Enhance Your Learning Speed & Health Using Neuroscience Based Protocols | Dr. Poppy Crum

Andrew Huberman

Sep 29, 2025

Episode description

My guest is ⁠Dr. Poppy Crum, PhD⁠, adjunct professor at Stanford, former Chief Scientist at Dolby Laboratories and expert in neuroplasticity—our brain’s ability to change in response to experience. She explains how you can learn faster and ways to leverage your smartphone, AI and even video games to do so. We also discuss “digital twins” and the future of health technology. This episode will change the way you think about and use technology and will teach you zero-cost protocols to vastly improve your learning, health and even your home environment.

Episode show notes: https://go.hubermanlab.com/fBzLUAd

Poppy's Cheat Sheet: https://go.hubermanlab.com/xCwHF1e

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Dr. Poppy Crum
Website: https://www.poppycrum.com
TED talk: https://youtu.be/HW2SSoYteIs?feature=shared
Articles: https://www.poppycrum.com/in-the-news
Academic profile: https://music.stanford.edu/people/poppy-crum
X: https://x.com/poppycrum
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/poppy-crum-9792298

Timestamps
00:00:00 Poppy Crum
00:02:22 Neuroplasticity & Limits; Homunculus
00:08:06 Technology; Environment & Hearing Thresholds; Absolute Pitch
00:13:12 Sponsors: David & Helix Sleep
00:15:33 Texting, Homunculus, Mapping & Brain; Smartphones
00:23:06 Technology, Data Compression, Communication, Smartphones & Acronyms
00:30:32 Sensory Data & Bayesian Priors; Video Games & Closed Loop Training
00:40:51 Improve Swim Stroke, Analytics & Enhancing Performance, Digital Twin
00:46:17 Sponsors: AGZ by AG1 & Rorra
00:49:08 Digital Twin; Tool: Learning, AI & Self-Testing
00:53:00 AI: Increase Efficacy or Replace Task?, AI & Germane Cognitive Load
01:02:07 Bread, Process & Appreciation; AI to Optimize Physical Environments
01:09:43 Awake States & AI; Measure & Modify
01:16:37 Wearables, Sensors & Measure Internal State; Pupil Size (Pupillometry)
01:23:58 Sponsor: Function
01:25:46 Integrative Systems, Body & Environment; Cognitive State & Decision-Making
01:32:11 Gamification, Developing Good Habits
01:38:17 Implications of AI, Diminishing Cognitive Skill
01:41:11 Digital Twins & Examples, Digital Representative; Feedback Loops
01:50:59 Customize AI; Situational Intelligence, Blind Spots, Work & Health, “Hearables”
02:01:08 Career Journey, Perception & Technology; Violin, Absolute Pitch
02:09:44 Incentives & Neuroplasticity; Technology & Performance
02:13:59 Acoustic Arms Race: Moths, Bats & Echolocation
02:21:17 Singing to Spiders, Spider Web & Environment Detection; Crickets; Marmosets
02:31:44 Acknowledgements
02:33:18 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter

Disclaimer & Disclosures: https://www.hubermanlab.com/disclaimer

Mindsip insights from this episode:

Utilize voice analysis to detect diseases early

AI analysis of how you speak, not what you say, can detect pathologies like Alzheimer's, heart disease, and diabetes years before traditional clinical symptoms appear.

#AI

#diagnosis

Enhance real-world vision through first-person shooter gaming

Playing 40 hours of a first-person shooter game like Call of Duty can permanently improve your real-world contrast sensitivity and the speed of your probabilistic decision-making.

#decision-making

#vision

Create custom AI coach for real-time skill analysis

You can use AI tools like Perplexity Labs to build a custom computer vision app on your phone that analyzes and gives you real-time data on physical skills like a swimming stroke or running form.

#AI

Leverage AI to enhance cognitive skills, not replace them

Technology like AI should be used to make you cognitively smarter by amplifying learning, not just to replace a cognitive skill to be faster, which can ultimately make you dumber.

#AI

#cognition

Engage in germane cognitive load for effective learning retention

True learning requires "Germane cognitive load," the mental work of building schemas, which is bypassed when using AI to write for you, resulting in less knowledge retention.

#AI

#education

Transform your home into a mood-responsive environment

Future smart homes will act as a "digital twin," using non-contact sensors that measure things like CO2 in your breath to deduce your cognitive state and dynamically adjust the environment to support your goals.

#AI

#environment

Utilize texting as lossy compression for rich communication

Modern texting with acronyms is a form of "lossy compression" that uses minimal data to trigger a rich cognitive and emotional experience, similar to how MP3s remove inaudible data from a song.

#emotion

Track mental fatigue with innovative wearable technology

A company called Python is developing a wearable that measures psychomotor vigilance to continuously track neural attentiveness and fatigue for high-performance situations.