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