mayim bialik neuroscience thesis

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Mayim Bialik ’00, PhD.’07

Posted On - May 22, 2015

Does Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler on the ABC sitcom Big Bang Theory seem a little familiar to you? Maybe it's because you had a class with her at UCLA. Actress Mayim Bialik ’00, PhD.’07 who plays delightfully smart, funny and nerdy Amy earned her undergraduate, and doctorate degrees at UCLA. The actress even shares a similar field of study with her TV alter ego – Amy Farrah Fowler holds a doctorate in neuro-biology, while actress Bialik holds a doctorate in neuroscience.

From 1991 to 1995, Bialik played the eponymous role on NBC's Blossom , where she explored life's issues with slightly older and more experienced friend Six. Although “This week on a very special episode of Blossom …” became a standard punch line, the show earned wide respect for mixing drama with comedy in a frank exploration of weighty topics, such as substance abuse and having sex for the first time.

When Blossom ended, Bialik enrolled at UCLA, earning degrees in neuroscience, Jewish studies and Hebrew. She took a break from live acting, though she did voice work on some animated series, including Johnny Bravo, Hey Arnold and Kim Possible .

In 2005, Bialik took time out of her graduate studies in neuroscience to step in front of the cameras again, playing a fictionalized version of herself on Kirsty Alley's pseudo-reality Showtime series, Fat Actress . Bialik stole the show in a two-episode story arc, in which she reminds Alley that she is a genius by figuring out Alley's digital security code. Bialik also tapped into her neuroscience background, tells Alley about the Koi Theory of weight loss – a body shrinks to fit miniature surroundings – which turns out to be part Bialik’s evil revenge scheme.

Bialik first gained attention and critical praise playing a childhood version of Bette Midler's character in the 1988 film Beaches . Her other more recent appearances include the feature films Kalamazoo? (2005) and The Chicago 8 (2011) and television shows Curb Your Enthusiasm, Bones, Saving Grace and The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

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The Truth About Mayim Bialik's Education

Mayim Bialik is potentially best known for playing Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler in the cult classic TV series "The Big Bang Theory." The immensely popular show followed the trials and tribulations of a group of scientists, and Bialik's background gave her a perfect stepping stone into the role. So, here's the truth about Mayim Bialik's education. National Geographic points out that with a PhD in neurosciences under her belt, Bialik was one actor on set who really knew what she was talking about.

One of the funniest things about Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler is how she intellectually stands toe to toe with Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons). The Guardian details that, like Amy, Bialik has a PhD. She told the publication that her research was in "Obsessive-compulsive disorder in a population of individuals with a genetic syndrome called Prader-Willi syndrome." Impressive, right?

She told USA Today that she studied at UCLA while raising her children — no small task. "I studied neuroscience as my undergraduate degree. I did a minor in Hebrew and Jewish studies, which kept my GPA up and therefore my morale because science was still really hard for me. I was a late bloomer," she said. "So I did my undergrad for five years and then I went directly to the grad program, the PhD program at UCLA."

Mayim Bialik's PhD helped her play Amy

Mayim Bialik told Neil deGrasse Tyson in National Geographic that her background in the sciences helped her play Amy but has also informed her career after the show. She still works in TV but also has a YouTube channel and is a big advocate for women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

"It's really neat that I get to play a neuroscientist on TV, but I think every student is inspired by something different. That's why it's important for us as teachers — and people in the position to mentor — to be able to provide girls with as many realistic science situations as possible," she told Forbes . "To show them that not everyone starts as a scientist but you can still be interested in it later in life."

While Bialik's scientific background came in handy while she was learning her lines, she told The Guardian that she was far from the only qualified person on set. "We actually have a physics consultant, Dr. David Saltzberg. He is from UCLA and he's the one who is in charge of all that. It is very important for our show and for our producers that we do that," she said. "A lot of our writers have science backgrounds and everything is Google-able so a lot of their stuff comes from the internet too. All of our writers are really bright."

Why This 'Big Bang Theory' Star Got a Ph.D. in Science

Mayim Bialik tells Neil DeGrasse Tyson about transitioning from acting to neuroscience—then playing a scientist on The Big Bang Theory.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: So in your childhood, were there any science influences?

Mayim Bialik: There were a few. In junior high school I had a physics teacher who was very eccentric and would sometimes fall asleep while showing us slide shows, but he was a brilliant physicist. I went to a very unusual school: The 1980s sitcom Head of the Class, about a group of very smart and precocious children, was actually based on the school I went to. After junior high I had tutors on set because I was on this show Blossom from the time I was 14 to 19—

NT: No, you were not “on the show”—you were Blossom, to make that clear.

MB: Um, yes. OK. [Laughs]

NT: This saddens me. That one single person made a life difference to you—but how many students are missing that one person?

MB: The first answer is: Many girls are. I’m sure we could run the statistics on it. And that’s because of a historical difference in the representation of women in these STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] fields and probably a cultural bias on the part of teachers and administrators. I think there’s been a shift in education since I was in school in the ’70s and ’80s, but then it was like, Oh, you’re not naturally good at math? Better try English—how’s your Chaucer?

NT: There are people who presume that unless something comes easily to them, they should never pursue it as a career—without realizing that some of the greatest achievements you ever attain are because you busted ass to reach that point.

MB: Yeah. If I had not gone to college, I might have kept acting and been happy like that. But I loved going to UCLA and doing something that was very challenging academically. I loved doing research with adolescents with special needs—that was seven years of my life. It was exciting to get my Ph.D. in 2007. But in terms of time to raise my two sons, the flexible life of an actor was better than the long hours of a research professor.

NT: Fast-forward to 2010 and The Big Bang Theory. Who would have guessed how popular this show would become?

MB: Not me! I had never seen it before I auditioned.

NT: On the show you play Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler, who’s a neuroscientist.

MB: She’s actually a neurobiologist … but I get to say neuroscience things.

NT: How much of your professional self do you bring to your character?

MB: Since the job of an actor is to present a character even if you’ve never been in that profession, I guess I have the easiest job—I don’t have to stretch that far.

NT: I try to imagine someone pitching the show idea to network executives: “Let’s have six scientists, and they’ll talk but you won’t know what they’re talking about, and they’ll crack jokes and they’ll laugh, but they won’t explain it to you.” I think it was low-hanging comedic fruit because no one had tackled it before.

MB: For sure. All the shows that I grew up with were about attractive people, and who had sex with who on which week. Meanwhile, our show is about the people who watch those shows.

The cast of geeky-scientist characters in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory includes neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) and her boyfriend, physicist Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons).

NT: Might there ever be room in your show for a female character who’s more sexualized—but also a full-on scientist?

MB: We did an episode where the Bernadette character, a microbiologist, poses for a “sexy scientist” photo shoot and Amy has a very big problem with it.

NT: I remember that episode. Your character, Amy, sabotages the photo shoot.

MB: That’s right. When I do advocacy for STEM careers for young women, I’m often asked, What do you think about [the sexy-scientist stereotype of] the white shirt open with the black bra underneath? And you know, I don’t knock women or scientists who want to do that. For me, that’s not the way that I choose to portray women in science. I don’t think that’s the only way to generate interest. It might be the only way to get a certain population of men interested in women in science … But it’s not a personal goal of mine to further that notion of women scientists.

But then I got older and understood. Marine biology, working with animals, working in the environment—all those things are science. You like engineering? You want to do coding? Knock yourself out. There are many STEM careers that involve a lot of variety and a lot of creativity. And that’s what I think we need to try and communicate to girls as young as possible.

NT: That was awesome! That’s like the whole show right there.

MB: Thank you. And I didn’t even have to take my clothes off to do it.

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‘The Big Bang Theory’s’ Mayim Bialik Shares Experiences as an Academic, Actor and STEM Advocate

She fell in love with the neuron during her first semester in college, and from there her passion for science took off with a bang. As a trained scientist, Mayim Bialik’s portrayal of neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” comes naturally. The show is currently the top-rated comedic television series in the nation, and Bialik uses her celebrity to serve as a female role model and advocate for STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math), a cause she feel strongly about.

Sixth College Provost Daniel Donoghue presented Bialik with an official proclamation stating that every year on May 27th the college will be known as "Mayim Bialik College" in her honor. Photo by Melissa Jacobs

The three-time Emmy-nominated actress was invited to share her story with the UC San Diego community on May 27 at an event sponsored by Sixth College. To acknowledge her visit, Sixth College was renamed “Mayim Bialik College” for the day of her appearance. More than 700 attendees gathered at RIMAC Arena for her talk, where she shared her experiences as the child star of the 90s show “Blossom,” the pursuit of her doctorate in neuroscience from UCLA and landing her current role on “The Big Bang Theory.”

“We invited Mayim Bialik to UC San Diego because she is highly educated and a great model for our students—plus ‘The Big Bang Theory’ is hugely popular, so it was a win-win,” said Dan Donoghue, provost of Sixth College. “Our goal was to create a memorable program for our students. Listening to Mayim speak as a strong advocate for STEM education, and particularly the challenges that confront many young women in high school and college, was very inspiring. We hope that she will feel a connection to our campus and want to come back each year on the same day—her day at Sixth College.”

The crowd sang the theme song to the “The Big Bang Theory” as Bialik took the stage, led by local guitarist Peter Sprague, bassist Mack Leighton and vocalist Leonard Patton. Sixth College student Oscar Bolanos and recent alumna Shayma Hesari acted as emcees for the event, and alumnus Jeff Curtis presented a basket of memorabilia from UC San Diego and Sixth College, including T-shirts with the phrase, “Mayim Bialik College 5/27.”

More than 700 campus and community members gathered at RIMAC Arena for Bialik's presentation. Photo by Melissa Jacobs

Sixth College promotes experiential and interdisciplinary learning among students and approached Bialik to speak because her career spans the arts, sciences and contemporary media. “Mayim Bialik is someone who embodies all three defining principles of Sixth College—culture, art and technology,” said Christian Olmstead, a Sixth College sophomore who served on the event planning committee. “She is an empowering female figure in the arts and sciences who helps to remind us that you can succeed by following your passions.”

Born in San Diego and raised in Los Angeles, Bialik started acting in 1986 with small parts in series like “MacGyver” and “Facts of Life.” Her star was launched after playing a young Bette Midler in the movie “Beaches,” which led to her being cast in the lead role in the NBC primetime show “Blossom” in 1991 at age 14. During that time she was tutored by a dental student from UCLA, the person Bialik credits not only for introducing her to the enjoyment of science, but also the way she learns.

“This was the person who made me believe I could be a scientist,” said Bialik. “I was never a terrific math or science student at all. I thought it was for boys; all the boys said so.” She continued, “I think having a female role model really helped me, too. To see this bubbly, excited person who just loved biology so much and this was her life. And it wasn’t just that she gave me that passion; she also gave me the skill set.”

According to the actress, science has remained the dominant force in her life, even as her fame as an actress has continued to skyrocket. She uses her celebrity as a platform to promote science education for all, especially young girls. Her goal is to put a female face on science and highlight the importance of educational equity. “Name a newspaper, name a magazine, they won’t do an article about STEM advocacy, but they will do an article about an actress on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and her love for STEM advocacy,” she said.

Before her formal talk, more than 200 students had the chance to attend a meet and greet with Bialik, where she posed for pictures and signed autographs. Photo by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications

Before her formal talk, more than 200 students had the chance to attend a meet and greet with Bialik, where she posed for pictures and signed autographs. Students donned “Bazinga” shirts and struck funny poses with her—one asked if she would replicate a prom photo, to which Bialik enthusiastically complied. The reception included food based on her recipe book, “Mayim’s Vegan Table.”

Bialik admitted that she doesn’t watch television and had never seen “The Big Bang Theory” prior to being cast in the third season finale. She was brought on as a main character in the fourth season, along with Melissa Rauch who plays another female scientist, Bernadette. Contrary to rumor, Bialik says does not contribute to the script writing, though her cast mates always comment on the fact that she is the only one who “knows what everybody’s lines mean.”

Near the end of the presentation, students had the opportunity to ask the Bialik questions, which ranged from her favorite music to her most memorable fan encounter as well as more serious questions such as ethical challenges in neuroscience. She shared that the monkey used in several scenes on the show is named “Squirt,” and is the same star from the movie, “The Hangover.” She imparted that she cried when she met Stephen Hawking, who appeared on an episode in 2012. And when she was asked who she would switch lives with for a day if she had the chance, she jokingly replied in the guise of her character—“Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting!” (who plays Penny on the show).

On being both an actor and an academic, Bialik says that her first love will always be science.

“Once you become a scientist that becomes the lens through which you see the world, at least that has been my experience,” said Bialik “Once you know about what a rainbow is made of, every time you see one, that’s where your brain goes. I don’t think, ooh, what a pretty rainbow. I think about color and wavelengths and refraction.” She continued with, “I am definitely an artist…but it doesn’t color my world the way being a scientist does.”

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Power Words

neuroscience Science that deals with the structure or function of the brain and other parts of the nervous system. Researchers in this field are known as neuroscientists.

Ph.D. (also known as a doctorate) Advanced degrees offered by universities — typically after five or six years of study — for work that creates new knowledge. People qualify to begin this type of graduate study only after having first completed a college degree (a program that typically takes four years of study).

Follow Eureka! Lab on Twitter: @eureka_labs

5 Facts About Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Mayim explains what the oft-used term 'OCD' really means.

Some readers asked me to write more science-related posts, including specifically something about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. While I can’t fill all reader requests, I do have an interest in OCD because my doctoral thesis in Psychoneuroendocrinology (in the Neuroscience Department at UCLA) was on Obsessions and Compulsions in a population of individuals with a genetic syndrome called Prader-Willi Syndome (PWS). Individuals with PWS have a lot of psychiatric complexity to their syndrome, including high rates of OCD reported.

I have always had an interest in working with special needs individuals. my parents, who were public school teachers for a combined 70-some odd years both in new york and los angeles, were very sensitive to people with special needs, and i was raised with a distinct compassion and consciousness to include special individuals as much as possible in all aspect of socializing and education., i knew i wanted to work with humans as a graduate student since, as a vegan, working with animals was simply not compatible with my worldview as a scientist. i learned about a variety of syndromes and felt that pws needed a neuroscientist’s perspective, since most research in this population had been done by geneticists or psychiatrists., i loved working with adolescents with pws for my thesis and i had to learn a lot about ocd for the seven years i worked on my doctorate. from that exhaustive knowledge i gained, i wanted to share with you five facts you might not realize….

You likely don’t have OCD. Just because you are fastidious or organized, it doesn’t mean you have OCD. People say things like, “I’m so OCD” and honestly, it bugs me. Just say you’re “particular” or “meticulous.” Don’t use the name of a legitimate syndrome, please; it takes away from the importance of the clinical diagnosis when you do that! (For one person’s experience of having OCD, see this piece from Cosmopolitan .)
Both the “O” and the “C” need to be present to be diagnosed with OCD. OCD is comprised of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions tend to be “internal” thoughts or things that you can’t get out of your head; compulsions are the “external” behaviors done to try and manage the anxiety that the obsessions make you feel. So for example, someone with obsessions about cleanliness would have compulsive acts like hand-washing to combat the obsessions.
There are areas of obsession and accompanying compulsions. Common obsessions tend to center around cleanliness and germs (including those around body functions and sexual functions), religious imagery and safety (did I lock the door? for example). The compulsions that go with these would be things done to reduce germs and maintain cleanliness, counting or repetitive behaviors and checking behaviors. (There are many more; those are just some examples.)
With OCD, sometimes other things occur. People who get an OCD diagnosis also often get an anxiety diagnosis. Or sometimes a depression diagnosis. And things like skin-picking often occur in OCD. This is because we are all on a continuum of chemicals running through our bodies and brains. No one is “absolutely” anything. Depending on life situations, genetics and what kind of support you get, you may have more or fewer symptoms throughout your life. It’s not a constant.
Medication can help . So can therapy like Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or traditional psychotherapy. Many people live with aspects of OCD and find ways to manage them, but usually clinicians will want to know how much your OCD affects your life and schedule of the day. Some people may have a counting ritual that doesn’t upset them or take up much time, and if it doesn’t cause distress, it may just be that that’s your thing. In our current culture of a pill for everything, it’s important to realize that you don’t need to be symptom-free of every syndrome in order to function and have productive relationships and a good life. (Some of the characters on The Big Bang Theory are proof of that!)

If you would like to take the standard OCD assessment, it is available here .

If you need help with managing ocd symptoms or any other psychiatric condition, reach out to the national alliance for mental illness for information about finding help in your area..

The Entire Truth of Dr. Mayim Bialik

Scientist and actress discusses new girling up book.

Posted May 9, 2017

For years, Dr. Mayim Bialik has been challenging our notion of what it means to be a girl and woman.

In a world that has a clear bias against women in science, Dr. Bialik received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCLA. And in a world that presents few and stereotypical roles for women in television and movies, Dr. Bialik has a long history of playing norm-challenging characters. From her portrayal of a young, outspoken and ambitious CC Bloom in the movie Beaches to her role as Blossom Russo in NBC’s Blossom – a teenage girl living in a house run by men after her mother left to pursue a new life and career – to neurobiologist Amy Farah Fowler in CBS’s The Big Bang Theory , Dr. Bialik has been presenting us with a different perspective on girls and women for 30 years.

And now with her new book, Girling Up: How to be Strong, Smart and Spectacular , Dr. Bialik is continuing in this tradition – by challenging stereotypes and trying to tell the entire truth about what girls face while growing up.

There is a critical need for a different perspective. Too often, girls and women face cultural stereotypes that suggest what they can or should do, resulting in bias and discrimination , particularly in academic and work settings. And the effects are severe; not only does discrimination against girls and women result in worse physical and mental health, but also in lower pay and opportunity to be hired for jobs.

For Dr. Bialik, stereotypes against women are not an abstract concept, but rather they are hurdles that she personally faced early on both as an aspiring neuroscientist and actress. “The roles for women, especially in television and movies, have been fairly narrow for most of entertainment history. I grew up watching the sitcoms of the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and females were either the slut or the nerd – and there was nothing in between,” Dr. Bialik said. “We’ve come a long way, but our perception of women is pretty narrow. And women have been historically underrepresented in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) field for a lot of reasons.”

At the same time that girls and women face bias and discrimination in work and school, our culture over-emphasizes physical appearance. In particular, throughout history, random body ideals for women have been presented in culture, contributing to body image dissatisfaction among girls and women. In fact, negative views of one’s body are so pervasive among women that this is often referred to as “ normative discontent .”

Dr. Bialik reflected on how she experienced having to compare herself to conventional societal norms of female attractiveness . “As an adult, I don’t look like a lot of women. I have ethnic features. I’m several dress sizes larger than your average actress in Hollywood … being a non-traditional looking female can be a challenge in a culture that really celebrates conventional leading ladies and attractiveness,” Dr. Bialik described. “I think part of that is having a broad understanding of how significant culture is. And how much notions of what is considered attractive varies by culture … One of the most confusing things, especially for young children, and for teenagers as well, is when their reality is not reflected by the adults around them.

“We’re not seeing entire truths presented to them.”

When culture emphasizes the importance of female attractiveness and presents a rigid concept of what is attractive, while also de-emphasizing the notion that girls and women can achieve at school and work, it can be difficult for girls and women to feel in control of their lives and self-concept . And so, Dr. Bialik wrote Girling Up as a way of presenting a fuller view of her experience growing up and the science of female development, in order to help girls and women gain back a sense of control.

“That was a goal of the book … to present all sides of a perspective – of growing up or ‘girling up’ as we called it – but also a lot of the more complicated aspects of growing up and in particular growing up female, with all of the challenges to body image, and our more modern progressive understanding of what it is to cope with things,” Dr. Bialik explained. “The general purpose of this book was to empower young women with information – having more information and understanding yourself as part of a whole.

“I hope that’s what young women and the people who love them will take away from this book – a full treatise on what it is to be female.”

As such, Dr. Bialik talks about a range of issues such as sexuality , menstruation and body image. “The notion for me was to present all aspects of what it means to process information – in particular, sexual information, romantic information. What is emotional intimacy ? We’re growing up in a culture that is already wired to make us think – especially with women – there’s this certain way we should be,” Dr. Bialik explained. “Even something as simple as knowing how your menstrual cycle works and why, and what happens if it’s not right … Even the section on body image and the emphasis on breasts and things like that. I do mention that in the twenties, breasts were not in. I do mention that those things shift and fluctuate. And the idea is to be comfortable and understand that variability is normal in the female body. That’s actually something we have with the illustrations of the book. There are girls of every size, shape, color and variety represented.

“I specifically said I don’t want drawings of only skinny white people.”

Talking about difficult issues that are often ignored, and presenting a more full and complete explanation of how girls develop can be empowering – something that helps regain control from societal bias. “Those are sometimes some of the most empowering things that we can know about. A lot of those things in our culture in particular are pushed to the side. We shouldn’t see it. We shouldn’t talk about it. But that’s the general notion of this book – that when you know some things – whether it’s about your body, about dating , about the world, about the ways other cultures perceive stress – those are the ways that we know ourselves better,” Dr. Bialik said. “I wanted to take the focus off of, this is the society you’ve been thrust into – how do you adjust to it? I really want to focus on, this is the structure of how our society frames us, especially with women – and here’s what you can do to take back your control.”

Dr. Bialik hopes that rather than need to conform to stereotypes, girls and women celebrate their individuality. “Celebrating what’s special. … I share a lot of the experiences I’ve had in my life – divorce , death – it’s something as an adult I’m seeking to figure out, as an adult who doesn’t quite fit in with many other adults,” Dr. Bialik explained. “I think the notion of finding differences and being comfortable with what is special about you is so important.”

Girling Up is just another step in Dr. Bialik’s taking on these broader societal issues. In 2015, she established a website GrokNation , which has and will continue to address issues that young people face. And she hopes that more role models step forward to challenge societal bias and discrimination.

“Part of what I do not only as an actress who is a scientist, but also someone with a public platform … is to put a positive face on female scientists, and all of the amazing things that happen when you choose to live your life as a scientist,” Dr. Bialik described. “So I think the more positive role models we can have, and the more women who speak up about how they got into positions like that and what their life is like is important. And I think it’s important for us to have mentors and women we can look to to say, ‘You’re a scientist and you’re a mom? How did you do it? You’re a scientist and you work with animals? What does that look like?”

Ultimately, she’s optimistic that people are getting the message. “We are going to grow up and be in a world where we are half of the population. And the perspective that women have is unique, and should be fostered and cared for when we are young,” Dr. Bialik said. “With so much emphasis being on sexualization and clothing and dating and all of those things, it’s important to acknowledge that there is a very big world that women are going to be part of. When we grow up, we become women of the world. Then all of the decisions we make are impactful.

“And things that we do matter.”

Michael A. Friedman, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with offices in Manhattan and South Orange, NJ, and is a member of EHE International’s Medical Advisory Board. Contact Dr. Mike at michaelfriedmanphd.com . Follow Dr. Mike on Twitter @drmikefriedman .

Michael Friedman, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist specializing in how social relationships influence mental and physical health.

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Not My Job: Mayim Bialik Of 'Big Bang Theory' Gets Quizzed On Big Bangs

Mayim Bialik poses for a photo in Los Angeles in May 2017.

As a teen, Mayim Bialik starred in the '90s sitcom Blossom, and just in case her acting career didn't take off after that, she earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. Turns out, that made her perfect for the role of neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on CBS's The Big Bang Theory. Bialik recently wrote a book called Boying Up: How to Be Brave, Bold and Brilliant .

We've invited her to play a game called "Big Bang meet big bangs!" Three questions about hair metal bands of the 1980s.

Click the audio link above to see how she does.

Confessions Of A 'Big Bang' Watcher, 11 Seasons In

Actress mayim bialik on tv, science, and the combo.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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'big bang theory' actress mayim bialik a real-life scientist.

Mayim Bialik plays Amy Farrah Fowler on "The Big Bang Theory"
She's written a book about parenting based on hormones involved in parent-child bonding
Bialik holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA

(CNN) -- You may remember her as the title character from NBC's "Blossom," or recognize her as brainy Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS hit comedy "The Big Bang Theory."

Mayim Bialik has made a name for herself in the entertainment business, but she's also had a lesser-known career in a similar field as her "Big Bang Theory" character: neuroscience.

Bialik, 35, who will attend her first San Diego Comic-Con next week, studied neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles. She's also written a book about parenting based on the science of hormones involved in parent-child bonding, to be released by Simon & Schuster in 2012.

"Not that you need a neuroscience degree to be a good parent... but my reflections on parenting are absolutely informed by my understanding of the hormones of attachment, which were the subject of my thesis," she said.

The daughter of teachers and the granddaughter of European immigrants, Bialik was studious as a teenager and always knew she wanted to go to college, even while on "Blossom."

"I basically walked off the television and onto the UCLA campus," she said.

She earned an undergraduate degree in neuroscience and Hebrew and Jewish studies before moving on to advanced studies. Frat guys would make silly comments sometimes because of her former TV life, but generally her science classmates seemed to mostly keep their noses in their books. "I had to earn my way through based on my intellect and my brainpower," she said.

Her Ph.D. research at UCLA focused on obsessive compulsive disorder among people with Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare condition in which the hypothalamus malfunctions. The hypothalamus secretes the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.

Her research on these hormones, which are critical to the mother-child bond, helped her understand biological mechanisms involved in parenting.

For instance, while some mothers complain about having to breastfeed their infants about every two hours all night, Bialik appreciates a deeper significance. The hormones that make a mom feel closer to her child get refreshed during breastfeeding. So if babies want milk every two hours, that guarantees a frequent rush of hormones that bond mother and child.

Breastfeeding, sleeping close to your baby and keeping him or her close to you as much as you can are all part of the natural human process, she says. Bialik is also an advocate of "gentle discipline," or not using physical force against children.

"We're starting to see more and more research substantiating that children hurt when you hurt them," she said.

Bialik had originally intended to become a research professor, but she and her husband decided that academic life wouldn't allow them to spend as much time with their children.

For their two sons -- "an almost-6-year-old and an almost-3-year-old" -- she and her husband don't use nannies, babysitters or daycare, and don't even rely on family members to look after their children. Bialik's husband stays at home when she's working, which is about every other week.

And they're considering continuing to homeschool their children. There's a large homeschool community in their area of Los Angeles, so it's not necessarily an isolating experience. There are opportunities to have a structured curriculum with other homeschooled children, she said.

The flexibility of the schedule of homeschooling, and the opportunity to spend time with their children for most of their day, appeal to Bialik and her husband. So does the independence from standardized testing.

"Especially with our kids who are 'late bloomers,' we're happy to watch them develop at their own pace," she said. "We like to know what they're learning and how."

As if it's not enough to be a mom and an actress on a popular sitcom, Bialik designed a neuroscience curriculum for homeschooled middle-schoolers. She taught 10 lucky kids all about the brain two years ago -- everything from the the brain's structure to the spinal cord to how the senses work, in addition to the ideas of the "early heavy hitters" of neuropsychology like Sigmund Freud and Ivan Pavlov.

"I think neuroscience is obviously very esoteric, but I think there are aspects of it that absolutely be brought down to the level of an interested 11-, 12-, 13-year-old easily."

This past year, she taught biology and chemistry to three different classes in the homeschool community for elementary and middle school students.

Sometimes writers and producers on "The Big Bang Theory" ask Bialik questions related to her character's neuroscience background, although the show also has a physics consultant who provides notes on scientific accuracy, too.

"I don't think I've met a smarter group of people who hang out together, possibly ever, even in graduate school, than our writers and producers," she said.

Although many fans are looking forward to seeing Bialik at Comic-Con, she's nervous about the experience.

"I'm a pretty quiet person. I think it's going to be a lot of people. But I think it will be fun. I'm glad to be able to go with the cast. I'm friendly with the people that I work with, which is nice, so we get to do it together."

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Mayim Bialik: “I Started Crying When I Realized How Beautiful the Universe Is”

She’s best known for playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory , but the award-winning actress has a rich life outside of her acting career, as a teacher, mother — and a real-life neuroscientist. Steve Levitt tries to learn more about this one-time academic and Hollywood non-conformist, who is both very similar to him and also quite his opposite.

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Episode Transcript

Mayim BIALIK: I struggled all the way through undergrad. And I struggled all the way through grad school as well because I’m not a natural science learner. I’m a person who wants to understand deeply the mysteries of the universe. And even if you’re a stay-at-home mom after that, even if you become an actor on a TV show, the knowledge that I have as a scientist has transformed my understanding of my religious life, my parenting life, and really everything about the world that I live in.

* * *

Steven LEVITT: I am so excited to get to speak with Mayim Bialik today. I’ve never talked to her before, this will be the first time we’ve met. But in a strange way, I kind of feel like I know her, having watched her on Big Bang Theory for so many years.

Welcome to People I (Mostly) Admire with Steve Levitt.

LEVITT: I’ll be totally honest with you, I’m not sure that I have much to talk about with a typical Hollywood star, but I’m hoping that Mayim is going to be different. She’s got a Ph.D. in neuroscience and she really seems to play by her own rules. And I just can’t wait to get to know her a little bit and let’s hope I’m right and she’s interesting. We’ll find out.

Steve LEVITT: Such a pleasure today to talk with Mayim Bialik, renowned actress, neuroscience Ph.D., a bestselling author, a mother of two teenage boys, a producer, and a director. And all of that’s incredibly impressive. But the real reason that I wanted so badly to talk to you is because it seems like you’ve managed to succeed by breaking all the rules, by being true to yourself, and by being authentic. And I don’t see very many people who have the courage to be him or herself and to make their way in the world. So, I’m just really excited to talk to you today, Mayim. BIALIK: Thank you. I’m very, very honored to speak with you. LEVITT: All right. Already, by the time you were, I don’t know, maybe 10 or 11, you were an incredibly successful child actor. You had tons of roles on TV even before you landed the role of Blossom and were on primetime network TV for five years. You were maybe 15-years-old when you started that. BIALIK: I was 14 to 19, yeah. LEVITT: 14. How does all that get started? BIALIK: Let’s see. I actually don’t have a typical child-actor story in that most child actors start when they’re toddlers. That was not my story. I wasn’t raised in the industry. I didn’t have Hollywood parents. My parents are actually first-generation Americans. I did not grow up with money. So, I went to public school in Los Angeles. And I was part of the busing program of the 1970s and 1980s where kids from not-so-great neighborhoods were put on busses early in the morning and they sent us to neighborhoods with more opportunity. And some of those schools had enrichment programs like drama. And what I found was that I really like being on a stage. So, what I said to my parents is, “I really, really like this. And there’s kids on TV, and why can’t I be that kid?” And I was cast in a movie called Beaches about a year after I started acting. And I played Bette Midler ‘s character as a young girl and got a lot of, I guess, notice for that. It was from that that I was cast in Blossom . And to be perfectly honest, no one looked like me on television. There was something called all-American kid in the 80s; I did not look all-American. I had the blond hair and I had the blue eyes. But I was a very prominent-featured child. I’m a Polish-Hungarian mix. So, I ended up getting character roles, which is the euphemism for the roles they give to people who don’t look all-American. LEVITT: You talk about character roles, but you seem to have been working nonstop on TV. That must be rare. There must have been hundreds of kids showing up to each of these auditions. And you just kept on getting the parts. BIALIK: I mean, I didn’t get more parts than I did. You know, this is part of the reason that my parents really weren’t interested in me going into acting is it’s an industry of rejection. It’s an industry of being told, “You’re too this, you’re too that, you’re not enough that.” I mean, it’s really a ridiculous way for anyone to live — an adult, much less a child. But I definitely was successful enough that I needed to, at some point, do a homeschooling program starting in high school — starting in 11th grade. But otherwise, honestly, I lived a pretty standard-issue life. I still had to do chores. My parents were very strict. Most people didn’t — I don’t wanna say they didn’t like me, but I was a strange kid. And I was a strange teenager. And I’m a strange adult. LEVITT: What was strange about you as a kid? BIALIK: I mean, I was bookish. I’m a rule-follower. I wrote with a glass pen and an ink well. And I read Dostoyevsky and Sartre at 15. I was a very tortured soul. And also, I had a very strong and terrifying sense of mortality. Since I was 10-years-old, I’ve cried on every birthday. I grew up in a home, to be quite honest, riddled with the shadows of the Holocaust. There’s mental illness on both sides of my family. I had O.C.D. as a child and also probably a very high level of anxiety. I had a lot of psychiatric challenges really all through my teen years and into my 20s. And it’s something I live with all the time LEVITT: It’s amazing that you felt at home in front of the camera, because I think many people who would share some of the challenges you just talked about are absolutely terrified of public speaking. BIALIK: So, I actually am a very nervous public speaker. I’m also a very nervous performer. My therapist has many opinions about why I like to be — we like to say, “You can hide on a stage.” And I also wasn’t the kind of kid who liked acting because I liked the applause. I really liked getting it right. LEVITT: It’s interesting you say that about hiding on stage because I was the exact opposite kid. I was terrified of speaking in public. So, for instance, in college, I did not raise my hand once in four years. I didn’t volunteer to talk. But then after I had some success in academics, people wanted me to speak. And I learned how to — I created a persona that I would go into that I would be onstage and present. And then, one day something happened that was very eye-opening for me. I didn’t fully understand this whole persona thing until I was going to give a TED talk. And as I was waiting to go onstage, the person who introduced me introduced me by saying that, among other things, I was the father of a child who had died. And my son had died at the age of one maybe a year earlier. And I had gotten very good at putting on my public speaking persona. And when she made that comment, I was shocked back into my regular, I’m- Steve-Levitt persona. And if you watch that TED talk, you can see for the first like 30 seconds, I, literally, don’t know where I am or what I’m doing because I’m struggling to try to get out of my own body and into this fake persona that I live in. BIALIK: First of all, I’m very sorry for your loss. You touch on a very significant aspect, not just of an actor’s life, but it really is true. We wear masks and we’re sort of acting all the time. I think some people do it more seamlessly than others, but that notion of having to find yourself in yourself again is terrifying. And it is something that performers do under exceptional circumstances as our job. LEVITT: So I’ve watched a lot of the videos you’ve put up on your YouTube channel where you talk about things happening in your life, whether it’s the decision to homeschool your children or growing older, and it seems to me that you’ve made a choice over time to reveal a lot of yourself to the public. But not in a senseless way like reality TV, but in a very thoughtful way where in measured doses you really open yourself up for people to see. For instance some of your videos after the Covid lockdown, when you’re clearly in the Covid doldrums. Or when you decided to talk many years later for the first time about being divorced. How do you approach your relationship with the public? BIALIK: Well, I’d like to thank you for making a distinction between sharing willy-nilly and what I consider to be mindful meaning even if my audience doesn’t always agree, the decisions behind the scenes are often heart wrenching and complicated. But what I have tried to do is really highlight, in a lot of cases, mental health, and also a perspective of someone who really exists because of the resources I’ve been able to have access to to support my growth as a human being, and not just a human doing, as we say. One of the things that I’ve decided to gear my life towards right now, definitely motivated by being at home and seeing how we’re all being impacted, but I’ve decided to start a podcast. And we’re calling it, Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown , both because it’s just going to be fun to say, “I’m Mayim Bialik and welcome to my breakdown,” but the notion being that I’d like to break down a lot of our preconceived notions and misperceptions about mental health. And the idea is to present a topic, a specific topic, around mental health and have either an expert or someone who’s an expert because they are living it, to understand where mindfulness plays into these things. What are the holistic things that many people dismiss as hippie-dippy? What’s the science behind them? What are the things that we can actually do to have a better understanding of our mental health so that we literally can live without breaking down? I’m a person who feels very, very deeply all the time. It’s a superpower and it’s also a curse. LEVITT: My wife has a term. She uses the word “sensitive” to refer to people like you as you’ve described yourself and her. I don’t know if it’s a clinical term or not, but there’s some people that are very empathetic to the suffering of others. BIALIK: Yeah. They call us highly sensitive people, H.S.P.s. In children, they’re often called “indigo children.” I actually wasn’t so much like this as a child. I was very analytical. I was a problem-solver. But as an adult, I’m one of those people who — and I don’t think there’s necessarily anything mystical to it. There are people who have said to me, “Wow, you have a lot of information about people from knowing very little.” It is a strange superpower. My younger son seems to have inherited it. It can feel very burdensome, I’ll be honest. And, also, beautiful. LEVITT: I actually have the opposite gift, if you want to call it a gift, of being a little bit on the spectrum. So, I have a hard time actually remembering that other people are alive and are not merely created on the planet to entertain me and my existence. And so, that also is both a superpower and a curse. But it seems to be, if you’re sensitive, being an actor is a crazy choice. Isn’t it? BIALIK: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I left the industry for 12 years to get a doctorate in neuroscience, partly for this reason, less so that it was necessarily triggering and more that I’m a person who really wants to be appreciated for what’s inside. And the industry does not really highlight that. It’s not made to. It’s not supposed to. I don’t mean to sound pretentious about it. I’m an artist. I’m a person who feels a strong need to create, to write, to perform, to emote, to make you feel something. That is really where I tend to thrive. It’s where people seem to want to employ me. And it is all the other parts of the industry that are the most trying for me: the publicity, the demands on women, the obsession with appearance and youth. And I’ll be perfectly honest, I am grateful for my job beyond explanation. But for someone with social anxiety, I absolutely live in a career that does not match my personality. And I do not feel filled up from being around people and talking about myself. I do not get filled up from being complimented, from getting dressed up, leaving my house. These are all things that have really nothing to do with the fact that I can play dress up really well. Right? I can pretend to be someone I’m not in a way that makes you believe it and feel something. To me, that’s my job. LEVITT: It’s interesting you call it a job because you did say earlier in the conversation how when you were acting in school plays, it was really fun. Did it transform from being really fun to being a job? BIALIK: Absolutely. Because when you are a child actor — and this is the reason I am not a huge fan, honestly, of people getting their children into acting — you are not allowed to have a bad day. You’re not allowed to be grumpy. You are really responsible for managing your emotions in a way that makes other people happy. And that’s actually exactly what we want to teach our children not to do as humans. And it’s precisely what you’re being taught to do as an actor. And thinking from a strictly, consumer, capitalist perspective, it’s absolutely necessary. If you want to stare meaningfully into a cow’s eyes before you slaughter it, you’re not going to slaughter many cows in a day. The way we get things done is to essentially depersonalize them. I mean, Marx and Engels figured that out a long time ago. So, you essentially become part of a system that is an industry. And on any given day, if you’re sad, if you’re— I mean, my first TV acting job was the day that my grandfather was buried. My grandfather died the night before my first TV acting job. LEVITT: Wow. BIALIK: And, you don’t get a hiatus for that. It’s a job. LEVITT: Yeah. Usually, if you ask people who’ve succeeded at something, they always will say, “Oh, yeah. Follow your dream.” And they’ve been the winners in this big lottery. But it sounds like with you, you are almost saying, even if you win “the lottery,” it’s not as pure of a victory as people might perceive. BIALIK: I mean, correct. And I happen to be a person of faith. And what I have found that my tradition teaches is that there is not an amount of money in the world that makes you not want more. There is not an amount of possessions in the world that makes you feel done consuming. And at the end of the day, and when you are buried, your gravestone will not tell any of those things.We live in a hyphen. We live in the hyphen between the year that we were born and the year we died. And that’s — I once heard a rabbi say, “What will you do with your hyphen?” That’s the purpose of my being on this planet is to figure that out, not to make money, and not to make you happy, and not to win an award. There are things that we do in life that we hopefully will find pleasure and joy from. But we’re one of the first generations to actually have that luxury. Also, falling in love with someone? Also, pretty recent in human history. So, when my older son says, “I really think I am really into Shakespeare ,” I said, “Great, when you can drive yourself to auditions, you’re welcome to go and pursue that. But what’s your other skillset that you’re going to do in the meantime?” Because I don’t mean to sound like a terrible mom, but I’m not really into, “follow your passion.” It’s like we all need to get things done on this planet. And the life of a struggling actor is a life of having another job and living off wages that are often not sustainable. It means putting off having children if you’re a woman because that completely curtails your hireability. What kind of life do you want? LEVITT: So, you’ve written that as a young teen, you believed science and math were for boys. And actually, I suspect that has to do with you being this highly sensitive type, that you picked up on subtle cues that society were giving off that I think I would have been too tone deaf to have heard. But then something happened, obviously, that shifted you out of that mindset. Do you want to explain what that was? BIALIK: Yeah. I mean, part of it absolutely was this cultural notion. And boys in the 80s and 90s would say to your face, “Girls are stupid. Girls can’t do math and science.” We didn’t know about girl power back then. So, there was definitely a lot of that. Also, I didn’t have any real role models. I didn’t see any women who were scientists. That’s not how our culture represented it. I will also say that everyone learns differently. And the way that math and science were being taught to me was not working for my brain. Do I think that the way it was being taught doesn’t work for a lot of girl brains? I’m going to go ahead and say yes, because I think that we need to have a different way to approach how we teach. Because contrary to a lot of current belief, male and female brains are different. We do have different skills. And while those aren’t absolute, there’s absolutely different ways to teach that can please more male and female brains. LEVITT: How would you teach differently? How should we be teaching STEM stuff differently? BIALIK: Well, so it actually leads into how I got interested in science. I had a female tutor when I was 15-years-old on the set of Blossom . She was at that time 19. She was a dental undergrad at U.C.L.A. and she came from a prominent Persian-Jewish immigrant family. And she came from a family of girls where they were all encouraged to do science or math or be doctors or be dentists. And this was the first time that I heard a person, and a woman yet, talk about science as if it were poetry. No one had ever said to me, “The world is this unbelievable place. And look at the details that we can understand as humans.” The only place I had gotten that was in my religious and spiritual upbringing. The world is this unbelievable place. The reason it’s unbelievable is because of science. Right? That’s its own divinity, is what I learned as a teenager. So, one of the things I think about teaching STEM is I think we need both male and female voices in the mix. I think that a lot of people think that a career in science and math is an isolated kind of lifestyle. The kind of lone scientist in a laboratory is what many of us are taught. And I think that for girls who tend to be more social, meaning more engaged in social interactions and more verbal, that doesn’t sound interesting, to sit alone in a laboratory. But if, as a young girl, I had been told, “Oh, you love animals? Listen to the dozen careers in math and science regarding working with animals. Oh, you’re interested in saving the planet? Look what it’s like to be an environmental biologist. Wouldn’t it be cool to get to take samples from ponds and animals?” You have to present the full variety of the possibility of STEM in order for us even to see where men and women want to fall in terms of their interest. And those are things that I was absolutely missing. And I was so grateful to meet this woman — Fariza was her name — because no one had ever also taken the time to teach me the way I needed to learn. And I was getting lost in those big classes in my highly-gifted magnet. I was getting lost in those classes where the boys were finishing their math requirements in eighth grade because they were so accelerated and so fancy. I couldn’t even get the basics. And no one took the time to say, “We’re leaving all these kids behind. And most of them are the girls.” So, having a one-on-one tutor and having someone say to me, “You get to learn about the cell; we’re going to draw it; we’re going to model it” — I still remember the parts of the cell from the lessons when I was 15-years-old. I can learn it. I needed to be told how to. And in the 70s and 80s, also, we knew nothing about different styles of learning, at least not in public schools that I went to. We knew nothing about learning disabilities, that people learn differently. This is one of the greatest revolutions in the educational awareness we have. Not everyone learns the same. LEVITT: What did Fariza end up doing? Did she become an incredible dentist, or did she go on to do something else? BIALIK: She did. She became a dental surgeon. She has four children. We’re still in touch. And she changed my life. That was it. That woman changed my life. And just for me to have, again, a female role model, a woman who was accessible to me. She was young. I mean, she was as hip as I was, which was to say that I was nerdy and started crying when I realized how beautiful the universe is. That’s who I needed to hear it from. And she not only gave me the skillset to become a scientist. She gave me the confidence that even if it’s hard for me, I still deserve to have a shot. LEVITT: I think we’re still so terrible today at communicating the value or what you can do with a STEM career. Why do you think it’s so hard for us as a society to bring that message to people? BIALIK: I think that — I mean you might have a better answer than I do. I’m assuming you would. But I think that a lot of people do see STEM careers as laborious or expensive to excel in. And I also think that we have a huge component of this country that is lacking access to the education required to pursue those jobs. And that’s where we’re getting this disproportionate representation of individuals in the STEM fields. I mean, honestly, for me, a lot of it does go back to: what does our society value? And the fact is, we value a very shiny productivity. I think that especially now, I think there’s a lot of drive to make a lot of our lives very sexy and successful in ways that I don’t think are always smooth paths. LEVITT: I have come to believe that the way that we teach what an economist would call a production function of teaching is archaic. Another way of organizing education would be to use technology and essentially to do away with the traditional role of the teacher. So, it seems to me that there are people like you who are thoughtful and who are brilliant communicators and who are respected for other things they’ve done in their lives. And imagine if you could be teaching 11th graders neuroscience. Not in one classroom, but literally the entire country. If we had a system set up where there were 100 or 200 amazing teachers whose words were broadcast to every student. My own personal view is, number one, that would be transformative because I know other people can teach economics far better than I could ever do it. It’s wasteful both of my time and of the student’s time to suffer with me when there are others who could do it better. But also, I think it gets at the point you made about access and how that could really level the playing field for — people who are not as privileged as you and I have been. BIALIK: First of all, I think we should talk about this off the air, because I think it’s an amazing idea. And it’s like — I’m sure you didn’t want a global pandemic where we have all been stuck in our homes and our children are needing to learn through technology. But I actually have taught a bit online during this pandemic. And I did teach neuroscience. I did two separate sessions. We had thousands and thousands of people. It’s a beautiful, beautiful and also very, very doable thing. I think that you know best what the limitation is going to be. How do you pay for this and who pays for this? We’re still really creating a class system and a prison of our class system. And that’s something I would love to see remedied. You’re absolutely right. LEVITT: I also think what we teach should be up for reconsideration. And I think we teach a lot of the topics we teach because it’s what we taught in the early 1900s. But like you said, we’ve learned an enormous amount about the mind and about what makes people content and maybe even about the soul. And I think that curriculum has not kept up with that. And if I were to redo curriculum, I think I would radically change away from learning facts towards maybe self-understanding as the goal of a high school degree. BIALIK: Well, my children happen to be homeschooled. Which is unusual from two graduate people who are raising them. My now ex-husband has a master’s in political theory. But one of the reasons that we did homeschool our children — well, the first reason was that we couldn’t afford private school. I was in grad school when I had my first son. And the public schools in Los Angeles are very, very different than they were when I was a kid. And we had two very atypical developing children. And we knew that if we put them into any sort of standardized school, they’d be forced to do therapies, which we did not believe were necessary because we wanted them to progress in their own way and their own pace. That being said, one of the other reasons that we homeschool is that we want to raise thinkers and not regurgitators. And while there are places in the country where you can have that experience, the city that we live in really does not have the ability to do that. But what I’m interested in also is what I’m interested in other people being able to have access to, which means not raising children who essentially are soldiers — soldiers of education. LEVITT: I was about as good a student as a person could be through high school and college. But it wasn’t until my first day in the real world on the job in management consulting, where my boss— actually, he gave me a stack of documents that had some numbers about F.D.A. submissions, new drug applications to the F.D.A. And he said, “So, by the end of the week, I want you to tell me how our client can get their drugs approved faster.” And I said, “But I don’t know anything about the F.D.A. and how do you want me to do it?” And he looked at me and he said — it shows how old I am. He looks at me and says, “Look, we’re not paying you $32,000 a year to tell you the answers.” And I remember I broke out in a cold sweat. And it was the first time, really, that anyone had asked me to think rather than to regurgitate. But what I realized is that I love to think. And I had never taken the luxury of thinking because it didn’t serve me, because thinking wasn’t helpful for getting an A. Regurgitation is what you needed to do. So I couldn’t agree more about the regurgitation versus thinking. BIALIK: Steve, we just became best friends. Look at that. LEVITT: Well, that’s an accomplishment because when a highly sensitive person and an autistic person can be friends, it’s like the possibilities are really infinite.

You’re listening to People I (Mostly) Admire with Steve Levitt and his conversation with actor and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik. They’ll return after this short break.

LEVITT: So, whenever young people ask my advice about getting a Ph.D. in economics, I almost always try to talk them out of it. Getting a Ph.D. sounds fun and romantic. BIALIK: It’s not fun. LEVITT: It seems like it will open all sorts of doors. But the truth is, really, it’s brutal. And it’s hard. It destroys many people’s self-confidence and sense of self-worth. And people who love a topic as an undergrad often end up unloving it by the time they finish their Ph.D. And in the end, six or seven years later, your job prospects aren’t even very good. So, does that describe your Ph.D. experience at all? BIALIK: Yes, it literally — I mean, it near broke my spirit. And imagine also giving birth to a human in that time. Literally, near broke my spirit. LEVITT: Do you remember what drove you into a Ph.D. program? You’ve already said that you weren’t that great a student at U.C.L.A. in science. What kind of a person subjects herself to the punishment that comes with doing a Ph.D. in a subject where you weren’t even that good as an undergrad? BIALIK: Well, what I said was that things didn’t come as easily to me as other students. So, I didn’t party. I studied all the time. I went to every office hour. I was a very diligent student. But organic chemistry was the death of me. And I will say, though, I excelled in physics. I excelled in calculus. I did great in biochemistry, not a very precise lab technician, but I really, really loved, loved what I studied. It just took a lot of extra effort. I think that your assessment of me, Steve, is absolutely correct. I don’t do things the way you’re “supposed” to do. And I would be hard pressed to find any region of my life that feels in any way typical. I was born different. I was born butt-first. My mother will tell you I was backwards from the beginning. And I missed being creative, but still did a lot of creative things. I led a Jewish a cappella group at U.C.L.A. at our Hillel for years and I composed music for that group. I still did a lot of fun, creative things. But what I ultimately realized is that the level of understanding that I wanted to have of the universe was the level of the electrophysiology of the neuron. That is where I put my life, really. LEVITT: So, you wrote about Prader-Willi syndrome. Can you explain what that is and how you got interested in the topic? BIALIK: Yeah. So, I studied secretions from the hypothalamus, which is a structure about the size of four peas, right in the middle of your brain. And the hypothalamus connects to the pituitary gland, which a lot of people have heard about. And that region of the brain has been implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder, specifically for oxytocin and vasopressin secretions. And those might sound familiar because oxytocin is the feel-good hormone. It’s the one that happens when you have an orgasm. It is also what is necessary for the milk ejection reflex, for labor, and for human bonding. So, it’s a very, very important hormone. And individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome have very high rates of obsessive-compulsive disorder. And Prader-Willi syndrome is about one in 10,000. It’s a spontaneous mutation on chromosome 15. It was the first evidence of genomic imprinting, which means if you’re missing this region from your father, you get one disease. And if you’re missing this region from your mother, you get a different disease. So, it’s a very special syndrome. And individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome have puberty problems, sleep problems. They often have skeletal issues because they are lacking growth hormone, cardiovascular issues, and also a bunch of psychiatric features that occur with that. It’s a fascinating population. They tend to be very, very combative. They will do anything to obtain food because they specifically do not know when they’re full. And their drive to pursue food will lead them to all sorts of very, very aggressive and often very violent behaviors. But their obsessive-compulsive disorder is separate from their desire to pursue food. And that was the population that I worked in. And I did what’s called a pilot study where you’re taking a pretty small number of people — I think we had 26 in mine — to see if we can make correlations between their behavior and the amounts of oxytocin and vasopressin in their saliva and in their blood. LEVITT: This sounds highly empirical. It sounds like you went out and found the folks with Prader-Willi syndrome. How did that work? BIALIK: Yeah. So, the reason that I studied Prader-Willi syndrome is I’m a vegan person. And there are not many neuroscience departments that do not involve working with animals. So, the kind of choices for those of us who want to work with humans is often the field of mental retardation. And that is how I found my advisor, is that she studied all sorts of different syndromes of mental retardation. And when I read about Prader-Willi syndrome, I thought, “Well, that needs not just a geneticist, but a neuroscientist.” So, that’s how I picked it. And part of learning to work in these kinds of fields is getting connected with the organizations that want to be helpful in essentially providing data. So, I worked with the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association of the United States. That’s P.W.S.A. And essentially, we would recruit. I would go to fundraiser walks, and I would take a phlebotomist with me, and we would collect samples. And then, we would also have them do behavioral tests. And I would do the testing for that. There’s a scale of obsessions and compulsions and they would do a variety of tests. LEVITT: And what did you find? And has it been the basis of a strand of research or not so much? BIALIK: Well, this is something that in my field is very, very typical. We found enough correlations that would merit further study. And that’s about all you can hope for in a pilot thesis study. So, what we found is that there were some correlations between those hormones. We also looked at cortisol, which is a stress hormone. But essentially, you would need a much larger scale project to be able to have really strength from a larger sample size. So, yeah, I remain a particular kind of expert of a very, very specific thing. LEVITT: You made this decision not to pursue a postdoc, essentially to get off of the track to have kids. BIALIK: As a woman at that time, it was extremely unfavorable to choose to have a child. It was like a scarlet letter. And I think it was very, very difficult. But I knew that as a scientist, I knew I wanted to have my first child before 30. That’s just how some of us science geeks who know a lot about statistics and eggs like to do things. LEVITT: It seems to me another example where, at least in economics, there is enormous social pressure not to do that. Was that difficult? BIALIK: Very difficult. I mean, I would say it was one of the most difficult decisions of my adult life for sure. I got pregnant with my first son after I finished my course requirements. I wrote my thesis, literally, laying down while nursing. And I got pregnant with my second son the week that I handed in my dissertation. That’s our mazel tov baby. And I took my doctoral hood about seven months pregnant. Yeah. But this was a case of really listening to my God-given instincts as a primate mama. I really wanted to be with my children. And especially because I trained in the field of psychoneuroendocrinology, I was studying the hormones of attachment and bonding. I wanted to be with my kids. Did I feel like I was an overqualified block stacker? Of course, I did. And I can’t say that my children might not have been better with someone else parenting them. But this is who God gave them. This is who the universe gave them. They gave them me. I’m their mom. And I wanted to be there for those years. You get one life to live. This is not a dress rehearsal. This is it. And that’s ultimately why I left academia, was to be home with my kids. And I taught Hebrew. I taught piano. I taught neuroscience for five years before running out of health insurance and figuring, “Gosh, if I can just get my Screen Actors Guild insurance, at least we’ll be insured.” I had no idea I was going to be on a TV show again. That was not the plan. This is a crazy life. LEVITT: Well, I’ll tell you what’s the craziest thing of all, is that someone who’s trained as an academic ends up opting out because acting is the safe choice. I mean, that just turns the whole world upside down. BIALIK: Well, if you think about scheduling, being an academic means you’re really beholden to a very specific way of life. And what I realized was I was going to be hiring someone essentially to raise my children while I taught other people’s children. And working on a sitcom, I essentially work school hours. And it really did allow me to be with my kids for a tremendous amount of time. So, it was more about scheduling and flexibility. LEVITT: You starred in The Big Bang Theory as neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler for nine years. And I know nothing about how TV gets made. Could you just explain to me what the rhythm, what the weekly life of a sitcom is like? BIALIK: Yeah, we work usually three weeks on, one week off. And we do that from about August to April. And we have three days of rehearsal and two days of filming. The second filming day begins at noon and we tape in front of a live audience. So, that ends around 10:00 p.m. But the other days of the week — and I don’t mean to make it sound like it’s easy. But let’s be honest, we’re working school hours and only having to really not be in your pajamas two days a week. It’s not that different from being a science graduate student. LEVITT: Well, I would have thought it was much harder, much more of a grind. BIALIK: That’s the secret we just revealed. It’s not that hard to be a sitcom actor. LEVITT: O.K. And do you have much input at all into the script? BIALIK: No! Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t have much input at all, no. LEVITT: So, you don’t — do you do a read through and say, “Wait, Amy would never say that,” or that’s just not the way it works? BIALIK: I mean, technically, our writers know the characters even better than we do because they created them. That’s their baby. Yes. There are times when we have conversations where I say “Oh, can I say this word?” I was consulted for neuroscience-specific things. We had a physics professor from U.C.L.A., Dr. David Saltzberg , and he was our physics consultant. And he and I would work out stuff about neuroscience if Amy had to be in the lab, or sometimes there’d be stage direction of, “Amy’s doing something in her lab.” And I would say, “Well, why don’t we — I’ll be running a PCR,” or whatever it was. But no, on a show where you’re a hired actor, you are essentially — you’re a tool, you know. I mean, I don’t mean you’re a tool in a bad way. I mean, you’re a tool in a toolbox of people getting things done together. The show that I’m working on next, which is called Call Me Kat, I’m producing that with Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory . And I’m starring in that. I am an executive producer. And that’s a very different level of commitment. That’s like meeting the writers before we hire them, reading the scripts in their first draft, approving outlines. That’s a lot more labor, as it were. But I also have a production company, and it’s Sad Clown Productions. LEVITT: It says something about you that you named your production company that. BIALIK: Well, there’s a joke where a guy is very depressed and he goes to his doctor and he says, “I’m really depressed. I don’t know the purpose of living. I don’t want to do it anymore.” The doctor says, “There’s this circus and there’s this unbelievable clown. And if you go see this clown, he will give you a reason for living.” And the man looks at the doctor, and he says, “I am that clown.” LEVITT: I love that. BIALIK: And that is how we got Sad Clown Productions. LEVITT: So, I know you’re getting into directing and screenwriting. And, again, I don’t know anything about Hollywood. Could you explain what a director does? And then, could you also explain why there are so few female directors? Because it makes zero sense to me. BIALIK: So, I’ve never written a screenplay before. I’ve written books. I’ve written four books. Two of them are New York Times bestsellers about puberty. And I know how to write. But I’ve never written a screenplay. So, what I did was after my dad died, images started bubbling up, and stories started bubbling up. And I thought, “Is this what it feels like to be a writer? I’m seeing things.” I was seeing images from my childhood and I started to write them. And I ended up writing a screenplay that I didn’t even show to anyone for quite some time. And I finally showed it to my manager and to my agent. And it’s not an autobiography, but it’s a story based on my life and a lot of people’s lives of growing up in a house with mental illness and what gets left over and what you pick up the pieces of. And I figured we would find a writer to fix it. And apparently, it’s fine the way it is. And Dustin Hoffman would like to play my father and Candice Bergen would like to play my mother. And Simon Helberg from Big Bang Theory would like to play the brother character. And Olivia Thirlby is going to play the character that would have been, in theory, me. And I thought, O.K., so now we’ll get a director. But then, I realized, well, I know what happened. I know what these images look like. How am I going to explain that to someone? It’s such a waste of time. And that’s when I was told, “O.K., that means you’re the director.” So, what a director does is a director is in charge of the vision and the tone of a film, whether they write the script or not. And a director oversees the — everything about filming it, from the angles to the crew that is in charge of the lighting. A director also works directly with the actors to help bring out the performances that tell the story best. I think that there are not a lot of women directors for the same reason that there are not a lot of women a lot of things. This is about our culture’s trajectory of women, where we were expected to be, what skillsets we were expected to need. I’ll be honest, the fact that women’s fertility peaks when their career fertility also peaks is a very, very difficult thing. A lot of careers sound a little bit difficult to women who may want to pursue being a parent, especially a younger one. I believe that we are seeing shifts. I believe that we need more mentorship possibilities for women. I could also have a very similar conversation about people of color. LEVITT: Yeah. I mean, directing seems especially strange to me to be so male dominated because it’s measurable. In general, I tend to think that this cultural discrimination can survive really well when you can’t really measure whether someone’s good or not. And honestly, I think it’s very hard to measure whether a C.E.O. is good or not because there are so many other variables going on. But with directing, you get to see at the end of the day whether people wanted to go to the movie or not. And I think it really speaks to the powerful cultural factors that are at work. BIALIK: There is nothing inherently spectacular about being a director that means that white men do it best. I promise. There’s also nothing about white men that makes them better C.E.O.s. We need time and we need to do better to increase the opportunities for people in underrepresented populations. Period. We don’t need to fight about it. You don’t need to say, “Am I a feminist or not?” We need more opportunities for more people so that we can see more women’s voices, more women’s eyes, more women’s visions. I’m also not a 50/50 person, meaning there may be more men who want to be directors. I don’t know. But right now, we actually don’t know that. So, let’s try and figure it out together.

People I (Mostly) Admire is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, and is produced by Freakonomics Radio and Stitcher. Matt Hickey and Alison Craiglow produced this episode, with sound design by David Herman; our staff also includes Greg Rippin and Corinne Wallace; our intern is Emma Tyrrell. We had help on this episode from Nellie Osborne. All of the music you heard on this show was composed by Luis Guerra. To listen ad-free, subscribe to Stitcher Premium. We can be reached at [email protected] . Thanks for listening.

LEVITT: Would you give almost everything to be anonymous? BIALIK: Since we’ve become best friends, I can tell you: I look terrible at the supermarket. And, you know, some celebrities, you see them, and you say, like, “Wow, they really look good even without makeup.” I’m not that person. I’ve gained and lost hundreds of pounds, right, over the course of my life nursing children for six years straight, so.

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Is Mayim Bialik a neuroscientist?

Patrizia Rizzo
Kevin Quinitchett
Published : 21:30 ET, Sep 29 2022
Updated : 21:42 ET, Sep 29 2022
Published : Invalid Date,

PROFESSIONALLY speaking, Mayim Bialik wears several different hats.

Like the character she played in The Big Bang Theory , Mayim is also scientifically gifted and well-educated.

Mayim Bialik is a neuroscientist, actress, and author

Following her starring role as the titular character in the 90s NBC sitcom Blossom, Mayim Bialik took a 12-year-hiatus from acting.

In 2000, Mayim enrolled at the University of California in Los Angeles to pursue a degree in neuroscience.

Seven years later, the actress received her doctorate in neuroscience.

Bialik dished to BrainandLife about the inspiration to pursue a degree in neuroscience, crediting her biology tutor as a significant part, saying: "I was a diligent student, but science didn't come naturally to me.

Everything we know about Mayim Bialik

Who are Mayim Bialik's kids?

"Because of that, I didn't think it was open to me as a career.

"I specifically fell in love with the action potential and the electrical properties of the neuron when I was in my first semester at UCLA."

She shared: "I love understanding the way we think and feel and communicate—and neuroscience is the science of all that.

"I'm using my visibility to encourage girls and young women to take an interest in science and give them a deeper understanding of what they can do in that world."

most read on mayim bialik

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Who did mayim play on the big bang theory.

For Mayim, art imitated life when she went on to play neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory.

Regarding her education and its effect on her characterization of Amy, Mayim stated to The Observer : "I'm really proud that I'm working a show that highlights women in this way.

"I generally wear bigger clothes as Amy because I don't think there's anything wrong with showing a character that has a normal body. I have what's considered a normal body.

"I know a lot of female scientists from my time in college and grad school who were respected for their brains and who didn't have to compete on a physical level, and I like that a lot in this character."

Art imitates life; Mayim's Big Bang character is also a neuroscientist

The Jeopardy! host said at the time: "It's a conscious decision that I make to not have Amy be sexy and not wear Spanx and push-up bras and false eyelashes.

"It's really just so interesting and fun and inspiring to play these characters because they're all growing and changing all the time.

"It's very much like real life, and we're all very proud of that."

After playing Amy Fowler for several seasons, Mayim went on to experience continued success in television.

On January 3, 2021, Mayim's sitcom, Call Me Kat , premiered on FOX .

Produced by fellow Big Bang alum Jim Parsons, she stars as the lead titular character, Kat.

The comical character resides in Louisville , Kentucky , and operates a cat cafe.

On September 29, 2022, Kat's third season premiered on the aforementioned network, featuring her Jeopardy! co-host, Ken Jennings .

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On July 25, 2022, the team behind Jeopardy! revealed to Variety that Ken Jennings and Mayim were made permanent co-hosts, officially ending the search for Alex Trebek's replacement.

The announcement followed the actress' several guest stints on the game show due to the death of Alex Trebek .

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Mayim Bialik Answers 50 of the Most Googled Neuroscience Questions

Released on 08/26/2020

How does the nervous system work?

The nervous system works with a lot of

magic from the universe.

Do I get another PhD after I finish this?

[bell ringing]

Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik and I'm here with Wired

to answer the 50 most Googled questions about neuroscience.

[hip hop music]

Is neuroscience a biological science?

I'm going to say yes. [bell ringing]

It's about biological systems, yes.

What nervous system controls breathing?

Autonomic nervous system [bell ringing]

is in charge of breathing structures.

What nervous system controls heart rate?

That would be sympathetic/parasympathetic?

How does the autonomic nervous system affect the heart rate?

By making it go up or making it go down.

[bell ringing] [imitates honking]

How do hallucinogens affect the central nervous system?

Hallucinogens affect the central nervous system

by changing the distribution of neurotransmitter

[bell ringing] and specifically,

crossing modalities, creating synesthetic experiences

where auditory and visual information

effectively gets crossed. [bell ringing]

What neurotransmitters are involved in schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a varied disorder

that can involve paranoia,

and delusions, and depersonalization.

Dopamine, serotonin, [bell ringing]

and obviously all of the other neurotransmitters,

but specifically those for schizophrenia.

What is neurotransmitter testing?

Neurotransmitter testing is testing,

I guess amounts of dopamine and serotonin,

[bell ringing] which are typically done from

swabs, but I guess you could do it from blood maybe?

Cerebrospinal fluid?

Which neurotransmitter acts to facilitate learning?

That's a really difficult question to answer.

All of your neurotransmitters contribute

to everything about you.

The way that we learn is really because of a lot of things,

it's because of attention, it's because of mood,

it's because of reward activation.

Mine's a more philosophical answer,

but I don't know the structure of the brain

that they're talking about, which is probably

glutamate regulating. [bell ringing]

Which neurotransmitter is associated

with Parkinson's disease?

Parkinson's disease is a basal ganglia disease,

that would be dopamine as the

[bell ringing] primary neurotransmitter.

How information travels in the nervous system.

All sorts of crazy ways, up, down, sideways, inside out.

Information travels from the brain to the spinal cord

and out to the periphery,

[bell ringing] and then from the periphery

back into the spinal cord, and back up to the brain.

How does a stroke affect the nervous system?

Well, it depends where the stroke is.

There's specific kinds of regions of the brain

where a stoke will lead to paralysis

or the inability to speak.

Certain strokes will affect very interesting things,

they'll make you think that you don't understand

peoples' faces, there's so many different things

it can affect.

[bell ringing] Having the blood supply

cut off will impair a region of the brain,

is the most basic definition of a stroke, though.

What is neuroscience perspective?

Neuroscience perspective is seeing the world

as a series of motivations, and thoughts, and feelings

[bell ringing] that impact biological

processes and affect how we interact with the world.

How many neurons are in the nervous system?

I don't remember.

[bell ringing] [laughs]

What neurotransmitter controls the somatic nervous system?

The somatic nervous system

is the nervous system associated with sensory information.

For me, that's gonna kind of be

many, all of them?

I mean, impulses are always

regulated by GABA, by glutamate, and

[bell ringing] Acetylcholine is one of them.

Are eyes part of the nervous system?

I love this question.

Yes. [bell ringing]

The retina and the optic nerve

are part of the nervous system.

What are excitatory neurotransmitters?

Excitatory neurotransmitters are transmitters

that have a plus sign, as it were.

They lead to an increase [bell ringing]

in secretion or an increase in activity.

What sends neurotransmitters toward the next neuron?

Oh, I could talk about this for days.

Neurotransmitters are packaged in vesicles

and they move along microtubule filaments

[bell ringing] along the Axon.

What are neurotransmitters and how do they function?

Holy Toledo.

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that are produced

in the brain and the body that act on

other parts of the brain and body.

[bell ringing] They are the main

communication module for the nervous system.

They function by binding to receptors

and the binding onto receptors opens up different channels

and activity that then leads to other neurotransmitter

being released. [bell ringing]

How are hormones different from neurotransmitters?

Hormones are typically generated

outside of the nervous system, as it were.

There are neurohormones.

It really depends on what things are acting on,

and why, and how,

but neurotransmitters, typically, are generated

in the central nervous system [bell ringing]

and hormones can be generated and modulated

outside, as well.

How does nicotine affect the nervous system?

Nicotine affects the nervous system

in a lot of excitatory ways. [bell ringing]

Nicotine also does have inhibitory effects

[bell ringing] and can lead to feelings

of relaxation and decrease in agitation.

What is a synapse in the nervous system?

Well, I went to UCLA, and the cafe that we had

in the neuroscience building was called Cafe Synapse

because it's where things come together.

That's right, folks, a synapse is where two neurons meet

[bell ringing] and release information

and that's where things come together.

How does the digestive system work with the nervous system?

Pretty darn well [bell ringing]

for most people!

How does the nervous system and

endocrine system work together?

Well, since my field is psychoneuroendocrinology,

I should know a lot about this, and indeed I do.

The endocrine system is typically the

hypothalamic pituitary axis.

HPA includes the adrenals,

and hormones are released from the pituitary gland,

and then flow through the body and the hypothalamus,

and then become part of the nervous system,

where they affect the brain

and all sorts of behavioral and biological functions.

[bell ringing repeatedly]

They work together really well.

How to keep your nervous system healthy.

Well, this is a wonderful question!

Get a lot of sleep, drink a lot of water,

eat as simply as possible,

[bell ringing] do not drink alcohol at all

if you can avoid it.

[bell ringing] I would say avoid

as much pharmaceutical impact in your life

as is possible, [bell ringing]

and avoid illicit drugs.

They're generally not good for your nervous system.

[bell ringing] Learn how to breathe properly,

meditate, and please go to therapy.

What neurotransmitter causes migraines?

I get migraines and I don't know the answer to this.

I think migraines are caused by stress.

That's my unofficial, non-doctor opinion.

[buzzer ringing] I could list all the people

that give me migraines and none of them

are the names of neurotransmitters.

Is neuroscience a good major?

Hell yeah, it is!

[bell ringing] You get to learn about

the brain and nervous system,

you get to learn about the fact that

we exist, we have consciousness,

we can communicate, we can love, we can hate,

we can change, we can grow, that's why it's

not only a good major, it's a good grounding for life.

[claps hands] So there.

How does caffeine affect the nervous system?

Caffeine affects the nervous system

by doing a lot of excitatory things.

[bell ringing] It increases your heart rate,

it will make you go poop and pee

'cause it's a diuretic, and it does increase

alertness and vigilance,

which also can lead to a crash,

a caffeine crash, and it is addictive,

so it affects the nervous system by

getting the nervous system used to having it

as a normal way to function

and it resets your sense of normal,

so that's why when you quit caffeine,

you go into withdrawal.

How the nervous system works with other systems.

[hums in interest]

The nervous system works with other systems

by being connected through the series of peripheral nerves

that exist, meaning [bell ringing]

all organs send information to the nervous system.

I like to think of the nervous system as

the main system because it's your brain,

your spinal cord, and all of the nerves

that serve the rest of your body,

so it's kind of the master system.

How does the skeletal system work with the nervous system?

Certain skeletal systems support

the most important aspects of the nervous system,

so the skull, this thing,

it's actually the holding place for the brain,

the lobes of the brain, and all the things about the brain,

and the entire vertebral system,

the vertebrae of your spinal cord

are actually protecting a very, very important

passage of information from your brain

to the rest of your body,

so the skeletal system [bell ringing]

is the scaffold to protect the nervous system.

Where are neurotransmitters made?

Neurotransmitters are made anywhere you want them to be.

mostly brain.

In the middle of the brain. [bell ringing]

Yes, all the little parts.

That's a terrible answer. [laughs]

Are cranial nerves part of the central nervous system?

Cranial nerves I think would be considered

the peripheral nervous system. [bell ringing]

Brain, spinal cord, periphery.

For the love of Pete.

How many neurotransmitters are there?

Let's say between three and four dozen.

Is acetylcholine a neurotransmitter?

Yeah, it is. [bell ringing]

How does diabetes affect the nervous system?

Because of the changes in blood glucose levels,

this can cause strain on blood vessels.

[bell ringing] I'm thinking as I'm answering.

There are also cognitive shifts that happen

because of diabetes.

What kind of chemical is released at a synapse?

A neurochemical. [bell ringing]

Also known as a neurotransmitter.

Which neurotransmitter is associated with depression?

That would be serotonin. [bell ringing]

Dopamine sometimes is implicated as well,

and because everybody's brain is different,

not everyone has the same kind of depression,

and if you have depression that is

part of manic depression, you might need

a different kind of treatment or understanding

of your neurotransmitter system.

But classical depression, serotonin.

How do neurotransmitters influence behavior?

By communicating every thought,

every movement we have.

[bell ringing] The way that you exist

is because of electrical signals caused by

the release of neurotransmitter.

There's nothing about you, even love,

that cannot be explained by neurotransmitter.

How does alcohol affect the nervous system?

Alcohol's a depressant.

Alcohol will first affect the cells of the cerebellum,

those are the ones back here,

and they affect the things that you most frequently see

when you do a sobriety test.

Your ability to do fine motor control,

to walk a line, to do this one.

It affects the general nervous system

with a lot of psychological and psychiatric impact

that's gonna vary by human,

and alcohol's a toxin, so your body perceives it as such,

and all of the changes that happen when you have alcohol

are essentially your body processing

so that it can get rid of the alcohol.

How does the nervous system

help the body maintain homeostasis?

Well, the nervous system is what maintains homeostasis

[bell ringing] through a lot of

different things.

The hypothalamus is your main friend for this.

The hypothalamus maintains body temperature,

urinary levels, hunger, puberty, circadian rhythms,

basically regulating every single organ system.

Homeostasis is the nervous system, that's its goal.

Is dopamine a neurotransmitter?

[bell ringing] Aw yeah.

with sleep, mood, and appetite?

It really depends on what's happening

with sleep, mood, and appetite.

I'm gonna go ahead and go for [bell ringing]

serotonin will mess up all of those.

What is neuroscience psychology?

Neuroscience psychology, or neuropsych, as we call it,

is an emphasis on

[bell ringing] the underlying nervous system

substrates of psychological phenomenon.

How does cannabis affect the nervous system?

How doesn't cannabis affect the nervous system

really should be this question.

Cannabis affects the nervous system

by binding two cannabinoid receptors, duh,

and those receptors do a lot surrounding relaxation,

relaxation of muscles, literally.

Cannabis stimulates appetite.

If you think of people who use it medicinally,

for example, for chemotherapy,

it can reduce nausea and it has analgesic effects,

it has numbing effects.

That sort of, like, [bell ringing]

high feeling that people report

is typically an ability to have

a strong connection with your sensory systems,

and that can make you feel really, really happy.

What does multiple sclerosis do to the nervous system?

Multiple sclerosis causes demyelination of axons.

[bell ringing] Myelin is the fat

that lines axons, which is how a neuron

communicates information from the cell body

to the dendrites, and once that myelin,

that fat is broken down, it makes it much harder

for electrical impulses to travel.

So, it makes communication between cells harder.

Why nervous system important?

Why is the nervous system important?

Because it is the foundation of your existence as a human,

both physically and metaphysically.

[bell ringing] The brain and the

nervous system, your spinal cord, and all your nerves

are everything about how you interact with the world,

including what you love, what you hate,

how you can even process what I'm saying right now,

and your position in space, and your acknowledgement

that we are hurdling through the universe at high speed

and not flying off the planet,

and we exist now, and we'll exist tomorrow.

All that is your nervous system.

Is epinephrine a neurotransmitter?

Which systems comprise the nervous system?

There's the central nervous system,

that's the brain and the spinal cord,

and there's the peripheral nervous system,

[bell ringing] which is the nerves

on the periphery.

What are nervous system disorders?

There are a lot of nervous system disorders.

Let's see, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's,

muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, pretty much all

of psychiatric challenges.

You know, depression anxiety, [bell ringing]

obsessive compulsive disorder,

dissociative identity disorder,

I could go on. [bell ringing]

It has information that's produced in the brain

that's sent down the spinal cord

to the peripheral nervous system,

receives information from the outside world,

brings it back in, sends it up the spinal cord,

then your brain processes it,

[bell ringing] and you act, and think,

and feel, and exist.

What is the nervous system?

The nervous system is the series of cells

that comprise the brain and the spinal cord

[bell ringing] and allows you to perceive

your body, your feelings,

and interact with the outside world, feel, and think.

Your nervous system is you.

Those were the 50 most googled questions on neuroscience.

Thank you for watching, hope I did okay.

Starring : Mayim Bialik

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'Big Bang Theory' alum Mayim Bialik recalls struggles of parenting while in grad school

Mayim Bialik might be a neuroscience genius, but even she said raising two boys while in grad school was not easy.

"The Big Bang Theory" alum appeared on the podcast "The Three Questions With Andy Richter " on Tuesday, where she discussed the difficulties of taking on a full course load and writing her thesis while raising her two boys, Miles and Frederick.

"I studied neuroscience as my undergraduate degree. I did a minor in Hebrew and Jewish studies, which kept my GPA up and therefore my morale, because science was still really hard for me. I was a late bloomer," Bialik told Richter. "So I did my undergrad for five years and then I went on direct to the grad program, the PhD program at UCLA."

"I got married and I had my first son in grad school and then my second son right after, so it was a big 12 years," she added.

View this post on Instagram Andy's new podcast asks three seemingly simple questions: Where do you come from? Where are you going? What have you learned? The result is a deep, revealing, funny, candid conversation and I greatly enjoyed my experience. The link is in my bio, so go check it out!! Thanks for having me @richtercommaandy!!! 🎉 A post shared by mayim bialik (@missmayim) on Jul 23, 2019 at 9:13am PDT

While the actress noted that men also need to think about when to have children, she made quite the analogy as to why the situation is different for women.

More: Mayim Bialik confesses: 'Most of the time, I assume that I’m annoying to most people'

"It's a very different set of decisions because you physically at least need to leave to crank that watermelon out of the garden hose," she joked.

However, Bialik kept up with her demanding school work, even if it meant a little multitasking.

"I basically finished my curriculum, my classwork, and then had a child when I was in data collection," she explained. "I literally wrote my thesis breastfeeding, laying down and typing with one hand. So (my son's) a total nerd; it worked, that environment worked."

More: 'Big Bang Theory' star Mayim Bialik shuts down common questions on raising vegan kid s

The sitcom alum always knew she wanted to stay home with her kids, she added.

"(Staying home) is not a popular choice for women in science, but I knew I would rather raise them than pay someone else to raise them while I was out teaching someone else's children. That … was the right decision for me, and for my ex, Mike, we were married at the time, and that's the decision that we made."

Three years after Miles, who was born in 2005, Bialik got pregnant with Frederick.

"I got pregnant the week I filed my thesis, with my second child, that's our 'Mazel Tov' baby. … He's also a nerd, so we did pretty good," Bialik joked.

Bialik shared on the podcast that she will continue to fuel her sons' "nerdiness" with a new neuroscience curriculum to help teach them and eight of their friends about the subject.

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UCLA should rescind Mayim Bialik's neuroscience PhD for attaching herself to this pseudoscience garbage

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/O6KI/neuriva-actual-neuroscientist-featuring-mayim-bialik

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IMAGES

17 Things You Didn't Know About Mayim Bialik
Mayim Bialik 11
Mayim Bialik’s PhD In Neuroscience From UCLA
Mayim Bialik
The Entire Truth of Dr. Mayim Bialik
Mayim Bialik 9

COMMENTS

Hypothalamic regulation in relation to maladaptive, obsessive
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Hypothalamic Regulation in Relation to
Hypothalamic Regulation in Relation to Maladaptive, Obsessive-compulsive, Affiliative, and Satiety Behaviors in Prader-Willi Syndrome. Bialik, Mayim Chaya. University of California, Los Angeles ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2007. 3317017. PDF Download PreviewCopy LinkOrder a copy CiteAll Options. Select results items first to use the cite ...
Turning point: Mayim Bialik
Actress makes the shift from television to neuroscience and then back again. Perhaps best known for her role as Blossom on the 1990s television programme of the same name, Mayim Bialik took the ...
Mayim Bialik '00, PhD.'07
Actress Mayim Bialik'00, PhD.'07 who plays delightfully smart, funny and nerdy Amy earned her undergraduate, and doctorate degrees at UCLA. The actress even shares a similar field of study with her TV alter ego - Amy Farrah Fowler holds a doctorate in neuro-biology, while actress Bialik holds a doctorate in neuroscience.
The Truth About Mayim Bialik's Education
Mayim Bialik is potentially best known for playing Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler in the cult classic TV series "The Big Bang Theory." The immensely popular show followed the trials and tribulations of a group of scientists, and Bialik's background gave her a perfect stepping stone into the role. So, here's the truth about Mayim Bialik's education.
Why This 'Big Bang Theory' Star Got a Ph.D. in Science
Onetime child star Mayim Bialik earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience, then returned to acting on TV hit The Big Bang Theory —playing a scientist. It's given her a unique view of women's roles, in ...
'The Big Bang Theory's' Mayim Bialik Shares Experiences as an Academic
She fell in love with the neuron during her first semester in college, and from there her passion for science took off with a bang. As a trained scientist, Mayim Bialik's portrayal of neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" comes naturally. The show is currently the top-rated comedic television series in the nation, and Bialik uses her celebrity to serve ...
Mayim Bialik
Mayim Chaya Bialik (/ ˈ m aɪ ɪ m b i ˈ ɑː l ɪ k / MY-im bee-AH-lik; born December 12, 1975) is an American actress, author and former game show host.From 1991 to 1995, she played the title character of the NBC sitcom Blossom.From 2010 to 2019, she played neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, for which she was nominated four times for the Primetime Emmy ...
PDF TURNING POINT The Big Bang Theory Mayim Bialik
Mayim Bialik took the unusual step of turning away from television after the show ended to study science at university. Then, as she was about to earn her PhD in neuroscience from the University
Mayim Bialik shares her STEM inspiration
Mayim Bialik shares her STEM inspiration. The Big Bang Theory actress speaks to the National Science Teachers Association. By Bethany Brookshire. April 7, 2014 at 9:21 am. BOSTON - Mayim Bialik, an actress famous for her role as a neuroscientist on The Big Bang Theory, actually has a neuroscience Ph.D. in real life.
5 Facts About Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Some readers asked me to write more science-related posts, including specifically something about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. While I can't fill all reader requests, I do have an interest in OCD because my doctoral thesis in Psychoneuroendocrinology (in the Neuroscience Department at UCLA) was on Obsessions and Compulsions in a population of individuals with a genetic syndrome called ...
Mayim Bialik, PhD
Mayim Bialik, PhD. Actress and Activist. Mayim Hoya Bialik currently stars as Amy Farrah Fowler in the CBS hit comedy "The Big Bang Theory", for which she received Emmy nominations in 2012 and 2013 in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Category. In 2014, she received her first SAG Award nomination, also for her role on ...
The Entire Truth of Dr. Mayim Bialik
Scientist and actress discusses new Girling Up book. Posted May 09, 2017. For years, Dr. Mayim Bialik has been challenging our notion of what it means to be a girl and woman. In a world that has a ...
Not My Job: Mayim Bialik Of 'Big Bang Theory' Gets Quizzed On Big ...
Damian Dovarganes/AP. As a teen, Mayim Bialik starred in the '90s sitcom Blossom, and just in case her acting career didn't take off after that, she earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. Turns ...
'Big Bang Theory' actress Mayim Bialik a real-life scientist
July 15, 2011 7:24 a.m. EDT. Mayim Bialik plays Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS hit comedy "The Big Bang Theory." (CNN) -- You may remember her as the title character from NBC's "Blossom," or ...
Mayim Bialik Encourages Awareness of Prader-Willli With Online PSA
As many of you know, my doctoral thesis in Neuroscience focused on a genetic syndrome called Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS). PWS, a spontaneous mutation in chromosome 15, occurs in one out of approximately every 15,000 live births. The most distinctive feature of the syndrome is the inability to feel full; because of this, PWS is the leading cause ...
Mayim Bialik: "I Started Crying When I Realized How Beautiful the
Episode 2 Mayim Bialik: "I Started Crying When I Realized How Beautiful the Universe Is" She's best known for playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, but the award-winning actress has a rich life outside of her acting career, as a teacher, mother — and a real-life neuroscientist.Steve Levitt tries to learn more about this one-time academic and Hollywood non ...
Is Mayim Bialik a neuroscientist?
In 2000, Mayim enrolled at the University of California in Los Angeles to pursue a degree in neuroscience.. Seven years later, the actress received her doctorate in neuroscience. Bialik dished to BrainandLife about the inspiration to pursue a degree in neuroscience, crediting her biology tutor as a significant part, saying: "I was a diligent student, but science didn't come naturally to me.
Mayim Bialik, actress, UCLA neuroscience alumna, to deliver 2018 UCLA
Her thesis examined the role of oxytocin and vasopressin in obsessive-compulsive disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome. While at UCLA, Bialik was a dedicated student leader in the Jewish student group UCLA Hillel, founding a women's Rosh Chodesh group, chanting and blowing shofar for the High Holiday services, and conducting and ...
Mayim Bialik Answers 50 of the Most Googled Neuroscience Questions
that would be dopamine as the. [bell ringing] primary neurotransmitter. How information travels in the nervous system. All sorts of crazy ways, up, down, sideways, inside out. Information travels ...
'Big Bang Theory' star Mayim Bialik on having kids while in school
0:00. 1:46. Mayim Bialik might be a neuroscience genius, but even she said raising two boys while in grad school was not easy. "The Big Bang Theory" alum appeared on the podcast "The Three ...
The Secret Life of Scientists & Engineers
As a teenager, Bialik played the title role on the television series Blossom. She explains how a biology tutor during that time inspired her to fall in love with science and pursue her science interests. While Bialik has since earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience—the science of how you think—she continues to act. Now Bialik plays Amy Farrah ...
UCLA should rescind Mayim Bialik's neuroscience PhD for attaching
There's, "I have a degree in neuroscience," and there's, "I'm a neuroscientist." I think this lady has it confused. I didn't graduate with my worthless English lit degree and start telling people, "I'm a published author." To be a neuroscientist, you have to put in some work, I think, post-degree. And all this lady has published is her thesis.