b"\\u201cAs you grow older, your brain is able to keep rewiring all the time. And so we have this impression that the flexibility of the brain decreases as you get older. But in fact, it's just because your brain's job is just to figure out how to get by in the world and do a good job in the world. And once you've figured most things out, like, oh, these are different kinds of personalities, and this is how I need to do something at work, and this is how I use email and phone and whatever, then your brain does less changing only because it has successfully done its job, and it doesn't need to keep changing. The brain changes when there's surprise, when there's something that happened that it wasn't expecting, then it changes up. So, you still have plenty of plasticity even when you're 90 years old. It's just that most people aren't using it at that point because they say, Oh, I got it. I know how things work.\\u201d\\nSo says David Eagleman, renowned neuroscientist, podcast host, and the author of many bestselling books about consciousness and the brain\\u2014along with more than 120 academic publications. Besides his perch as a neuroscientist at Stanford University, David is the co-founder of two venture-backed companies, including Neosensory, which is a pioneering wrist device that enables the deaf to hear. Yep, that\\u2019s right.\\nDavid is fascinating, and hopefully this conversation lives up to his capacity: We discuss the malleability of the brain to adjust to its inputs, the roots of synesthesia, how those who are born blind and deaf can now use touch to see and hear, and why we dream. Ultimately, we explore just how it happens that a brain trapped in a dark vault can create the vibrancy of our existence.\\nDavid is a TED speaker, a Guggenheim Fellow, and serves on several boards, including the American Brain Foundation and the The Long Now Foundation.\\xa0He is the Chief Scientific Advisor for the Mind Science Foundation, and the winner of Claude Shannon Luminary Award from Bell Labs and the McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication.\\nWhat\\u2019s cooler? He has served as the scientific advisor to several television shows (including Westworld and Perception).\\nIronically\\u2014considering we both host podcasts and David is a neuroscientist\\u2014we had some technical difficulties during our conversation, but the hope is that this is not perceptible to you!\\xa0\\n\\nMORE FROM DAVID EAGLEMAN:\\nLivewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain\\nThe Brain: The Story of You\\nSum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives\\nDavid\\u2019s Podcast: \\u201cInner Cosmos\\u201d\\nDavid\\u2019s Website\\nFollow David on Instagram\\nDavid\\u2019s Company: Neosensory\\n \\nTo learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy\\n \\n Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices"