Robert Bilder: We are embarking on the next stage of human evolution

Robert Bilder, PhD

What is your cur­rent job title and orga­ni­za­tion, and what excites you the most about work­ing there? 
I’m the Ten­nen­baum Fam­i­ly Pro­fes­sor of Cre­ativ­i­ty Research at UCLA’s Semel Insti­tute for Neu­ro­science & Human Behav­ior. The Semel Insti­tute and UCLA over­all are amaz­ing places to be involved in high­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive trans-dis­ci­pli­nary research.

Please tell us about your inter­est in applied brain sci­ence. What areas are you most inter­est­ed in? What moti­vat­ed you to pur­sue work in your field? 
I’m a clin­i­cal neu­ro-psy­chol­o­gist inter­est­ed in under­stand­ing how we can deploy new neu­ro­science knowl­edge to change our brains. I believe we are embark­ing on the next stage of human evolution!

What is one impor­tant thing you are work­ing on now, and where can peo­ple learn more about it? 
We are just start­ing a new study of “Big C” Cre­ativ­i­ty, sup­port­ed by the John Tem­ple­ton Foun­da­tion, and will be exam­in­ing the brains and cog­ni­tive func­tions of inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned visu­al artists and sci­en­tists. Sharp­Brains read­ers and learn more here.

What are 1–2 key things you’d like every per­son to under­stand regard­ing his/ her own brain and mind, that you think is com­mon­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed or not addressed in the pop­u­lar media? 
I wish we could dis­place all the myths about the dif­fer­ences between the left and right hemi­spheres, which I believe ends up being mis­rep­re­sent­ed a lot. Instead, I wish more peo­ple knew about the “dor­sal-ven­tral” dis­tinc­tion in the human cor­tex, which is a cor­ner­stone of evo­lu­tion­ary devel­op­ment of the mam­malian brain, and helps explain a great deal about the bal­ance of sta­bil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty in men­tal and emo­tion­al processing.

Where do you see clear “low-hang­ing fruit” to enhance behav­ioral and brain health based on neu­ro­science and innovation? 
Basic plan­ning and orga­ni­za­tion­al tools are not as well rec­og­nized as they should be; these are some of the most pro­found ways we know to “gear up” our frontal lobes. It seems like new tech­nolo­gies are focus­ing more on stream­ing ever-greater vol­umes into our pos­te­ri­or cor­tices (through our sen­so­ry sys­tems) and we could ben­e­fit from focus­ing more on tools to enhance our out­puts and productivity!

What would you like the 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit to accomplish? 
It will be great to hear everyone’s lat­est and great­est thoughts as progress in the field is accel­er­at­ing. Also I hope every­one will share freely what is NOT work­ing so that we can avoid the “peak of inflat­ed expec­ta­tions” in the “hype cycle” and keep expec­ta­tions realistic.

Final­ly, what do YOU do to stay sharp?
I’ve been mon­i­tor­ing my activ­i­ty with a Fit­Bit, and am always try­ing out new orga­ni­za­tion­al soft­ware to achieve IBZ and GTD (“in box zero” to “get things done”); the hope is by pro­mot­ing my cog­ni­tive con­trol I can make up for my dete­ri­o­rat­ing mem­o­ry. Most impor­tant, I’ve got a wife and twin 11-year old kids to keep me on my toes!

—This con­ver­sa­tion is part of a new inter­view series with Speak­ers and Par­tic­i­pants in the upcom­ing 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Sep­tem­ber 19–20th). You can reg­is­ter with a 20% dis­count using pro­mo­tion­al code: sharp2020