What is Fear? Memory, Emotion & the Malleability of the Mind | Daniela Schiller

What if our memories weren’t fixed, but flexible? And what if the key to understanding fear, emotion, and consciousness lies in how the brain constantly reshapes experience?

In this episode of Mind-Body Solution, Dr Tevin Naidu speaks with Prof Daniela Schiller, a world-renowned neuroscientist, and director of the Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience at Mount Sinai. Prof Schiller’s groundbreaking work explores how we form, change, and even reimagine emotional memories, from the neuroscience of fear to the dynamic nature of consciousness and identity.

Together, we dive into:
How fear memories are formed in the brain
Why emotional responses are flexible, not hardwired
The ethics of modifying traumatic memories
Social navigation: how the brain maps human relationships
The Human Affectome: a bold framework linking emotion and consciousness
Can machines ever be conscious? Free will, probabilities, and neuroscience
Memory as liberation: how to live with multiple stories of the self

Prof Schiller is not only a world-leading neuroscientist with work published in Nature, Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, and PNAS, she’s also a Fulbright Fellow, Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, two-time Moth StorySLAM winner, and drummer for the rock band "The Amygdaloids".

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Introduction: Daniela Schiller on the Science of Emotion & Memory
0:39 – From Animal Models to Human Fear Studies: Schiller’s Journey
2:00 – What Happens in the Brain When a Fear Memory is Formed?
3:15 – Flexibility of Emotional Responses: Why Fear Is Not Hardwired
4:51 – Computational Psychiatry & the Brain as an Algorithmic System
6:00 – From Circuits to Consciousness: Can Neuroscience Explain Subjective Experience?
7:11 – The Human Affectome: A Framework Linking Emotion and Consciousness
9:13 – What Is Consciousness? Felt Experience as the Core of Mind
11:04 – Social Navigation: Mapping Human Relationships in the Brain
14:02 – How Social Media Distorts Real Interaction and Social Space
18:15 – Ethics of Modifying Traumatic Memories: Liberation or Risk?
21:27 – Are Emotions Brain Events, Bodily Events, or Psychological Phenomena?
23:16 – The 4E Approach: Embedded, Embodied, Enactive, and Extended Cognition
24:00 – Bringing Philosophy Into Neuroscience: The Human Affectome Project
27:03 – Exciting Advances: Intracranial Recordings, VR, and Naturalistic Neuroscience
33:11 – Can Artificial Intelligence or Machines Ever Be Conscious?
36:26 – Free Will and Probabilities: Neuroscience Meets Philosophy
41:12 – Overcoming Fear as Liberation: Redefining Memory and Identity
46:09 – Living With Multiple Stories: Memory, Authenticity, and Self-Creation
1:02:24 – Future Directions: Reconsolidation, Social Space, and the Human Affectome

EPISODE LINKS:
Daniela' Website: https://profiles.mountsinai.org/danie...
Daniela's Lab: https://labs.neuroscience.mssm.edu/pr...
Daniela's Publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/d...

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Mind-Body Solution brings together the world’s foremost thinkers—from science, philosophy, and beyond—to explore life’s most profound questions. This channel bridges the gap between popular media and academia, offering deep, thought-provoking conversations about consciousness, reality, meaning, and more. With rigorous yet accessible discussions, you'll uncover the complexity and wonder of the mind-body problem and the mysteries that shape our existence. Join Dr Tevin Naidu—your host and guide—on a quest to conquer the Mind-Body Problem. Subscribe now and take one step closer to the Mind-Body Solution.

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#DanielaSchiller #Consciousness #Emotion #Memory