about to really reward you for your. So without further ado, here is Tara answering my first question, which was about the origin of Sapien Labs.
I asked her what problem they were originally looking to solve.
We've come a long way since that time, but I will take you back to, you know, the origins of Sapien Labs. And at the time when, uh, it was founded, I was running a microfinance company in India, and this company basically did micro loans to women in, uh, you know, small villages and towns across India. And you know, one of the big challenges in lending to, uh, women and or anyone really in these kind of small, uh, you know, rural areas is that, uh, you know, a lot of the folks are not, or, or illiterate or semi-literate. And then also, and you know, they don't, so therefore they don't have, there's no resume, there's no digital footprint. So part of it is trying to understand, you know, who's gonna be an, uh, a successful entrepreneur, what are the kind of factors that really drive their success?
And so we were really looking to try to understand like, why are, you know, is there anything that will tell us that people in one village are gonna be more successful than people in another village or a person within this village is gonna be more successful than another person. And so, you know, we did a lot of research.
Uh, we were in looking at data on various different things from the ecosystem to the individual.
You know, we started looking at some of the things like cognitive batteries, others, you know, kind of, uh, psychological things and realized that, you know, a lot of things that we were seeing were quite unexpected and, and very different from, you know, what you or I in sort of a more modern society would, you know, the way we would perceive or, or, uh, respond to, to those types of things.
And so at the time, one of my previous graduate students who had been, did her PhD with me, she came, uh, had come over to my company and was working as a data scientist there and, and, on part of this.
And so we were talking and, you know, saying it really would be, uh, really interesting to measure brain activity. And so, You know, she found at the time a device that was easily portable and it was pretty new on the market at the time, called the emotive. And, uh, we thought, okay, well,
EEG device. Right? An electroencephalogram.
That's correct. Yeah. So it measures, you know, there's sort of sensors on the brain, uh, all placed on the skull, and then they measure electrical signal from the brain. So, uh, you know, at the time we thought, okay, well let's go out there and, and, you know, we can't possibly do this within a, you know, a finance company. But, uh, let's, let's just out of curiosity, you and I will go and see what, what's, uh, uh, you know, what's going on.
So we went out one weekend, you know, she and I, to a remote village that was a few hour drive away and it was a place there, you know, people had some electricity, but you know, no internet. It was pretty far from the road, so people would have to walk to a main road, you know, a mile or two to get a bus that sort of thing.
You know, we recorded brain activity for maybe, you know, 15, 20 people over that weekend. And then similarly recorded activity from friends and family and that kind of thing back in, in the city. And what was really shocking was that the brain activity looked profoundly different. And this was very, very unexpected because we have in, you know, and I'm trained as a neuroscientist, but in neuro, uh, you know, the, the sort of common or or prevailing paradigm in neuroscience has always been that there's this sort of prototypical human brain, and you could talk about
right
develop brain as opposed, you know. Uh, and this idea that there could be differences between individuals that were, you know, not 5%, 10% different, but threefold, fourfold, fivefold different on certain, you know, In terms of certain characteristics.
So that was very surprising. And of course this was a quick and dirty experiment and we really, you know, I thought at the time that, you know, if this is real and it's not because of some kind of, you know, experimental issue, like for example, you know, in the rural areas they tend to wear, you put coconut oil in their hair.
So maybe the sensors didn't attach well.
Wow. Yeah.
You know,
and so you're getting try to account for every variable.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're getting some massive difference in the signal because of something like that. And so we thought we should really do this properly. And so Sapien Labs really founded, uh, to be a home for that initial research project.
Yeah. That's incredible. And my, and my understanding from reading, uh, I, there are a bunch of articles that I'm gonna link to in the show notes, so I can't remember which one I, I gathered this information from. But, my understanding, it's interesting how technology is this thing that we're gonna have to, it's gonna come up again and again, I think in this conversation, but I take it that one of the things that you found is that, by living in these rural villages where they weren't doing things like, you know, they didn't have iPhones, they're not on the internet, they're just, the stimulation that they were experiencing in their lives was so different than what the average modern urbanite experiences,
Exactly.
That their, their brains were just wired completely differently than mine is, or yours is, or probably pretty much anyone we know, right? Yes,
exactly. And I think that is, that is what we, uh, you know, really looked at once we set it up as an, uh, you know, a properly controlled, like proper, uh, you know, with all the protocols
Yeah.
Within Sapien Labs. And at that time, you know, we did several hundred people across many really remote settlements all the way to you. Uh, larger villages, small towns, big towns, you know, big cities. To, to look at how, when this, as the stimulus environment changes, how does the brain is there are, are there systematic changes in the way your brain, uh, you know, functions or in, in terms of, at least in the way the brain behaves?
Yeah.
In terms of its electrical activity. You know, like you said, if you, you think about it, you know, Uh, a cell phone does or what having access, you know, a car, all of these things, they change the stimulus environment in which you live.
Yeah.
So for example, you know, if you're, if you're only on foot or on a bicycle, you can only, you know, see things at a certain speed at any time in your, in your life, and you can't cover a very large geographic distance.
So what we call your geo footprint is pretty small. Uh, and then when you get a car, you. Travel much further. You're seeing a much larger, uh, you know, sort of, uh, range of environments, spatial environments. And then the more you travel, if you have access to air flight and things like that, you, you're able to now go places which are even more different.
So the novelty of stimulus and the range of stimulus you start to experience become bigger and bigger. And, and so also, you know, as with, you know, different forms of access to stimulus, like even education. The more you go, you know, up in education, the more, uh, knowledge you're having access to. And then with the phone, again, it's a whole different range of type of stimulus.
And so what we did find is that as you, you know, are economically able to afford more and more stimulus of these types, uh, that you see a very. A systematic shift in how the brain behaves in its electrical activity. You know, with that, uh, with that stimulus. And different types of stimulus had different, you know, relationships to the brain activity.
So, for example, when people made the transition to smartphone, you started to see some certain types of behaviors that the brain suddenly emerging and, and like growing very, uh, rapidly. So, so clearly there's a, you know, there's a profound impact that we haven't really appreciated that's physiological.
Well, it's so interesting too because obviously, you know, we're spending so much time using digital technology these days. People are using their phones so much that there are some downsides associated with that, that we will get to in a little bit. But I just wanna pause on the idea that it's really interesting and I think important to acknowledge that there are positive effects for our brains as well, just in the sense that the brain requires a lot of stimulation in order to thrive. And digital technology is one of many types of stimuli that we can experience that actually makes us think faster. All of those things, you know?
Certainly. And I think, you know over, well, technology in general, you know, we've seen, you know, things change over, over the last decades and I'd say pre-internet for instance, uh, you know, education as a form of stimulus. Once we started really focusing a lot and, and, and expanding the scope, you know, uh, the scope of education socioeconomically that you start to see, for example, you know, uh, rises in In things like who scores
Yeah.
Of the population over time and so, you know, and that. You know, faster than anything genetic, it's really about the environment that we're creating and that more people are able to access that kind of, you know, uh, instruction and ability to understand or develop those kinds of logical problem solving skills and so on.
And so we've certainly seen quite a, a change over the eighties, uh, you know, seventies, eighties, nineties, on those dimensions. And that's definitely, you know, it's a stimulus dependent shift.
Absolutely. I think even a lot of people probably think of IQ as being not entirely related to the information that we learn over time, when in actuality, you know, part of what we test when we test IQ is the information that's been gained over the course of an education and that kind of stuff.
Like I think, you know, for people like me and you, we know how to conduct IQ tests, but I think a lot of just the general public probably misunderstands the way IQ works in the sense that you, you kind of need to feed the brain information in order for it to know how to think and work and function right.
And problem solve in a particular context.
So I think it's skill as well. It's teaching problem solving skills that you have to, you know, you have to learn.
Yes. So as you were saying, clearly your work with Sapien Labs has, has shifted and grown a lot over time. Can you give us a little bit of a sense of, of just the direction that you've moved in and the evolution that's occurred over the course of the past six years or so?
Yeah, so I think that the broad direction that we've really taken is to try to understand the relationship between environment, brain, and then mental outcomes. And you know, when I say mental outcomes, I don't mean happiness. I mean, uh, you know, or we talk about it as, uh, you know, mental wellbeing, but meaning the full complement of mental function.
So, you know, mood and outlook. Of course, but also your drive and motivation, your adaptability and resilience, social self, which is, you know, how we re see ourselves in relation to others and how we relate to others. And then cognition as well. So I think, uh, you know, We, uh, we started down this path to really figure out how to measure mental wellbeing across all this, uh, you know, across all of these different dimensions.
And also measure it across a population, not just to look at the negative side of things of, you know, what problems do you have, but the full spectrum, because people exist on a spectrum, uh, on all these different dimensions of mental functions. There, you know, for some people, something can be a real asset for, for someone else it can be a real problem, and there's everything in between.
So like everyone probably we, uh, our, our direction was shaped quite considerably by Covid, uh, and the lockdowns, uh, which sort of put a, uh, you know, a two year, uh, stop to a lot of the work that we had been doing in, you know, measuring brain activity on the ground. But what we, you know, one of our major projects that sort of started right before Covid and, and continued through that period was what we call the mental health million project.
Where we're looking at mental wellbeing across the world and looking at how it evolves and also how sort of the sociocultural factors and life experience, uh, factors impact mental wellbeing. And so that's been a major direction to look at how it's changed, how it's changed with Covid, how it's changed, uh, you know, and what are all the other factors, uh, soc, you know, social factors that are, uh, influencing mental wellbeing around the world.
So, so that's been a big part of what we've done. And of course, you know, we're continuing to work on environmental, and not just the sociocultural, but also our, uh, what I'd call our biochemical environment. You know, all of the, uh, nutrients, toxins, pathogens, all of the different kinds of molecules that enter our body and have a profound impact on the brain as well.
Yeah, that part is really fascinating to me. I have a question or two that I'm gonna ask you related to that specifically in a little bit, but just to start a little bit more broadly, or, or even just what you were talking about a moment ago, part of what I'm fascinated by in your research is that it feels like it's revealing some very interesting things that to me are quite intuitive, but to the average person might feel surprising.
So can you say a little bit about what you're finding as you do this research globally? What are some of the themes that are emerging?
Yeah. And so I, I do, I, I forgot to mention that in this project, it's internet based, the, the mental wellbeing, mental health million project, which is a different side of the world than, you know, some of the, the rural villages and, and the offline populations that we were looking at previously.
Yeah.
And what we've seen here across the world, and, and I think it are some very, very, stark and alarming trends. One is that, and, and, and this and that is that, you know, sometimes since 20, about, since 2010, uh, there's been this progressive decline in, in mental wellbeing of successive gen generations. And I say this because, you know, we see starting from 2019, that young adults age 18 to 24.
Uh, have the the worst mental wellbeing of any adult age group. And then as you get, you know, older and older generations, their mental wellbeing increases substantially. And, and the scale of this is such that, you know, in previous the older generations, there are about six to 7% of people who have mental health challenges at a level that, you know, they would really need help, you know, intervention, uh, where they're really struggling.
Mm-hmm. and it among younger people. Globally, we see it's about 44%, which is a massive shift. And in the western countries of the English speaking western countries, like the United States and the UK, uh, it's over 50%, which means that more than half of young adults are struggling with their mental wellbeing.
Now, I say that this is a generational shift because in studies that were done on psychological wellbeing using a slightly different measure, but nonetheless covering a lot of similar things. Prior to 2010, it was always the case that young adults, that 18 to 24 age group was always had the highest psychological wellbeing.
And you know, in the United States, for instance, it would dip. and it was slight, slightly lower in the middle age groups and then sort of went back up as uh, people, you know, grew older, maybe as kids left the home and, and things maybe got less stressful or uh, and that sort of thing. But, so somewhere along the line, you know, after 2010 when you get to, when we started measuring in 2019, you could already see that now there was no longer that U-shape, but rather young adults had just plummeted and, you know, over covid.
Just plummeted even more. It sort of accelerated that plummet, but it was not covid that necessarily precipitated it. It was already in motion before.
Mm-hmm.
Before covid. So Covid amplified whatever had already been going on.
What do you attribute that to?
Well, I think having looked at all, all of this data, I think that there are two things that are responsible. And, you know, I think in, in looking at what are key drivers? I think one of the things that we have to think about is that this is a global phenomenon. It's some, not something that's specific to the United States or you know, just to Europe and the United States. It's in every single country in the internet enabled population of every single country across every continent. And at this point we've looked quite deeply at about 58 different countries that span every continent.
So there are two things that have really changed between 2010 and 2020 and 2022. So one of course is the internet, the advent of the internet itself. And, uh, you know, the question is, what has that done to us?
You know, why would it be that, uh, you know, could that be the, the driver? Now, I mean, I think you've probably seen a lot of discussion and talk about social media and how it impacts young people and, and all of that, but I think there's something even bigger than just the social media aspect that's going on.
So first of all, you know, if you look at all the internet statistics, people spend on average seven to 10 hours a day on a device, and that's most of your waking hours. And it used to be ob obviously pre, so if you think about it, pre-internet, right? We, uh, generations that grew up without the internet. By the time we got to 18, age 18, uh, we probably spent like 20 to 25,000 hours engaging with people in person.
And now, Somewhere, you know, people probably are in the range of five to 10,000 hours. So it's a dramatic shift, you know, even as much as a quarter to a fifth in of how much you know, time we're spending in person. Now, one of the things that's the biggest predictor of mental wellbeing outcomes is how much time you spend engaging in person.
Right? And the question is, why? Why would that be important? And the thing is, this is. Human social interaction. It, it's not something that we're innately born. You know, we have. Like, like we have the capacity to do math, or we have the capacity to do a number of things at birth. We have to still learn them. We have the capacity, but they're not innate in the, in the behavior itself. And we need to learn, you know, how to, uh, read body language, facial expression, understand intent of people, uh, you know, understand physical touch, how it's used, what are the norms within a social, uh, system? How do find our, our place within a dynamic, how do we regulate ourselves in re response to different types of you know, social, uh, situations.
How do we resolve conflict? Those take practice. And, you know, and I tell, uh,. So say it's sort of like, you know, say if you're playing soccer, right, you could go to school and learn like what the moves are, and when the ball comes this way, you've gotta hit it at that angle and you must react in this way and you should do it that way.
But ultimately you won't play well unless you get out on the field and practice. And if you're practicing a lot less, you're gonna be a lot worse. And I think what's happened is that, you know, the, the biggest challenge we see in terms of where has, you know, the biggest plummet relative to older generations is in what we call the social self and the ability of people to relate to others and, and, you know, understand, you know, see, feel connected and sort of embedded in social fabrics.
So instead now people are feeling detached from reality. A third of young people have pretty sig serious suicidal thoughts. And I think that's the consequence of not developing now, you know, or stunting our social, uh, development.
I think everything you said is spot on, and I actually will even take it one step further just by saying that I think it's not just that we need practice in our social interactions.
I think that it's part of our wiring as humans that we require those social interactions in order to have a robust sense of wellbeing. And it's really interesting because even going back to what you were saying before about. Stimulus and the role that it plays in our brains as they grow and that kind of stuff.
A lot of the stimulus that human beings really need is the kind of stimulus that comes from our relationships, and now a word from our sponsor.
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So, something that I often think about when I think about, you know, humans and mental health is, We are as a species dependent on our caregivers far longer than any other species on the face of the planet, and it's amazing to think about all of the things that happen.
in those early years where children are so hyper dependent on their caregivers in terms of learning, verbal language, learning speech. You know, these are things that we don't learn if we're not surrounded by people who, who teach us and you know, that we've learned to verbally communicate with. So it's really interesting to think that I'm completely with you on the practicing, especially when it comes to conflict resolution and that kind of stuff.
But it's really interesting to think about sort of our need to be around people and to have that specific kind of stimulus as being something that's kind of intrinsic to our mental functioning and mental wellbeing.
Absolutely. And I think that it's, you know, it's playing out in, in, if you look at you know, when we look at different aspects of one's life experience and how they predict mental wellbeing, you know, our social, all the social factors end up being far more significant than exercise or sleep or anything else.
Any trauma and adversity, anything that you've experienced, that social engagement really comes out as a very outsized predictor. And you know, I think it just basically speaks to that point that we are, we've evolved to be social creature.
It's, it's amazing because it dovetails right into what I have perceived as being yet another major finding in your studies, in your research, that it's also, uh, English speaking countries that are faring the worst in their mental health outcomes.
Mm-hmm.
And I wonder if you can tell people a little bit about the connection there cuz it's so related.
Yeah. I mean, I think so. So, This, this was, this is really surprising because you know, one of the, the. paradigms, we've always, you know, held as some kind of fundamental truth is that the more economic growth there is, the better off people will be. And therefore, the more you know this, this is then we are happier, we should be more prosperous, we're more happy, and all of that.
And the question is really this, is that why is it the, what we see, like you're saying, is that, you know, the more developed countries, English speaking countries, and then, you know, followed after that by Europe and then Latin America.
And then, you know, is why are the more developed countries actually doing far worse on their mental wellbeing. And uh, you know, there are a few different, uh, factors I think.
And, and, uh, so one of them relates to the social, uh, you know, the social engagement part of it, which is. The more developed countries have culturally shifted to be more individualistic.
Mm-hmm.
and what you call performance oriented.
Particularly in the West. I'll just clarify. Yes. Cuz it's interesting to think that there are a lot of developed countries in the east that are, they use technology just as much of as we do, if not more. But they might not be, they might not be quite showing the same mental health outcomes. Exactly. Right?
Perhaps,
I mean, you, you, you have Singapore perhaps is like an exception there that we, we can see where Singapore does quite well despite being, you know, quite developed. But it's a very small country. But I think that that overall, you know, there are, if we look at, uh, in the correlations to these cultural indicators that have been developed by others, uh, you know, their cultural, uh, indicators for countries on individualism and then also what they call the opposite side of it is family collectivism. And then, uh, you know, what you see is that individualistic countries tend to be, uh, worse, worse on their mental wellbeing than, than, and then conversely, family collectivism is positively correlated.
Mm-hmm.
So I think that's one, one big, uh, element.
But the other one, and this is another factor, I think could be one of the most, uh, you know, uh, one of the very significant drivers of this decline in the last decade, and that is that, you know, the more developed a country you are, uh, the more the environment becomes, uh, you know, full of sort of toxic and I, I'm saying I, I mean that the actual, the food, uh, you know, uh, so for example, another correlate of mental wellbeing is per capita plastic consumption, right?
Developed countries are consuming, you know, a lot more disposable stuff where, you know, everything is disposable. Most of it is plastic, you know. Pthalates for example, which are a plastic stabilizer that is, you know, it coats your coffee cup and your pizza box and your sandwich wrapper. And it's in like, and you know, all of these kind of, these toxins are in all of our cleaning products, shampoos all sorts of places.
And the more we consume of those, the more tox, you know, more toxin we're exposed. and you've seen, you know, I've seen reports in the last few years now showing that, you know, people are detecting it more frequently in human blood.
Right.
It's now are detecting it in the placenta.
Mm-hmm. In breast milk.
And everywhere.
Mm-hmm.
And, and it's neurotoxic, which means it, it degrades or destroys brain cells. It also disrupts the neuroendocrine system, which is sort of the relationship, you know, that connects sort of the brain and the reproductive system. Mm. . So one, you know, thing that we are really gonna starting to look into.
Is that something that has happened over the last 10 years because plastic consumption has grown, you know, something like 10 x in the, uh, like in the last decade and more so in these countries, and could it be, uh, causing, you know, the cumulative effect of even low level toxicity on a daily sustained basis right from childhood that, uh, you are basically developing under sort of conditions where there's constant degradation of the nervous system, which means that you then cannot, you won't be as resilient. Like everything will be worse because it's not, you know, developing in a healthy manner. And that, that's something that actually scares me, uh, the most because I think that it's societal and, and systemic and very difficult to isolate from in any way.
Yeah. It's really, really amazing and very scary and it, one of the things that it brings me to, and this is an issue that I think is very sensitive, and I'm aware that this might be kind of triggering for some of the people that listen to this, but one of the things that I noticed in your research is that there, that you're also seeing a correlation between per capita plastic consumption and people who identify as non-binary.
Where these are correlations. And I think when you put together all of the evidence that of course we know that these molecules are neuroendocrine, disruptive, uh, we know they come from this, you know, they're associated with per capita. So it's a sort of a bit of triangulating of different pieces of evidence here to say that, you know, these correlations may have uh, some relevance but certainly I think it's a hypothesis that should be seriously investigated. That could it be that when your neuroendocrine dis, uh, system is disrupted from, you know, from gestation, uh, that you are far more likely to experience, you know, sort of disruption to your whole .Sense of sexual identity and, and
yes.
I will tell you that I think one of the things that's really interesting about this to me, and I would hope that if anyone listens to this, it's part of what they take away from it, is that I really do believe that there is a way to talk about this stuff, research this stuff in a way that is non pathologizing to the individual.
You know, like this is not, I think there's a question that's been present for a long time now in mental health, mental health research is to the extent that this stuff shifted so dramatically within the last 10 years or so. There are some questions that we can afford to ask around, you know, are, are, are people changing because the culture is shifting or is there something biological that's occurring in our environment that could account for things suddenly being different than they used to be?
Just even at the level of pure statistics? Right? I'm, I'm, I'm sure there are a lot of people who would say that there are, there have been people. Uh, experience themselves as non-binary on the gender spectrum, you know, hundreds of years ago and even earlier than that. But we're seeing a sharp rise in this, and I think that, I would like to think that we could ask the question of why, without anyone worrying that we're trying to make them wrong for how they experience themselves
Absolutely.
Or anything like that.
Absolutely. And I think if you look at it, you know, the, the, the, in our data, what we see is, you know, what is the percentage of people who identify that way? And in previous generations, let's say, you know, 45 and above, the number hovers between 0.1% to 0.2%. But if you look at Western countries, you know, so the United States, for instance, in 18 to 24, it's now as high as 10%, which is, you know, a hundred fold shift.
And if you're changing a hundred times, it's, you have to ask why in, in you. Why has that happened? It's, it, it a hundred fold shift is, is is quite a profound change.
Mm-hmm.
So, you know, I think there could be, it's probably a combination of multiple things, right? First, the, you know, it could certainly be, uh, you know, the toxin environment we live in, uh, and compounded with other sociocultural factors that, you know, amplify certain things.
You know, the internet and the way it allows things to.
One of the things that I'm curious about is that my understanding is that when you created the MHQ, you kind of used the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to inform some of the, you know, items that you created on the assessment and that kind of sta that kind of thing, but that it's not really meant to be DSM-based.
And I wonder if you can say a little bit more about kind of the totality of, of emotional functioning that you're looking to assess or like how you would want or not want that to track with our understanding of clinical syndrome.
Yeah, so, well, what I would say is, you know, so the DSM is a grouping of symptoms that, you know, uh, uh, are into disorders, and this grouping of symptoms is based on, you know, Sort of general clinical experience.
It's not based necessary, it's not based on any underlying causal factor or biological cause.
Yeah.
So what each, each disorder is, is saying that you know, here's a bunch of different symptoms and if you have few of them, we call it this. And so it's a little bit like, uh, let's say for example, I, you know, you listed different types of pains and cramps and things like that, that you could have and then say, you know, if you have enough, you know, I have a stomach cramp or pain or this or that, you could say, then you have general stomach disorder.
It doesn't really get into what are all the causes behind whatever pain is going on in your stomach. Yeah. Right. So it, that's, that's the nature of how the DSM is constructed. Now what, uh, that said, I mean it, the, obviously these various different disorders, look at all of this d these different aspects of mental function that people have had challenges with.
So the way the MHQ was constructed was to take 126 or so, uh, of these, uh, you know, commonly used assessments that are derived from the DSM and look at what are the symptoms that they're asking about, because we wanted to make sure that we covered the full range of symptoms that existed. And, uh, and then so, so that was the first part of the exercise is to say that let's, let's ensure that we have all of the symptoms.
And when you look at it, like in terms of categories, uh, we were able to sort of condense the categories of symptoms across all these DSM disorders into 47 main symptom categories. And so from there we looked at which of those symptoms or which of those aspects of mental function. Or actually, uh, uh, had a positive dimension because the DSM focuses on the negative end of the scale.
So, for example, if you have, I mean, you know, challenge like adaptability to change or something like that. You could be really good at it and it could be a real strength for you or you could really be struggling with with something like that. Right? Or, and, uh, so there's, you know, you could be, have an optimistic outlook or a very negative and pessimistic outlook.
So, you know, there's, there's. A spectrum for a lot of these.
Mm-hmm. So, you know, so we, we took all of those items from the DSM and we also looked across other types of psychological tools. The, the RDOC, which is another sort of dimensional framework created by the NIMH and looked for where we were, maybe some few things were missing.
And then, you know, that's, and brought all those together. So the idea was that the MHQ would be, you know, trans diagnostic in nature in the sense that it covers, uh, symptoms that span whatever is considered within all of the different disorder labels and also have a few other things and also include the positive end of the spectrum.
So that's, that's where it comes from. But what that also allows us to do is now understand like how do symptoms really like empirically, uh, group in the, you know, in the population and, and you know, what, what are the real groupings as opposed to the theoretical ones that have been, that form the DSM. And then if we look at what the empirical groupings are, do they actually form like specific symptom clusters, uh, that match to those labels? Or are, is it much more mixed or, uh, you know, how does that look? And then also can we identify different causal factors for each of those, uh, uh, symptom groups?
Wow. Is there anything that is jumping out at you from the research, uh, that just feels really interesting to you about that so far? Like what are you seeing in the data?
Well, one of the things Yeah, there, there, I mean, there's several things. I think one of the things that we see is that when we look at the totality of, of, uh, symptoms that a person has, they're, those who are saying would have a diagnosis of depression com are as different from one another. As those as the difference between those who have a.
Diagnosis of depression and those who have a diagnosis of autism or ADHD.
Yeah.
So there really isn't a lot of distinction, you know, between these different groups. And I think that's something that's, that's, uh, very interesting.
That is super interesting. Yeah. Do you wanna tell anybody a little bit about kind of what's next for you or what, what, what kind of territory you're moving into now with the research?
Yeah. I think, uh, you know, one of the, uh, You know, one dimension is of course getting broader across the globe. More languages, more uh, cultures, more more countries. Uh, but also connecting that, uh, you know, this, these mental wellbeing outcomes Back to the brain, I think is, is, you know, the direction that we're going now, now that, you know, post covid, all of these, uh, types of studies are, are possible.
So I think, you know, two big, uh, areas that we are, that we will, you know, focus on going forward are how do we, uh, , how do we understand the diversity of these of brain physiology in, in the context of mental wellbeing and what, you know, how do we relate brain to, to these men, uh, these mental outcomes. So really getting at that, I think is one of, one of our, uh, key goals.
The other, of course, is really to understand how .Do. How does the environment in fact impact, uh, the brain and these outcomes across development? And particularly to start looking more deeply at the toxin environment
mm-hmm.
that we are in and how that across the lifespan, uh, may influence is, is influencing, uh, outcomes as well.
Yeah. One of the things that comes to mind for me hearing you say that too, is I wonder if you have any thoughts about what we might be able to do with all of this data in terms of how can we maybe use it to actually kind of put it into practice and make a difference there? There
are a number of different dimensions.
I think when we think about the sociocultural aspect of it first, uh, you know, the how do we, how do we address all of these challenges that we're having. So for, you know, for example, uh, this issue we talked about of. Having diminished our, our, you know, our social education essentially, which is being out there as children, learning, uh, you know, how to operate in social environments.
And, uh, so, you know, one example would be understanding how schools can create a better environment so that, uh, it promotes pro-social learning. Uh, and, and, and I don't mean that from the perspective of, you know, teaching it in a classroom. Like I said, again, you've just. Create the environment where kids are getting out and doing it.
Yeah.
You know, and being more social. So, uh, that's one aspect. Uh, the others of course, you know, how do we, how do you use this research to advise families? And I don't know how much time we have, but I think there's, you know, some very, very interesting, uh, aspects coming out where, you know, we were talking about, uh, you know, you asked the question of what's different in the United States, but one of the things that we see also is that, Uh, you know, the rates of, uh, sexual abuse, uh, of physical assault, uh, you know, cyber bullying, they're all like, you know, on the rise and they're much, much higher among younger people.
And, uh, the United States sort of tops the list almost on, on these aspects, for instance. And on the other hand, you see many more kids saying that, you know, they're materially provided for and they have. You know, parents are very involved or invested in their academic accomplishments and things like that.
But, uh, on the other hand, you know, you have more, uh, young people saying they have, uh, they're experiencing, uh, lack of emotional warmth in the home and, uh, you know, psychological neglect or abuse and that kind of thing. And so the question is, you know, why, how have we come to that kind of environment?
And the other thing is, as mental wellbeing gets worse, those things will increase because, uh, you know, I don't know if you, you've probably heard that saying we see things as we are not as they are. Yeah. And, and the. You know, the more negative and the more, uh, troubled we are, the more we interpret the world in that way and react to it in that way.
Yes, absolutely. And I'm even thinking about specifically with this piece, the idea that performance oriented cultures, which, you know, English speaking cultures tend to be, are inversely correlated with positive mental health outcomes. Right. So it's, you know, to your point, if all of, if all of a child's material needs are met, but they're not experiencing much emotional warmth and they feel like the love they receive is dependent on their performance, you know, with their grades and that kind of stuff, that is not, that doesn't contribute positively to mental health outcomes.
Exactly.
So I think, you know, how can this research inform parents
mm-hmm.
in terms of how they think about, you know, uh, being a parent.
Mm-hmm.
and, uh, schools. And, and, and then I think from the perspective of toxins, if we are to, you know, as we get more data and are able to understand that, I think it can, uh, really, uh, feed into, you know, better recommendations for regulation.
Mm, mm-hmm.
you know, those sorts of things so that our, we, we create a, a safer environment for future generations.
Absolutely. Well, how can people either follow your work or support your work? How do people stay abreast of everything?
Yeah, I think we can, uh, you know, you can come to our web, our website has a lot of material that we publish and, you know, you can, uh, follow us, uh, on our sign up for our, our newsletter. Follow us there.
Sapienlabs.org, right?
Sapienlabs.org. You can, you know, sign up for our newsletter, uh, you know, go to our donate page and, you know, contribute to moving this work along.
Beautiful. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you want people to know?
Oh, I think we've covered everything.
Okay, great.
Thanks a lot.
Great. Thank you, Leslie.
You've been listening to episode six of the Third season of The Nature of Nurture, and I wanna thank you for joining us. If you would like to connect with Tara, you can find her at sapienlabs.org. And if you'd like to connect with me, you can find me@lesliecarr.com. If you found this conversation valuable, please let me know by leaving a review or a rating.
It helps immensely to get the word out about the podcast and into the ears of those who may need it most. It'll also help me to understand what you're getting out of our conversations. You can also subscribe if you haven't already, and any podcast app that you can get your hands on. This episode is our last for season three, but I'm curious to know if you have any thoughts about future content or interview guests.
If you have suggestions, you can always email them to me@lesliecarr.com. Apart from that, I just wanna thank you for listening. Many thanks as well to my producer and sound editor, Amanda Roscoe Mayo, and to Tara for having this conversation with me. Thank you as well to Donie Odulio for the artwork, and thank you to Steve Van Dyck, Lee and Tyler Sargent, and Joe Potts for the permission to use their music.
The band was called Clown Down.