Mindset Neuroscience Podcast · Stefanie Faye

Our Body Keeps the Score, Our Cells Remember w/ Dr. Nikolay Kukushkin

·1 hr 7 min·5 clips

The episode opens with the familiar claim that the body can keep score in ways the mind does not always notice. From there, it moves into Nico's work, which gives that idea a cellular and molecular frame. The conversation is clear that this is not just metaphor. It treats memory as a real biological process that can be studied at the level of cells. A big part of the interview gets technical. The host and guest spend time on methods, cellular functioning, and what researchers actually look for when they study these questions. The host puts his own perspective beside Nico's and points to a shared interest in zoomed-in biology. One lens looks at cells inside the brain and how activity turns into brainwaves. The other looks across species and across many organs in the body. Both are presented as useful for understanding larger patterns in behavior and psychology. The episode suggests that looking under the hood can sharpen the zoomed-out ideas people already use to describe development and experience. The discussion then turns to what it means for cells to remember. Nico describes memory as something that works like the brain's own memory systems, using the same molecules and processing information in the same way. The host pushes on the practical question of how anyone would know that a kidney cell, or any other non-brain cell, remembers. That leads to a definition drawn from neuroscience rather than everyday language. In this framing, memory is not mainly a private feeling. It is a change that shows up in future behavior. The conversation notes that behavior can include movement and future action. It can also include skill formation. A skill may count as memory even if it does not feel like the kind of remembering people usually talk about. The episode leaves room for anticipation, but it does not require anticipation in every case. It points out that a bike skill example could count as memory even if ordinary speech would not describe it that way. That distinction matters because it widens the frame without loosening the standard. The same biological logic, the episode argues, appears in both episodic memory and skill learning. Synaptic plasticity is involved in similar ways. The result is a more unified picture of how organisms change over time. Throughout, the interview keeps circling back to the value of studying life at a very close scale. It treats cellular signaling as a source of explanation rather than a distraction from the bigger human story. By the end, the listener is left with a model that links cells, behavior, and the meanings people build around experience. The episode is reflective, concept heavy, and willing to stay in the difficult middle ground between familiar intuition and emerging science.

As heard by us

A clear look at memory, cells, and the body shape of experience.

The episode takes a familiar body-memory idea and moves it into cellular and molecular territory without losing sight of the evidence question. That gives the conversation real substance.

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Why you'd press play

You want a brain-body science conversation that moves from behavior to the cellular mechanisms underneath.

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