May 5, 2010) Robert Sapolsky explores behavioral patterns of human reproduction. He focuses on proximal and distal motivations, orgasm and fertility facilitation, non-reproductive sex, hormonal and cerebral sexual functions, and the differences and similarities between humans and animals in various physiological realms.
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Another question: online relationships, dating internet sites, zoom meetings, without pheromones, how can you swipe right or left correctly?!
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Loved the content, keep it coming!
Perfect timing. Peak!
peak goy activities
I love watching random college lectures at 2am!
Watching it after 15 yrs of uploading and as a 21 yrs old person I love to learn all short forms of knowledge
2026 gang
I wish I could attend. I come from a slave continent.
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What a great guy. His speech is very organized, that helps making this information accesible
jewking lecture
Why YouTube thought it's a great idea to recommend me at 1 am cause now I'm actually interested in listening instead of sleeping
Well 15y ago is crazy i’m just a little kid back then didn’t know i want this on my feed
“A relationship is the price you pay for the anticipation of it”
In other words, human beings often love the feeling of wanting something more than they love actually having it. The relationship itself becomes the "bill" you have to pay after enjoying the high of anticipation.
This guy is very intelligent and insightful. There's a piece lacking that I feel. I wish he would acknowledge the transformation that less consciously rational thinking provides. Like how transcendental meditation and psychedelics can result in better connection with each other and a better conscious experience. If your whole brain is a machine, you'll find yourself in a particular hell that's hard to describe. Rationality is a powerful tool, but we're strange meat and need other ways to keep us happy too
This was very informative, appreciate it.
Yuh
Will this help me get a gf?
While Prof. Sapolsky is a brilliant lecturer, the specific "landmark" studies he cites here (the 1990s/2000s Dutch postmortem brain studies by Zhou and Kruijver) have massive methodological flaws that modern neuroscience has since exposed.
If you are looking at the science, the "clean" brain-body mismatch narrative presented here falls apart for several key reasons:
The Hormone Control Flaw: To prove that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) didn't cause the brain changes, the researchers compared trans women to cisgender men treated for prostate/testicular cancer. But there is a huge experimental mismatch: the cancer patients only took feminizing hormones for a few months, whereas the trans individuals had been on high-dose HRT for years or decades. You cannot scientifically equate months of exposure to decades of exposure.
Tiny Sample Size: The entire foundation of this "landmark" data relied on a postmortem sample of just six transgender individuals. Drawing universal, sweeping conclusions about human neurobiology from six data points is statistically reckless, as individual human brain variations are massive.
It's Not Present at Birth: Sapolsky implies these individuals had the "wrong body from day one" in the womb. However, follow-up research (Chung et al., 2002) revealed that this specific brain region (the BNST) does not show sexual dimorphism during childhood. The structural differences only emerge during and after puberty, meaning it isn't a fixed prenatal mismatch.
Failure to Replicate: Independent labs have generally failed to replicate these clean, binary results. In fact, a comprehensive 2024 meta-analysis reviewing human BNST data concluded that when you adjust for overall brain size, the strict, binary male-vs-female structural separation in the BNST largely vanishes.
Stress and Dysphoria vs. Identity: In the 90s, the BNST was viewed strictly as a reproductive center. Today, we know it is a central hub for the brain's chronic distress, anxiety, and fear networks. The structural changes found in these brains postmortem may not be the cause of their gender identity, but rather the neurological footprint of living for decades with severe, chronic psychological stress and dysphoria.
The Phantom Limb Over-simplification: The 0% "phantom penis" statistic comes from a very small, self-reported survey. Modern surgical and neurological data show that trans individuals can and do experience phantom sensations (both pleasant and painful) post-vaginoplasty or phalloplasty, completely contradicting the idea that the brain's cortical map is strictly "hardwired" away from their biological anatomy.
Sapolsky's lecture is a great historical look at early 2000s biological determinism, but neuroscience has moved past this rigid, flawed model.
Hi, just wanted to point out that "transsexualism " is now an offensive term and isn't medically relevant, transgenderism would be more appropriate.
But apart from that, this is so incredible
Turbojew
15 years ago???