Vagus Nerve Memory, Cat Cancer Genes, Inherited Intelligence, Mulberry Microbes, and Vitamin D

Dave Asprey (0:01)

I'm Dave Asprey. That's Dave spelled D-A-I-V-E. And this is your 10-minute weekly upgrade on the biggest stories in biohacking, longevity, and the world of health. Let's go.

Every breakthrough in human performance comes down to one thing, just changing your state. And right now, the science and the technology and the ancient practices are converging faster than you realize. For 50 years, bad policy and stigma blocked scientific researchers from studying some of the most powerful tools for the human brain. And that just changed. This October, the researchers, the clinicians, the guys, pioneers in consciousness, tech, and psychedelics are all going to be under one roof in Austin, and you can be there too with me. For the first time ever, I'm hosting and operating Beyond Wonderland. Two full days where you'll learn the science and the practice of changing your state, and you'll get to talk to the researchers doing it. You'll learn how these tools unlock a version of yourself you didn't know existed. You'll find talks about altered states with or without the psychedelics, a tech hall where you can try the tools yourself, breakout sessions, breathwork, ceremony, integration circles, and more. This field is moving really fast, and the people who are here in Austin on October 13th and 14th with me are going to be years ahead of everyone who finds out about this later. Learn more. Get your ticket now at wonderlandconference.com.

Modern life keeps your nervous system in overdrive. Most solutions try to change your brain chemistry, but your body also runs on electrical signals and rhythms. Your brain uses electrical waves, your heart beats in patterns, and your nervous system sends signals through tiny pulses. Light and sound are also forms of energy your body can sense. Scientists have studied them for decades because certain wavelengths and frequencies influence how cells and nerves respond. That's why I use The One Device. It combines light and sound in a wearable. It sends gentle signals your body can respond to while you work, meditate or wind down. Most wearables just track stress. The One Device supports your nervous system directly without any Bluetooth or EMFs. People who wear it report sleeping more deeply and feeling calmer, more focused, energized and grounded. It's wearable frequency support you can use all day long. Learn more at theonedevice.com/dave.

First story of the week. Researchers are looking at whether electrically stimulating your ear can improve memory. And yes, there is real biology underneath this. A branch of your vagus nerve runs through parts of the outer ear, which gives researchers a non-invasive way to send a signal into brain stem networks involved in attention, learning, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, inflammation and brain plasticity. In one small randomized trial, 60 people with mild cognitive impairment received either active ear stimulation or sham stimulation. The active group used it for 30 minutes twice a day, 5 days a week for 24 weeks. On one general cognitive test, the active group improved by about 3.2 points compared with 0.3 points in the sham group. That gets my attention. There's also separate MRI evidence showing that vagus stimulation at the ear can change connectivity between brain regions involved in memory and language. But here's where I want you to be careful. Changing brain connectivity is not the same thing as preventing Alzheimer's. Improving a cognitive test over six months is not the same thing as removing amyloid, changing tau or preventing neurodegeneration. I've been speaking about vagus nerve stimulation for years, because your nervous system is one of the highest leverage control systems in the body. But I would not buy an ear stimulation device because somebody tells you it prevents Alzheimer's. We're nowhere near that claim. But we have plenty of other proven use cases for a vagus nerve stimulator.

Now let's move from human brains to cats.

Researchers sequenced tumors from 493 cats across 13 different cancer types, and they found something that matters far beyond veterinary medicine. A lot of the same growth control genes that go wrong in human cancer also show up in cats.

TP53 mutations appeared in about a third of the feline tumors, which is remarkably close to what you see across human cancers. They also found changes involving MYC, PTE-N, PIK3CA, and several other pathways anybody who follows oncology will recognize. One of the more interesting findings was in feline mammary cancer, where mutations in a gene called FBXW7 showed up in a large percentage of tumors. Researchers then grew a tiny number of these tumors in three-dimensional models, and found that the ones carrying the mutation responded differently to certain chemotherapy drugs. What interests me is the model itself. Most of what we know about experimental cancer treatments comes from cells in dishes or genetically engineered mice. Your cat is genetically diverse, lives in the same house you do, drinks the same water, breathes the same air, and develops cancer spontaneously. That creates an interesting bridge between highly controlled laboratory biology and messy real-world biology.