Brain, Hope, Reality: PTSI not PTSD | Hosted by Dr. Eugene Lipov

Dr. Eugene Lipov (00:01.764)
Welcome to the next Brain Hope Reality episode. I think we have a very special guest today, Lauren, all the way from Istanbul. And it's an interesting story how she and I met, but I think if she can give us a quick background where she's at, we'll start the show. Lauren, you're on. Welcome to Chicago. Well, thank you very much. And thank you for that warm welcome and introduction. So I'm an author. I've had the honor of getting to work with a variety of

really remarkable individuals. I've done some books with Delta Force, Navy SEALs, quite a few military based. All my books have a theme of someone overcoming adversity, something about human triumph, something about hope. I just finished one for the lovely Bibi Aisha. was that young woman on the cover of Time Magazine. It has a really compelling story. And now, most recently, you and I getting a chance to work together. Thank you.

And have a good time. We had a great time. It has been, I have written a book before. It was a labor of pain. So as I was telling my co-author that a book about trauma should not be traumatic to the people. But unfortunately it was and I will own up my part to it, but it has been challenging. So actually I swore of writing books at that point because it was a little too painful for me.

And then through a very interesting circumstance, Laura and I connected. And I think one thing we definitely shared is the love for the special force community and veterans and military personnel in general. But I have had an absolute honor taking care of special forces from United States and Canada. So I do understand that kind of personality style. I've never been anything like that, but having done trauma surgery, I kind of understand what it...

takes, I think, to be that type of individual. So, I've never really had an author on this podcast. Happy to be the first. Thank you. Thanks for coming. We've had scientists, we've had military personnel, a couple of guys from Special Forces from Canada, never an author. So, what was your most interesting book that you wrote, you think, and why? What a great question. I like all books for different reasons and, you know...

Dr. Eugene Lipov (02:24.58)
I don't publicly pick a favorite because then I feel like I'm picking a favorite child, you know? Right, exactly. They're all beautiful in their own special ways. all. You're all my favorite. You're all special to me in some way. I really, I've written 12 now. Yours will be the 12th, let's say. And I've just met some extraordinary individuals. Probably Bibi Aisha, young Afghan woman who was on the cover of Time. Her story's really interesting. And there's a lot more complexities to that story when she went through. of course,

Trauma plays a big role in that as well. So I think that was a very compelling story. There's another one that's about to be released with a former Delta Force operator named Tyler Gray. And I know you're a good friend of Tyler's as well. Amazing man. His I love because sometimes war stories become this, let's tell combat stories, let's say, hero's tale. And Tyler is great because he really was very real, very raw.

talks a lot about the identity fracture that can take place when your identity has become being that warrior and then you return to a different environment. There's some other things that he addresses there like chaos addiction and some other things. It's really deep, a really fresh perspective. I really enjoyed working with him. So I would say all remarkable projects have had the opportunity to do, but definitely put a lot of heart and soul into those in particular.

One that's about to be released with a green beret named Daryl Et. Great to Glory. That was a good one. Sounds like as you said, they're all yours. Until yours. I see. Well, mine will be very different. It's not going to be nearly as much combat. So, well, if you don't mind, let's talk about the book. Yeah, Since you're here, why not? Why not? Why not? So the name of the book is the same as the podcast. What do know? Shocking. Brain Hope Reality. And then...

So the idea behind the book is to kind of make neuroscience accessible to the masses, so to speak. It doesn't have to be this extremely boring, painful... Dry. It's like, my God, really? have to remember every... I remember... a textbook. Exactly. I remember taking neuroscience in medical school. It shouldn't give you like some idea being in school with a teacher over you, ready to grade you. And I think the way you...

Dr. Eugene Lipov (04:48.548)
I think first of all, we get along well with people which is helpful. But the other part is I think you can take some of the stuff I kind of spot off and you make it meaningful to read. I think we've come up with is each chapter has a unique, at least one unique picture, which I think is really going to be very helpful because what I find a lot of books, kind of visual information is very useful. Not necessarily exactly how the brain works, all the fine...

Either it is necessary, but I think the real stories are there like stories of I think my stories of trauma They're there. I think to illustrate what got me to what I've gotten to but most of it is actually not necessarily about me. It's about You know, what a suicide how do you get out of suicide? And it's ultimately if you look at the focus of the podcast and the book It's hope if you have no hope like my mother lost hope and she died by her own hand

Hope is really important and a real hope you can have because a lot of times what I find in my clinical practice is that people come in and they lost all hope. Hope is Let's try everything. Really, especially when it comes to mental health. I hope is that life force we need. We really need it. I think what I love about working with you is that you take a subject matter that for some people sounds really scary, you know, it sounds complex, sounds academic.

But what I love is that you embrace metaphor. And I think we've embraced a lot of metaphors in the book that give you some kind of picture that you're able to understand your body. that's what my fight and flight system's like. okay, that's what the amygdala does. So we make it friendly and relatable, but I think the knowledge really is power. When you're armed with the ability to understand your own body and how it works, it removes a lot of stigma. And we've talked about this a lot. There's a lot of stigma in mental health that we feel like we need to whisper about it.

It belongs in the shadows. But this show is like, these are physical things that are happening. This is how your body works. And embrace that curiosity metaphor, little humor there here and there when we can. So that, you shouldn't feel traumatized by reading a book about trauma. No, exactly. I agree with that. But that apart, I think part of it, it's kind of a mystery story in certain ways. All the permeations of craziness that I've had to go in this whole.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (07:11.646)
method of trying to open up a new door in medicine, I never quite understood how difficult it is until I've run across the people who try to hold it back. And we still in absolute debate with American Psychiatric Association about the name change PTSD to PTSI, post-traumatic stress injury. And really quickly, reason that came about, PTSI term was invented by Dr. Ogbur.

very famous psychiatrist, he came up with the term Stockholm syndrome. So he believed that PTSD is actually stigmatizing. So I did study showing that and I showed it to the PA and I go, that's fascinating, but not enough information. we are well in our way, hopefully, to move that along. But it may be tomorrow. It may be never. I'm hoping it'll be within a year. But in a way, in a real sense, the name change can save lives because

Actually, maybe you can recite the story about the Air Force man that was your Uber driver. this was amazing on the drive here. This is unprompted. Yeah, totally unprompted. You know, I left the airport and I had to make a run to Target to get a couple of essentials. And then he comes, he's my Uber driver. He's in the Air Force. And, you know, we strike up a conversation and he begins talking and he's telling me things, you know, and he's talking about some anxiety and some things.

Suddenly I began to just kind of ask him questions and I began to explain, say, you know, I'm here in town, we're, you know, doing some work together with the doctor. And you know that now we can see the changes in the brain, on brain scans of what trauma does to the brain. And he's like, man, I said, it's not just, you know, all in your head, it's not just mental. There are physical changes that's happened to your body. And we began to talk about the implications of that. We talked about the chaos addiction that happens, especially for warriors in particular. And...

You know, I said, you know, now we have more available treatments, just like an injured arm. said, you know, you wouldn't be ashamed right now. You wouldn't be afraid to tell your friends if you had a broken arm. You'd say, hey man, sign my cast. Up top, bro, you know. Even as a source of pride sometimes, you know, for warriors to have certain types of injuries. Look at my scar. But we don't feel the same about the mind because we in some way feel like it's a moral failing, I think. We feel shame. Or weakness. Or weakness. We feel shame. And so I think one of the reasons that drew me to this book project.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (09:37.806)
when you explain the name change from disorder to PTSI and injury is it shows that this is treatable. It shows that this is physical and something that, and that offers hope. I think it also would allow many warriors who are suffering, but you go from feeling so empowered as a warrior and then suddenly feeling like everything's not okay, but you're trained to give to the team, don't take from it. You are trained to.

Suffer in silence and you don't have some dirt in it. Exactly and without knowing that there is a clear treatment option available Your fear is that you're just gonna be branded and labeled and then you're gonna you know People are gonna relate to you differently. So to me the name change is so important I think disorder definitely carries with it some heavy stigma that's hard I think especially for warriors to wrap their mind around injury denote something that hey, we're gonna get past this

So one of the reasons I was very drawn to this project was particularly your work with the name change. Thank you. So part of, know, like I've been, I gave a speech at the conference in 2016, the name of this non-for-profit is Invisible Wounds. So when people say that to me, my answer to them, it's invisible if you have the wrong scanner. You have the modern scanners, right? Like a PET scan or functional MRI scan that can actually looks inside the brain.

You can actually see that migdala activation. So there is a study being done at NYU actually looking at brain changes that can be reversed by using the procedures that I do or kind of stuff I came up with. So I think that what we hoping to do with the book is talk about that trauma is real. Mental trauma is definitely real. And then you can do something about it. So that's, should be hope.

And when somebody says it's all in your head, whatever, it's like, well, it is in your brain, but it's actually a reversible condition. So you can have a real life. The other thing is people don't talk about is the physiologic cost of mental health. So it's well known that when somebody has PTSD, chance of, well, the reason I say PTSD just for simplicity sake, I prefer PTSD. Anyway, somebody has PTSD.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (11:57.444)
the chance of heart attacks is two times higher. So also the aging is sped up. So we are actually about to submit a study that shows that when you treat PTSD successfully using Stelagangram block or DSR, the more advanced version of it, it seems to reverse the DNA changes and be using epigenetic clocks. Our partner is UCLA, so they're like the big cocoon in the space. So I think you can really...

see the change. if the point is there is a price to pay if your PTSD persists or the heart attack, right? Increased aging. The other thing is 85 % of men have sexual dysfunction. It's a big concern. That's a big number. Yeah. So the way I explained to the guys usually is if you're running from a tiger, then you don't want anything sticking out. And it's a kind of simple thing. That's I can say visual because it doesn't help a relationship.

when that part doesn't work and just it's part of life. In fact, we are also submitting another article. We were able to treat a number of couples from Fort Campbell. And what I look at as PTSD, so let's say a man has PTSD, it's not always male, of course, they can give it to the woman and the children. It's called secondary PTSD. So you have this, you can look at it as an infective agent.

In fact, one the chapters we're gonna have is PTSD being mosquitoes. Yeah, but that's what I love about your, you know, the way that you go about is you're treating whole families. And I think part of your story, I'm a storyteller, I love story. And when I listened and I, you know, was able to capture, you know, what made you who you are. And I think generational trauma, secondary PTSD is so important. The people closest to us.

No, you know, just like if you get a stomach bug, you know, it always passes through the family. You know, you have it one day and then the wife comes down with it the next day and the kids. I mean, it's very similar this way. then the generational aspects, I mean, that gets into epigenetics and all that. know, so you can actually. So my grandfather, he was abused in Russia or was Ukraine at that time. Then he gave to my father. So my father was involved in some really horrible stuff in World War Two fighting against Nazis.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (14:17.412)
and that passed on to me in genetics. So when people, a lot of people throw terminology, epigenetics, half the people don't know what they're saying. So I have a degree in genetics from 1980. That's nice. That's nice, but it's irrelevant because epigenetics as a study of science only came out 18 years ago. I didn't realize it was that recent actually. It's new. It's a whole new science. But the whole concept that you can activate different genes.

without mutations is a big concept. And then you can give it a couple of generations. That's even crazier. Right. So if you think about it from that perspective, so one of my fear, I don't know who said that, whoever said it was brilliant individual, nature loads the gun and then environment or experience fires it. So you may have predilection to have PTSD, but if you're in this very calm, peaceful environment, you're not going to have PTSD.

So you have a predilection. So I had a predilection to it and I was certainly not living in a peaceful environment. That is very true. So that's true for many, many, many, many people. You know, could of course use very high tech terminology, but the whole concept, if you think about why would God make this physiologically? So let's say you are a caveman 20,000 years ago, right? So now your family is being chased around by 72 tigers.

Not a good thing, So if that's the case, so now you're hiding in the cave. So you're not, you can't sleep, right? Because you need to be half awake or you're going to eat. shouldn't be having sex. Well, also having children. Yeah. You don't want to take a lot of energy. Right. So the equipment is not going to work so good. Right. And you're always, you're on pins and needles, right? But that's PTSD, right? But then if your children are born into the same pride right next to it.

You want the children also to be rubbed up like you. So, but you stay stuck in that state. Correct. But there is a physiologic way of reversing it. So I personally like DSR or Stalagangdian block because I came up with it, but there are other modalities such as TMS, is a magnetic way of modulating the brain. Ketamine a lot of times is very helpful. Mushrooms I think is very helpful. Psilocybin. Some of other ones I'm not a fan of, but if want to get into it.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (16:43.192)
But there will be a chapter on that in But I think there's going to be some very interesting chapters. And the idea again is to kind of bring neurosciences to the masses, so to speak. That's the goal there. With storytelling and some interesting things. And again, as we said, the knowledge is power. know, if epigenetics loads the gun. But if you know, if you understand what's happening, if you can take choices that are preventative or supportive,

then it's gonna be a huge factor in the outcome and quality of their life. Right. We're preventative and also once you have the signs of it, you should get treated. Yes. Right. So I'm a treater. diagnosis is key. So one of the ways to do this is PCL, PTSD checklist, and it's available if you put in PCL-5 on the web. can look at it. If you're over 45, you probably have at least some of symptoms of that.

You don't want to ignore it at this point. And if your spouse has that or significant other has that, you don't want to ignore that because you can have like a quiet desperation life, which is not a way to live. at all. And it leads to marital disharmony. It leads to early heart attacks. And the children are like walking around, like around my father, had to walk around. It's like, well, because, you know, he's been through a lot and he's tried.

coming to United States was also very stressful for him. And I don't blame him for that, but it was not an easy way to navigate life. Yeah, absolutely. And that early childhood is so important, and I think for any parent to that awareness to say the environment that I'm creating for my child, by my choices, my mood, my health, actually we create the environment that our children grow up in. And so the healthier you are, the more your child is growing up in an environment because...

It's everything's being shaped in those early times. And so it's, you I think even more important. And I think sometimes I think there's many of us that have a difficulty taking time to prioritize our own health. but when you look at children or family, sometimes you can do it for them. You can do it for them first. can say like, you know what? I gotta get better. I gotta do this. can, but if you're healthy enough, so we've taken care of a lot of patients whose parents were schizophrenia. Yeah. And they got really screwed up from that.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (19:00.936)
That's pretty hard because there's no consistency. Children need consistency and peace and quiet. Yeah, that provides that safety. Exactly. What do you think is the thing that you're hoping the most that people learn or know? I know we've talked about a lot of things in the book. I think hope is optimum, besides hope. think if people... Arguably, I'm an educator, so I think if people understand their bodies...

in a very understandable fashion, because a lot of times if you read that, you start getting it, like, there's so much detail. Yeah. It's like, what's fascinating. Corpus callosum is like, do I care about that part of the brain? Okay. It connects two structures, but we don't care about that. So I think if people can take away a couple of things, one, that there's only a couple of structures you need to know. amygdala, hypochampus, prefrontal cortex.

I think if you got that, I think you're doing pretty good. And interaction between them. And it's weird because in the modern age with scans, you can actually see what's happening in the brain. For example, Tetris game, which I play every day now. I thought this was so interesting about Tetris. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. So the way it actually came about is weird. I've never heard of it. So somebody calls me out and they're we need an expert on Tetris, how it helps PTSD in California. I was like,

And who's never heard of it? Yeah, self-proclaimed Tetris expert. I know it was never me. So they sent me a paper and I go read that, know, do something with it. So I read about it. was like, it's fascinating. So Tetris, I was in game forever. So it turns out that the way activates hippocampus. Hippocampus is part of the brain that there's no test at the end of this, by the way. Hippocampus is part of the brain that improves memory. So that's where the memory lives.

So, but also happy campus suppresses amygdala. Amygdala controls PTSD. See, getting old neuroscientists, you're ready to be a neuroscientist. Anyway, so the strongest happy campus, the more you remember and the more you can suppress the amygdala. So prefrontal cortex, remember I said there's only three structures you gotta know. So PFC, prefrontal cortex, also can suppress amygdala. So the game you can play to activate prefrontal cortex.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (21:26.22)
and activate the happy campus is Mario Brothers. Mario Brothers. All right. Why? I don't know. Interesting. I am in like, it's just how it is. we can. Tetris, Mario Brothers. If you play And you told me something about Wasabi. Well, Wasabi, because we'll talk about Wasabi in second. But Wasabi, real Wasabi. Real Wasabi. Yeah. It has, there was a study done in Japan, shockingly, that. What do know?

Wasabi has some amazing biological processes which it repairs the brain and makes it grow back. So then I went on a quest to find real wasabi in the United States. Did you? Maybe. I did find it. It took a year. So I knew I was in trouble when I went to this. So what's difference in real and fake? Let's just get that clear first. Take out sushi. What are they serving us? Okay. Good question.

Slow it down, slow it down. So one of my friends owns a sushi restaurant. That's a good friend. I want a friend that owns a sushi restaurant. He's Chinese. He charged me the same amount. Maybe extra actually. Anyway, so said, hey, do have wasabi here? yeah, we have real wasabi. Absolutely. So brings out this big ass bag and it says not real wasabi, radish. Basically what people do in the United States, they take horse radish, paint it green and they call it wasabi.

It's like cheese products. It's like yellow-blue. Yeah, something like that. Or daimonyk. It's not really daimonyk. It's not the same thing. Anyway, so what's interesting about wasabi, you need to grow it the right way, has to be right temperature, needs to be cold, clear water, blah, blah, blah. So there's one place I found an amazing man in the United States who does grow it. It's in North Carolina. okay. So a one-month supply is $80.

Wow. It ain't cheap. In one month. So we're talking how much you're eating a day. It's just two capsules. taking capsules. Two capsules. Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not eating. That part, essentially, wasabi is not nearly as intense as horseradish. it's not really as intense. Anyway, so the combination, I'm also into synergy. I'm trying to combine things. So if you combine Tetris and wasabi together, that seems to be in synergy between the two of them. Eat wasabi, play Tetris.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (23:48.728)
Not at the same time, you know somewhere in the neighborhood, but you know, there's biological ways to improve it Are you good at Mario Brothers? No, I haven't no I haven't set it up yet. I kind of hard on the phone. I tried once I tried once and It's I'm driving the car off the cliffs. I'm I was like the last player I've never had an interest like peach I've never had interest in any gaming. I don't have I really

And I'm terrible at it, but I don't want to. I don't want to. But if it's that I'm but I got to do it when people make me wait now in line or I sit in airplane. I turn on my Tetris. I'm playing my Tetris. Yeah, it's easy. The other one is a little more involved, think. Yeah. But actually, we are submitting an article to American Psychiatric Station for next year about my two brothers and Tetris because most clinicians never heard of

Nor do they know the mechanistic. I mean, why does it work? But if you understand why, I think it's better. But those kind of things, as Kevin found in his Neurosciences, once you understand those basic three structures, can see if you can... things that can calm down the amygdala, right? Prefrontal cortex, the other way can grow it is through meditation. So meditation will suppress the amygdala. Who knew? Now we know why it's working. But it's been shown... This is all data.

It's nothing, it's a novel way of putting it together. And again, the idea behind the book is, think part of it is to learn, part of it is to be entertained, part of it to understand how your body works. A basic framework, because then everything else makes sense, but that is a backdrop, a framework of understanding how it works. And I think it's going to work to also improve the life quality of so many people. mean, our brains are really the most important thing. Well, prolong their life. Absolutely. So the whole thing about

Healthspan versus Lifespan. So Lifespan is how long you live, Healthspan is how long you live healthy. So the idea is to promote the healthspan. Yeah, because you want quality of life. You don't want just a prolonged existence of suffering or sickness. Quality of life. And we have science available now. We have so many preventative and supportive things that we can do. think why not? But I think what's great about listening to you is that you provide simple ways of thinking about things that sound complicated.

Dr. Eugene Lipov (26:12.484)
We have injected a little humor here and there having fun while we do it. Yeah, I think it would be a good book and we may actually have an amazing announcement later, which will dangle it out there. Yeah, we'll dangle it. We'll see how it goes. making a sizzle reel. A sizzle, if you know what a sizzle is. a sizzle. Not bacon. Definitely not bacon. Different kind of sizzle. So I hope we'll be a successful...

Absolutely. At least the journey's been fun. It won't be dull. We'll have nice pictures. Never. Well, thank you, my friend. me turn this off. I think I have the right button. Probably not. Okay, leave. And session for all.