Russell A. Poldrack

if you fail to uh to achieve it so for example um there's a there's a radio lab episode a while ago that talked about this woman named zelda gamsen who had been a kind of a like lifelong activist for racial equality and she really wanted to stop smoking and so basically um she at some point said to one of her friends if i ever smoke again i'm going to give 5 000 to the ku klux klan um

And so, you know, that and assuming that she was going to be held to that bargain, you know, that's a very powerful motivator, right, for much more powerful than you can imagine it would have been if she had said that to herself. And there's some work showing that, you know, people have set up kind of apps to do these kind of like commitment devices.

And so, you know, that and assuming that she was going to be held to that bargain, you know, that's a very powerful motivator, right, for much more powerful than you can imagine it would have been if she had said that to herself. And there's some work showing that, you know, people have set up kind of apps to do these kind of like commitment devices.

And so, you know, that and assuming that she was going to be held to that bargain, you know, that's a very powerful motivator, right, for much more powerful than you can imagine it would have been if she had said that to herself. And there's some work showing that, you know, people have set up kind of apps to do these kind of like commitment devices.

And the research shows that if you do it publicly, it's substantially more powerful than if you just kind of do it for yourself.

And the research shows that if you do it publicly, it's substantially more powerful than if you just kind of do it for yourself.

And the research shows that if you do it publicly, it's substantially more powerful than if you just kind of do it for yourself.

know i think that in the future we may understand more about exactly how to more kind of almost surgically get rid of habits there's some really interesting stuff some findings with people a small number of people who've had strokes in a particular part of the brain who basically wake up after their stroke and are no longer interested in in smoking they were smokers before their stroke the stroke causes a lesion in this particular part of the brain called the insula and suddenly they no longer have the desire to smoke

know i think that in the future we may understand more about exactly how to more kind of almost surgically get rid of habits there's some really interesting stuff some findings with people a small number of people who've had strokes in a particular part of the brain who basically wake up after their stroke and are no longer interested in in smoking they were smokers before their stroke the stroke causes a lesion in this particular part of the brain called the insula and suddenly they no longer have the desire to smoke

know i think that in the future we may understand more about exactly how to more kind of almost surgically get rid of habits there's some really interesting stuff some findings with people a small number of people who've had strokes in a particular part of the brain who basically wake up after their stroke and are no longer interested in in smoking they were smokers before their stroke the stroke causes a lesion in this particular part of the brain called the insula and suddenly they no longer have the desire to smoke

And so the question is whether you can harness – obviously, we don't want to go like damage people's brains just to stop them from smoking because that could have other impacts as well. But to the degree that that tells us something about how we might go in and sort of more precisely –

And so the question is whether you can harness – obviously, we don't want to go like damage people's brains just to stop them from smoking because that could have other impacts as well. But to the degree that that tells us something about how we might go in and sort of more precisely –

And so the question is whether you can harness – obviously, we don't want to go like damage people's brains just to stop them from smoking because that could have other impacts as well. But to the degree that that tells us something about how we might go in and sort of more precisely –

alter the function of the brain for people where that sort of thing would be worthwhile to help break a really kind of a life-damaging habit. I think that, you know, in the next few decades, we're going to understand a lot more from neuroscience about how to potentially do that.

alter the function of the brain for people where that sort of thing would be worthwhile to help break a really kind of a life-damaging habit. I think that, you know, in the next few decades, we're going to understand a lot more from neuroscience about how to potentially do that.

alter the function of the brain for people where that sort of thing would be worthwhile to help break a really kind of a life-damaging habit. I think that, you know, in the next few decades, we're going to understand a lot more from neuroscience about how to potentially do that.