Hello everyone!
June is here - and with it, a bit of a special episode this time. You might remember that last month’s guest, neuroscientist Makis Tzioras from Greece, sounded very keen on doing a podcast about their pop idol Taylor Swift. Next thing I know, Makis and one of you (Dani Ruiz, another neuroscientist from Spain) were going on about which type of brain cell could be which of Taylor’s albums. I kid you not.
As you’ll understand, I couldn’t let that go on. Not without a microphone. So we made it happen. Did I know much about Taylor’s discography? Admittedly, no. Do I believe poetry and science make a beautiful couple? You bet your astrocytes.
Hope you enjoy this as much as we enjoyed making it... Ready for it?
Have a fantastic Pride Month!
Love,
Pablo
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Episode transcript
Hello everyone and welcome back to How To Make A Scientist. I thought that I’d kick off June with a special episode for the show. This time. I'm joined by two fellow neuroscientists Makis Tzioras from Greece, who you met last month, and one of you lovely followers, Dani Ruiz from Madrid.
This episode is probably not like anything I've listened to before, certainly not in this show. But if you like pop music and science, I promise you, you're in for a treat. Enjoy.
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Hi, Dani!
Hi.
What's up Makis, hi again!
Hello, again, thank you for having me.
You're most welcome. So we're here because you said you could easily do a whole podcast on Taylor Swift, and neuroscience. And Dani was very happy to tag along on Twitter. So here we are three of us and the stage is yours.
I mean, honestly, this is my biggest contribution to science, bringing Taylor Swift into this little world. And I think the best way to bring her into this world of neuroscience is by assigning an album to a cell type in the brain, and then we can talk about why we think they would match.
Alright, Alright, sounds good. That's right.
Nice. Okay, so let's start with her debut album, self titled Taylor Swift. For me, this is so obviously an oligodendrocyte. And it can tell you why. And if you want to tell me what you think about it. So oligodendrocytes, you know, the form the myelin and the brain, they are kind of underappreciated, like the, they're not talked about as much as they should be, you know, they form of foundation, they form the myelin, they're there. And they have a very important role. And we forget about them. And it's only until we lose them that we remember how much they're worth. And I feel like that's kind of why they are the oligodendrocyte. Because it's a great album, it's got some really nice songs. It's just been so long, and we don't talk about it anymore.
What’s the myelin though?
The myelin is basically, a very nice tuxedo for the neuron. So it's a fatty layer that goes around the axon, this long projection from the nerve cell, the neuron, and it protects it, it keeps it from, from anything that's bad, and it makes it do what it's supposed to do and work really fast.
Okay. What do you think, Dani?
So, um, funnily enough, I had same reason, but different conclusion. So for me, yeah. Taylor Swift is also so underrated as an album. But for me, that makes endothelial cells, which they are in the brain, and people don't even realize it sometimes. But they are- they're needed. They're fundamental, because if they were not there, any of the rest of the things that happened in the brain, if these cells that were the starting germ were not there, the rest could not have come.
So what are endothelial cells?
Yeah, so endothelial cells, they’re basically part of the vasculature on the brain, so they allow blood to get to the brain and nourish all the cells that participate there.
Okay. Do you agree Makis? What was your album for endothelial cells?
I do get it. I can definitely see that also, for some reason, because the Taylor Swift debut album is green. Oligodendrocytes for me are also always green. So that was, I don't know why…
I agree. Yeah.
But I can definitely see for those reasons, the endothelial cells as well, I've got a similar cell type, but I've got it for later.
All right.
So I guess next comes Fearless, Taylor's version. Because, well, this could be the next podcast, but basically, Taylor Swift has been recording all of her albums before the album Lover. And for legal reasons, because she doesn't own some of the rights, but she owns her songs. So there's a whole legal battle with all of this. And she said, you know, if you're not gonna allow me to own my own songs, I'm gonna re-record them. And she's in a different label now, and they allow her to do that. So she's being a boss, she released her second album called Fearless. She re-released. And it's Fearless Taylor's version. Isn't that's amazing?
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's literally history, like pop music history being made.
And it's such a good album very much on the popular stream. For me, it had to be an excitatory neuron. Because people talk about it so much. It's everywhere. It's like, you could say that neurons created this world. And neurons would be like, Yes, we did. Yes, we did. It's just you know, they're they're a little bit self entitled. Kind of independent, a little bit overrated but you know, they're worth it. So I felt like excitatory neurons, specifically excitatory neurons.
Alright, so self entitled, no apologies…
That's nice. That was nice. I also have a very similar one here. I've got sensory neurons. So I sort of think the same, like they're really talked about. They’re really famous. But, yeah, I think there are a lot of good things there. And there is so much feelings to unpack, when one starts to talk about Fearless, because it's also the album that I listened to the most when I was like a teenager. So yeah, sensory neurons would fit best here, I think.
Okay, what sort of sensory neurons, like, what are you thinking about? Anyone on in the body specifically? Or?
I was thinking, just, you know, central nervous system. So anything that received some input, visual, or, you know, touch neurons… That would be absolutely Fearless for me.
So they're, they're like, you know, yes, I'm here, bring it on.
Yeah. And there, I think Fearless is also one of the album's that more input has received throughout the decades, you know, everyone has an opinion about Fearless.
How old is this thing, the album?
2008 is the original. And also, this is what made Taylor famous really, because love story is one of her biggest song, and it was the first big songs.
And that's another reason for them being neurons, because they were like the first ones. Or were, you know, like described and made famous. The brain has since self made up of cells and this kind of thing.
Yeah, so everyone ever only ever talks about neurons and forget about everything else, unfortunately. So who's coming up next?
Well, next we have the album Speak now. Also a really great album. She got a lot of criticism for Fearless, because people hate seeing a woman succeed. And they said, Well, no, you don't write all your own songs. And she does. So in Speak now, she decided to have no co-writers for any of the songs. She wrote, all of them by herself, created a masterpiece of an album. And it's definitely more underrated than Fearless, but has the same energy to it. So for me, I went for inhibitory neurons.
So the excitatory neurons, they get all the love, all the praise, people forget about inhibitory neurons, but they're still so important. And they do very similar things in a way. So you know, they just produce different things and they respond to different things. But, they’re there.
Okay, so can you think of them, like sort of the ying and yang of the brain, like, how do they sort of play with each other?
Yeah, they're like, two sides of the same coin I think is the expression.
So for me, I just love this album. Well, here, we've got this 18 song album worth of poetry. And he created like this whole inculcated story going on throughout the album, and all the - so for me, that was sort of very similar to purkinje neurons on the cerebellum.
Woah, that’s a lot of big words, what’s purkinje neurons, what’s the cerebelulum?
So they're basically our neurons from the cereberal cortex. And they've got like these massive, super intrincated dendritic trees. Yeah, so they receive a lot of information, a lot of input from the brain, and then sort of modulate it and sort of filter them. They're like, super complex and really beautiful to see. Yeah.
Dani, I have a question. Would you say it was enchanting to meet them? It was definitely better than revenge.
Oh, inside that joke there.
Songs from the album. It's just so much.
So I already confessed to both of them that I know nothing about Taylor Swift off the record. So just learning us we go.
Yeah, we're just here to show you.
Absolutely, I'm willing to learn! The cerebellum, for those of you who don't know it is the organ that's sort of stuck to your brain on the back. So like on the back of your neck, and it controls your movement mainly. And the purkinje neurons that Dani mentioned are - fun fact - flat. And so loads of neurons and other cells in your brain, they're all three dimensional, and they have a shape in 3d and they are sort of spheric, whereas purkinje neurons are entirely flat. Which is that something you would say about the album at all?
No, not at all. I mean, they're flat. Fair enough. But they have, like so many, you know, terminations, so it's just like complex, even though it's flat.
Yeah, don't judge a book by its cover. Okay, well, I guess these are like a DVD or any of these things is flat to start with, they can still make you vibrate as it were.
It can be filled with so many content and emotion. Absolutely.
And I guess that brings us to read the next album. So Red is when things started changing, he was a complete gear shift. Because you went from country albums, then starting to get a little bit more pop. And then you got a pure pop album with Red. But, very, very popular. Red. Gear shift. For me, it had to be a macrophage. Because, you know, they're independent. And it had a little bit of anger in the album, which I feel macrophages are always just a little bit angry. You know, they're part of the immune system, they always have to react to something. And I feel like that’s what Red did, it had to react to the fact that people were like, well, country's not cool. And she's like, well, it is cool. But you know, what is also cool me making country into pop? I that's why I really think like, it's just, you know, super capable cells, maybe a little bit all over the place, which I think the album maybe was. Yeah.
Yeah, that makes total sense, actually. Because, you know, they transform, right? So they are one thing, and then they go and transform into a different one. And they that's the way to do their functions. So that that makes total sense with the switch of styles as well. Dani?
Yeah, so for me, we already talked about them. But I would say Red should be oligodendrocytes. Because you also mentioned that my case before that. One of the things oligodendrocytes allow for the brain to do is a things go faster, and things go like more efficiently. And I think that that's the the time point in Taylor Swift’s career too. So Red made her an iconic pop musician, pop singer. So yeah, made everything run faster and smoother I think.
I can definitely see that. And also because I think with Red, although it has some incredible songs in it. I think it was an from start to finish, the best album. Myelin that oligodendrocytes make is along the axon. It has its bumps on the road. You know, you've got some great bits, and then you've got some little bumps in the road.
So you would say that Red has skips on it?
I would. Is that bad?
No, I mean, I can totally see that. It has no skips for me though. But I understand that you know, but on the other on the other hand, you've got some of the greatest songs so far. The last I don't know century. Like All too well, or I almost do.
All too well is a lyrical masterpiece. Would you say stay stay stay is not a skip?
Not at all. Okay. Okay, it's one of my favorites of the whole album.
The way we disagree about Taylor Swift is exactly how scientists disagree about science.
Damn right.
Like, no, absolutely no, you're so wrong here. No, it is. It's okay. I mean, I can I can see how you could put on an oligo as well.
I was wondering because you were talking about this bumps on the road, I was wondering how a neuron would feel to touch. Like, obviously, we can't really feel it because it's too small, but you know, if we get a massive neuron, and zoomed in, how would it feel to finger touching it?
I have the feeling like it would be like slippery. You know, like sort of like feels like butter in my brain.
I think it would be sad, beautiful and tragic. That's another song from Red.
Yeah. Well done.
See, linking those things together. Yeah, I would agree slippery. I think maybe like dolphin, although never touched a dolphin.
Yeah. No, I can see that. I've never touched on either, but I can totally imagine.
Yeah. Yes, that same feeling.
You want I'd like to throw it back in the ocean.
Alright, what's up next?
So next, we've got 1989. This is the year Taylor Swift became part of this physical world. And for me, 1989 is an astrocyte. And I'll tell you for why. Astrocytes are immune cells in the brain. They are enormous cells, much like 1989 was such a big album. So Red was the first pop album. 1989 made her a pop star. She won her next Grammys there. Astrocytes are talked about so much, you know, they've got the whole world obsessing about them. Not much anymore, which may have happened with 1989. Because some other cells have come along the way that we can talk about after to steal the spotlight. But you know, they really had everyone's attention. And, you know, they really just made a statement.
I agree with that, too, because astrocytes are called that way because of their shape. Right? So they’re shaped like a star.
Oh, my God. Yes.
Yeah. And then circling back to stars, you know, obviously, the whole of astronomy is based on stars exploding and all the rest of it, right? That might just be a good way to think of the stars of the galaxy, or of Taylor Swift.
Absolutely. So beautifully worded. Anything I can say now, it's just going to sound way worse.
Go for it. No.
So basically, I thought, once again, we sort of share the same reasons but different outcome. So I thought of 1989 as motoneurons because I thought 1989 came to be this whole mainstream pop album, that shifted, and, you know, make it completely different. And, yeah, I think with motor neurons it’s the same, you know, like, they became sort of like the mainstream thing to think when one thinks about neuroscience. Well, neurons, you know, decide the movements we do or these kind of things. So it's just like the go to thought.
And yeah, so I also think that like 1989, was sent a statement in itself, and also is the start of Taylor Swift starting to speak out, to actually say what she thought and starting to campaign, publicly, human rights and LGBTQ rights and all this kind of thing. So it was a bit of her starting to share herself on her thoughts with herself and the world.
With a great risk of losing her fan base.
Yeah.
So you know, it was very brave of her to do that. Because at the time, yeah, she was a pop icon, though, you know, they come and go. It was it was a very big risk. And it really paid off because she had a great fan base.
I'm just glad for one that she did, because we do need people in those high privileged positions, high power positions, to speak their minds and you know, campaign for human rights.
For sure. And would you say, both motorneurons and astrocytes would never go out of style. So it doesn't matter?
Absolutely.
So a little map of the of the brain for anyone who's got neurons on the sensory side, we just talked about them in a few minutes ago, and motor neurons. There’s neurons that feel and receive the sort of information and the feelings and whatever else, and that's sensory neurons. And then that gets processed in the brain. And it's motor neurons that produce that movement or response, whichever it is, and then there’s excitatory, which increase the overall sort of activity of the brain and inhibitory, which decrease it. So it kind of like, keeps a balance. And we keep being mostly rational.
I was thinking, obviously, 1989 was the year that Taylor Swift was born. It was also the year where a lot of stuff happened in the world, like Tiananmen Square protests in in the summer, or Berlin Wall falling in, I think it was November. That was it. So what happens after that year?
Well, it's the calm before the storm, isn't it? Because you've got your ash besides getting a lot of popularity. And guess who comes next, the microglia! Microglia came in in the form of reputation. The next album, Reputation was a cultural reset much how microglia are so microglia we've talked about this in previous podcasts as well. You know, they're also immune cells in the brain. There are a lot smaller than astrocytes. And they are great responders and the brain. So they detect a lot of the changes, and they've got so many functions, the help myelin formation by the oligodendrocytes, they can help synapses form, and help them go away, do all sorts of things, make all of these different signals that they release in the brain to let it know what's happening.
But because there's such great responders, sometimes they just get a little bit angry. And I think Reputation was all about releasing anger. Because Taylor's sorry, Taylor's Reputation, took a hit. A lot of things happened against her. People tried to destroy her reputation, and she came back stronger. And that's the story of microglia, isn't it? They were the cells no one was talking about. No one cared about them. They had a terrible reputation. And then suddenly, the field exploded. People stopped talking about astrocytes, and everything became about microglia.
I could not agree more, like in this case, we have exactly the same ones. Microglia have big Reputation vibes. Absolutely. I also think is that much as with Reputation, you know, like the whole marketing campaign and everything. But you also have inside the album some of the most beautiful, dedicated songs ever. I say I would say you could say the same microglia you know, like, at first everyone just saw them as workers, let's say, you know, from from the brain or whatever, just like little helpers. But it was after a time that people started realizing how much more complex they are, say. Reputation is undoubtedly microglia.
Absolutely, they just they’re reclaiming their time, and everyone's obsessed with them. Yeah, no, that's the microglial cell for you. Definitely Reputation. I think if you have no science background, and you want to learn about microglia, listen to Reputation. First do that. Then read about them, and I think you'll get it more.
Cool stuff! Have we run out of cells already?
Never, we’ve got more. Not yet. We have three more albums, so at least three more cells. So the next album, we can go to is Lover. So you're leaving that Reputation, that anger behind - that was the night as Taylor Swift calls it - and we go into the daylight with Lover, and Lover is all about embracing that happiness and being in a good place. And for me, that's how I went in terms of the science of it, and I went with the pericytes, because pericytes, basically, they just give a nice hug to the blood vessels in the brain. And you know, the form the tight junctions. That's what she did, she formed a tight junction with her boyfriend. But also, you know, not afraid to show the vulnerable side. So that's why think, lover is pericytes. What do you think?
Hmm, I love it. So, yeah, it's sort of scares me how similarly we think this kind of things. Although my answer would be astrocytes, because they also do those kind of hugs with neurons. And I was thinking, you know, like, the feeling I got when I listened to Lover is the absolute, absolute pure calm of being constantly in love, and not having, you know, this kind of teenage drama relationships. I was thinking about that and how you try and nourish your lover. And that's a bit what astrocytes do with neurons, do they, they basically feed them.
Let’s come back to parasites, as Makis said, and kind of killed the mood by saying that those hugs, like, like makis said, pericytes hug blood vessels in the brain and elsewhere. And that controls blood flow into and outside of the brain. And that could be a problem when you have pericytes hugging more than they should, which is the case, for example, in Alzheimer's. And that's actually part of that's actually something that we, in the lab discovered that in Alzheimer's, you have pericytes just hugging too much, not respecting social distancing at all. And they deprive neurons of oxygen, and that could contribute to their death in dementia and other diseases. And having just killed the mood, is there any way we can bring it back, Makis?
Always ways we can bring it back because Lover also gave us one of the most queer inclusive songs and videos. You know, she has a song called You need to calm down. And basically, every queer celebrity you can think of was in that video. All together, whether that was drag race queens, RuPaul himself, and Queer Eye, all sorts of people. And it was just a great way of including us you know? It's a celebration. It's not just including us. It was celebrating us. That was the big difference. It was like, this is for you, about you, really just directed at queer people. And I love her for that.
Yeah, we can create community in those ways by being forgiving.
That's so important isn't it? Not just sort of allowing people to leave but also embracing that diversity as well.
Like a parasite. Like an astrocyte.
Okay, we're close to the end. Now. We've got two more albums left. So the next album came out by surprise during the pandemic. And it's called Folklore. And it was completely different from anything she's done before. Folklore is a storytelling album, and she's such an amazing lyricist that really fit it, because she's got all the stories to tell. And I thought who's got an endless amount of stories to tell? The stem cells. Because they can do anything they can become anything. There are endless stories. You know, they are these pools of cells that can have the capabilities of becoming all sorts of cell types and I love that for them. So I thought, you know, Folklore fits very well with stem cells and having so many different stories that you can say.
That's super beautiful. I thought of folklore. It was like a really special for me too. Because you know, yeah, so it was released during the pandemic, as a surprise, but also it was a place to go and shield yourself from the world from what was going on. So I thought of Folklore as schwann cells. That was a bit tricky because it's not specifically in the brain. They basically do the same functions as oligodendrocytes, but on the peripheric nervous system. And I thought that for one Folklore was a completely different style from everything that she had done before. So it's a bit perpheric in her style. And also schwann cells they cover they hide the neurons with their own body. So it's a bit of what I felt Taylor Swift was doing.
Would you say she gave us peace?
Absolutely.
Brilliant timing as well right with the lockdown and all the rest of it. Did you say This is me trying was that album as well?
This is me trying was it was a cry for you know, I'm doing my best let me be. And so many people felt that with burnout of lockdown. I think this brings us to the last album called Evermore. And Evermore was a sister album to folklore. And it kind of had the same storytelling, ambience about it. But it just finished everything. It just tied everything with a nice ribbon. And that was the end of the storytelling. And that's why I chose an apoptotic cell, which is not a specific cell type is just the end of the lifecycle of a cell. So it's not a necrotic cell, which is kind of a more forceful death. It's an apoptotic cell. It's done its job. And now it's going away. And I think that's a beautiful thing.
Super nice, too. Because apoptosis is programmed, and so was this album, from the very beginning she already knew that he was going to release two albums. So for me, it was Evermore, I thought of stem cells, I find that evermore is Taylor Swift consummating her talent and her statement of saying, Yeah, I can do whatever I want to. Stem cells have the potential too. They just can be whatever, whatever they want to be. And I also think that's a very important lesson for all of us. We should try our best to be the best version of ourselves, or do we want to be?
Aw. Yeah, that’s a good good icing on the cake. Someone mentioned poetry earlier, which is interesting, because I do think of music as being poetry and the thing mark is that can't remember if it was on or off the record when we did your episode. You did say you believed that Taylor Swift was the greatest poet of America. Was it?
Oh, yeah. The best part of the the American part of the 21st century.
There you go - anyway, let's keep this as a celebration of poetry as well. And a statement that there's nothing that keeps us from bringing poetry and art and pop and science and brains together. I definitely enjoyed and then a lot about cells, and especially Taylor Swift. I hope people did at home too. Did you enjoy?
I had the best time of my life here. Thank you so much for giving as a platform to talk about this.
It was really a dream come true.
Well, that's what we're here for. Makis, thank you so much for joining.
Thank you.
Dani, muchas gracias.
Gracias.
Thank you both. Bye!