My Minds Obsession

why is it that most people

are exclusively attracted to the

opposite sex

and find the same gender undesirable as

a romantic partner

did biology shape these preferences did

society

both why should we care

i’m not sure i’ll have an answer for you

by the end of this talk

but what i hope to do is expand your

mind on factors that drive the object of

someone’s affection

and arousal that goes beyond what you

may have learned in life

or perhaps even what you know for

yourself to be true

as you watch and listen to me tell a

story

this story starts with a young boy

growing up with working class parents

in the desert of yucca valley california

in the early 1980s

of course this boy is me my father had a

passion for bowling

yes bowling my mother worked as a

waitress

and attended a local community college

earning credits toward a degree in early

childhood education

i grew up in bowling alleys in fact

before i went to college my father

wanted me to follow in his footsteps

to become a professional bowler too i

was good at bullying

but not good enough to compete on a

national level

my interests were of a different kind

growing up in the desert there were many

animals to engage with

because after all it was the desert

there wasn’t a whole lot to do besides

go outside to explore and play

here’s where i found my first obsession

ants

i became fascinated with this rich

social lives of this small creature i

wanted to know absolutely everything

why was there only one queen and so many

workers

how did they communicate why were some

fighting

some foraging others mating

these questions on how animals relate to

one another began to spread to all areas

of my life

now when playing with my younger sister

ken and barbie had elaborate social

lives too

but so did ken and ken barbie and barbie

and the thrupple can barbie and ken

little did i know at the time but this

deep curiosity for behavior

would later drive my motivations

professionally

in fact for the rest of my life

unfortunately my parents divorced when i

was 12 years old

and my mother relocated my sister and i

to alpena michigan

a rural part of the midwest

an outsider husky gender non-conforming

teenager

life in middle and high school wasn’t

too easy

i was bullied for being overweight and

acting effeminate

or gay as many would yell in the

hallways when i walked to class

so naturally like any young teenager

would

i buried my head in books and surrounded

myself

with a few positive friends who allowed

me to express myself in the way i felt

comfortable

my ap biology and ap psychology teachers

actually a husband and wife team noticed

that same curiosity i expressed when i

was a young boy

growing up in the desert of southern

california

they encouraged me to apply to college

and so i did

i attended michigan state university and

there my life really changed forever

in lansing i met two professors that

helped mold me into the scientist

teacher and human being i am today

i also came out first is gay and then

later in life is bisexual

being a sexual minority in academia has

posed many challenges over the course of

my career

but also many opportunities being vocal

about my personal life has allowed other

silent voices to feel empowered

and not ashamed to talk casually about

their romantic lives

why would it we shouldn’t stay hidden in

a closet

as my curiosity developed in college i

became fascinated by model organisms

to now study the neuroscience of social

behavior

so i chose to attend graduate school all

the way down in the panhandle of

tallahassee florida

at florida state university where i

studied the brains of a socially

monogamous rodent

this little field mouse the prairie vole

in the wild when a male and female mate

they generally mate for life

and this parabon can be experiment

manipulated

in the lab and its associated neural

functioning dissected

while working with this species in

graduate school i discovered a

neurochemical microcircuit

that regulates decision-making in the

brain

three neurotransmitter systems

vasopressin

an anti-diuretic hormone a stress

peptide

corticotropin releasing hormone also

known as crh

and serotonin a mood stabilizing

molecule

work in concert with one another to

facilitate decisions about whether a

conspecific animal

is a familiar partner or unfamiliar

stranger

pair bonding in experience in this

species creates a neuroplastic

reorganization of the brain

circuits that programs these behaviors

affiliation and aggression it was this

line of curiosity

investigating the neurobiology of

aggression which brings us to the last

chapter of this story

when i located to boston massachusetts

where i’ve spent the past 10 years

researching and teaching

using fruit flies yes fruit flies mice

rats to ask similar questions about how

the nervous system develops

to control sexually dimorphic social

behavior

today you can now find me teaching

popular courses like

sex and aggression a pretty taboo class

and labs such as principles of

neuroscience

where we use fruit flies to dissect the

nervous system

and how it relates to sex behavior this

curriculum

helps us to try to understand some of

the original questions about behavior

that fascinated three-year-old kyle back

in the desert

my students often ask dr g how do you

accomplish so much with so little

and appear unscathed my response is

i like to think of myself as being

forged in the fires of adversity

despite growing up with many obstacles

some of which i still struggle with even

to today

i know one thing is certain my obsessive

curiosity is my superpower

and it’s not going away anytime soon not

until the day i die

and no one or any life circumstance

positive or negative

will ever take that unique part of who i

am

out i hope your superpower never dims

either

thanks for listening to my story now go

share yours