All my treatments are geared towards what is
the primary root issue and what do we do to actually,
you know, help achieve better balance there.
So, yeah, so I have a very we do that all the
time. And that's my main area of research is
autism, but especially, you know, working with
the non -speaking autistic community and trying
to help them to communicate or get their voice
and not lose their genius. Yeah, they're in there.
Oh more than you can imagine. Yeah Yeah, so Yeah,
maybe you can just start with telling us about
your journey into medicine and then specifically
Autism. Okay. So for me my journey into the healthcare
world really started with My own personal interest.
I was an athlete growing up and I got very interested
in health and nutrition I also struggled with
certain injuries and things like that. And early
on, like most people, I was exposed to many different
forms of health care and medicine. My parents
had a very open mentality and were very holistic
in their thinking from the beginning. They were
kind of ahead of their time. And one of the people
that really influenced me and treated me a lot,
especially with my athletic injuries, was a chiropractor.
So When it came time I fell in love in high school
with anatomy and physiology and I wanted to go
into the healthcare field and really wanted to
help other athletes like myself and so I really
decided that the person that helped me the most
was a chiropractor and I resonated with that.
It didn't really resonate with medication and
a lot of traditional medicine. And so I went
into that and when I was there, I fell in love
with neurology and neuroscience. You know, most
people don't realize that chiropractic is founded
in neurology and neuroscience and really were
the first healthcare profession to really be
founded in that. And so for me, you know, that
kind of really, then I, in my mind, I wanted
to kind of combine some way of working with neurology
and neurological issues. but in a holistic, but
also rehab almost sports medicine type of way.
And so that started being a lot of my research.
And then I went, when I graduated, I went and
got a subspecialty in neurology, clinical neurology,
and then rehabilitation. And then I started teaching
it. and then I went into clinical rehabilitation
neuropsychology because I wanted to understand
the brain better and look at ways of measuring
it functionally because I was developing a functional
approach to really understanding what was happening
in the brain and how to change it. And then as
I developed that and it was going really well,
one of my children was diagnosed with ADHD. And
a lot of my patients have been asking me about
ADHD and autism. And I really didn't know a lot
about it. So I really wanted to understand what
was happening in my own child's brain. And if
there were ways that I could help him. And that
really started me on a 35 year journey, a 30
year journey of really understanding. what is
happening in the brain. It eventually led me
to develop a PhD in developmental cognitive neuroscience
to really understand human brain development
at the highest level and how it all worked. But
it really was always from the beginning, how
do we do something to help? What can we do to
improve function? Not change the individual.
All three of my kids had different neurodivergent
issues and are also unbelievably gifted in other
ways. But really to help them to minimize anything
they struggle with and not, you know, not take
away their gifts or their talents. And that's
where my my work is really revolved around. Yeah,
it's important that these gifts and talented
talents be cultivated. And I think that's one
of the biggest harms. Things that are neglected
I think in society in many different factors
aspects of it Are the harms of it? Yeah, I think
understanding the nature of the gift Neuroscience
wise also leads to vulnerabilities So the gift,
you know from an early age there was a saying
I don't know if you ever heard of it You know,
there's a thin line between genius and insanity
And not to, I don't mean that as an insulting
way, but it's just saying that, that always,
even as a kid, I didn't understand that. Why
would someone be so gifted and be genius, but
then also be so sad that they commit suicide
or turn to drugs or, you know what I mean? And
that was the story of many, many famous people.
And I read a lot of those books when I was a
kid and I wanted to understand that. And so a
lot of what my mission now is about letting parents
or individuals understand, whether they're in
the autism community or dyslexic community or
whatever, that the more gifted you are in an
area, the more likely you are to develop an imbalance
in other areas and other networks on the other
side of the brain. And that can lead to these
very big gaps between strengths and weaknesses
and that is really the nature of the problem
that is the root issue and you know letting people
know that you know someone or a parent let's
say that as a child on the autism spectrum that
you didn't do anything wrong like a lot of people
feel like that you gave your child an incredible
gift um you know usually the parents of kids
with autism are extremely bright, extremely intelligent,
as are the siblings. And the people that are
autistic are the most intelligent in the family,
but they also may be the ones that end up with
a more severe imbalance. And that may lead to
struggles that other people in the family don't
have. And my goal is to first and foremost, let
people know that your child is is a genius and
like even in the non -speaking end of it as we
talked they are beyond geniuses every one of
them is just unbelievably intelligent smart but
they also are struggling with their body and
other issues so much that it's preventing them
from being able to speak and communicating control
their body and my goal is to change that whenever
you're describing chiropractic or chiropractor
it's like the spine is very much doing that,
isn't it? Because it's the central nervous system,
but it is the bridge between the body and the
brain. Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, when
we look at human brains, evolutionary wise and
my first textbook that I, you know, the first
thing I did was spend about 10 years really researching
everything and put it into a textbook called
neurobehavioral disorders from an evolutionary
perspective. And when you look at one of the
first things I looked at is where do brains come
from on this planet? Like, why did they evolve
to begin with? And the best researchers in the
world at the time in that area, you know, were
saying that it really came down to movement,
that, you know, living things that don't move
don't have a brain. Only living things that moved
evolved the brain. And we know that, you know,
in neuroscience is a term simple movement, simple
brain, complex movement, complex brain. And the
most complex brain is a human brain. And the
most complex movement is bipedalism. And what
is the key to bipedalism? It's the spine and
the posture of the spine and the muscles and
achieving an upright posture change the way that
we utilize gravity. as a power source to the
brain to make it more powerful, bigger, faster.
And so the spine is really that this is all my
research and a lot of our textbook was looking
at it that the input from the spine and the muscles
and especially the neck is the most important,
most powerful, most ongoing input to the brain
and is unique in humans. And we know When we're
looking evolutionary for humans, what's the thing
that defines a hominid? It's bipedalism posture,
right? So how does that relate to a unique brain?
And they're directly tied to one another. That's
a fantastic discovery. Yeah, I don't think I've
ever heard anybody speak on it like that, especially
on the depths of UR. So what happens after that
with your research? Well, after my textbook,
we started, you know, then doing, you know, in
the textbook, we create the really underlying
model in theory. And really what we were searching
for was a universal model that would speak to
all neurodivergent and mental health issues from
a developmental perspective. And so You know,
we did that. Now the idea was, OK, we need to
prove it, meaning let's go out there and do the
actual research. And in the early 90s, when a
lot of, you know, when new brain imaging came
out and we could look at the brain in different
ways functionally, it became aware that it really
was, you know, different. Issues weren't because
of damage or injury you look at an autistic brain
with an MRI and it looks perfectly normal for
the most part and You know, you don't the idea
of it being a brain injury is completely wrong.
It's not at all But what you do see are differences
in what's called functional connectivity the
way networks develop and the way networks communicate
Is is a little bit different and what we've been
able to show as we've gone on over 30 years and
published over 100 papers on this is that really
the search for what is actually happening in
the brain? What is autism? What is ADHD? What
is dyslexia and what is actually happening? How
does it relate to the symptoms? And then how
can we improve it? to be able to create more
of a balance or improve that functional communication
so that we can really help that person become
the best version of themselves, right? How do
we rehabilitate that process without losing that
person or their gifts or their uniqueness and
do it in a way that's respectful but understand
that the brain is the source of it all and all
the things that happen in the body the gut, the
immune system, it's all related to the brain.
But a lot of that research hadn't been done.
So we needed to tie that all together and really
look at it's really been the search for what's
the root cause? What it what starts it all? How
do you describe the problem? And then how can
you change it? Like one of the things that's
never been answered really in the autism community
is why can't these people speak? Right when many
of them are hyperlexic meaning they can read
before the age of two Right. I have one child
from England that could read at seven months
but couldn't speak So the area that reads in
the left brain is basically the same area that
generates words So why can't they speak? No one's
ever really answered that question and that's
something that I wanted to answer you know, from
a really detailed neuroscience perspective. And
I think we've been able to do that with our research
better than anybody else at this point, because
now we're in a position to say, OK, how do we
change it? How do we give them their voice if
that is possible? Yeah, I love how you describe
that you're going to the root cause and upstream.
I think a lot of research and interventions so
forth. go too far downstream and everything looks
more confusing downstream. You're exactly right.
I mean, most people, they're just managing symptoms
and behaviors because they don't know what the
root cause is. They don't know what's actually
happening in the brain. And, you know, autism
in particular is an area of research because
it's the most perplexing, right? It's definitely
the most complex of any mental health, you know,
issue out there. You know, it's incredibly complex,
even more complex than most people realize when
you start getting into the non speaking world
and you see their level of intellect. And so,
you know, they're just about managing symptoms.
And as you said, it's all downstream. And when
you go downstream, there's all these different
issues going on that seem that seem not interconnected.
And you know, medicine, you know, today, especially
more than ever, is about looking at individual
specialized pieces. And the brain and the body
is an integrated system. And you cannot understand
something as complex as autism if you don't really
have great knowledge of the whole integrated
system. So again, a lot of my journey has been
education. I've been I've been, you know, I have
two doctor degrees and master's degree. And,
you know, I've spent my whole career educating
myself and doing different degrees in different
areas so that I can understand not only the brain
and the nervous system but also the gut and the
immune system and the autonomic system and you
know all of these systems the motor the sentry
understand it it's why I got a degree in neuropsychology
so I can understand how do you measure these
things objectively like and you know what what
is actually happening. Um, and as you said, most
people and most parents, they're looking at it
downstream. It's a great way that you put it
and they see all these fires that they're trying
to put out without saying, okay, what's the source
and not an understanding that there is really
one source and it's in the brain and it starts
in brain development. And it starts with a phenotype
and it starts with a trait that is this brilliant
left brain dominant trait. And you know, and
then this can create an imbalance. And a lot
of it starts with, as we said, movement is what
created brains. Movement is what creates human
brains. And, you know, one of the unique vulnerabilities
of the human brain is because we have the biggest
brain per body size of any primate. But because
we're bipedal, we have the smallest birth canal
by far. So that means that we have really big
heads with a really small birth canal. No other
animal has to navigate that. And so therefore
every other animal, almost all of their brain
is developed in the womb in a controlled setting.
And when they come out, it's almost adult size.
Human brains are only about 20 or 25 % of adult
size at birth. That means 75 to 80 percent of
our brain development happens outside the womb.
And that means that all those stages, you know,
coming out, going through the birth process,
rolling over, latching on, being able to crawl,
being able to, you know, walk at the right time,
being able to talk and point and eye contact
and movement. All of those milestones matter,
especially in the first six years of life. and
especially in the first year. And so if any of
this, any deviation, because the brain and the
human brain is so dynamic and so vulnerable,
it can throw off this developmental sequence
and that can result in these imbalances, which
is really at the root cause of most issues. So
let me ask, I wasn't planning on going here,
but now that it's been brought up a little bit,
is the difference between the human baby, the
infant, perinatal, versus like our close so -called
relatives as far as genetic patchwork goes, like
bonobos and chimps and so forth, we're very much
different. Like we can't survive. We can't even
sit up as a human. So I think one that kind of
tells us it's probably not genetics, but how
much of it do you think is kind of developing
and why before the birth or do you think it's
more perinatal and that critical period leading
up to the critical period? I think because most
of our brain develops outside the womb that The
most important factor is how we interact with
our environment and utilizing that. So the human
brain cells, so we know that basically 84 % of
the genes in the human genome are active during
brain development. So most of our genes play
a role in brain development more than any other
animal. And so there is a genetic component.
We know that those genes are mostly what we call
experience dependent genes, which means they're
dependent on environmental experience to activate
them, literally turn them on. So the genes that
regulate the brain are the most sensitive because
we need to know to not grow the brain too much
inside the womb. If the brain grew too early
and too aggressively, we wouldn't get out. So
our genes have to be sensitive to know when not
to really grow too much so that we can get out
and then they need to know when they're out and
be able to go, okay, now grow like crazy so that
we go from 20 % to 90 % in the first three years
of growth. And so what we see And that's not
creating new cells. It's mostly creating networks
and communication and connectivity. So our genes
that regulate the brain are unique. Our brains
are unique. The development of our brains are
unique. But what it does is it means that our
brain and our genes are much more dependent and
interactive with the environment, which is a
huge advantage. Because, you know, one researcher
has said that the human brain is the Swiss army
knife of brains, meaning our brains are more
adaptable so we can adapt to any environment
more quickly and more effectively than any other
animal. So that is something from a survival
perspective that is very advantageous. But it
means that if we don't have the proper environmental
input at the right time, It can also be a disadvantage.
And that's why other animals don't suffer as
much from things like schizophrenia or, you know,
or autism or because their brains don't have
that capacity and they don't have the vulnerability.
They don't have the upside and they don't have
the downside that our brain potentially has.
Yeah, we have a steep gradient and our environments
have changed quite a bit over the last 130 years.
One of the reasons why we see a huge change in
the landscape of neurodivergence is because of
that environment change has been dramatic, especially
in the last 30 years with the advent of technology,
computer technology, the World Wide Web and all
of that. Ian McGilchrist, I don't know if you
ever heard of him. He's a psychiatrist out of
the UK. And, you know, he writes a lot about
brain asymmetry and its relationship to psychiatry.
But he's also published a couple of big volumes
recently on more from a philosophical standpoint,
you know, why are we seeing some of these mental
health issues increasing? And he talks about
how we're moving much more towards a left brain
dominant world. You know, as we moved in Western
society, from a hunter gatherer lifestyle to
a lifestyle that was more about, you know, reading
and science and, you know, in the industry and
then move more and more to technology. We move
more towards a left brain style of thinking.
And so what we see now is that, you know, our
society, our school, the way we teach kids. Everything
about what we do feeds our left brain and does
not feed our right brain. And so it leads to
an environment that can create these imbalances
more. And it's also favoring the development
of people that are more left brain dominant,
you know, that we're getting more people getting
together and having children that. really are
both more left brain dominant. You know, in the
old days, a lot of people that were very left
brain dominant that didn't have a way of communicating,
they might be home bodies or they might stay
home and read a lot and they're very, you know,
not very social and they're much more introspective
and they may never really met each other. Now.
You know, with college campuses and campuses
like Google and Apple and, you know, where we
can communicate via computer and and online dating,
it's fostering people to be able to find one
another like that. And it's favoring it in society.
You know, in autism, most people don't realize
as you go up the socioeconomic scale, as you
have higher degrees and as you live in better
neighborhoods. you're more likely to have a child
with an autism diagnosis because it's a byproduct
of this high intellect phenotype trait. You know,
Simon Baron Cohen out of Cambridge wrote a book
called, you know, Autism and the Technical Mind
that it's been shown that in the families of
people with autism, There's many more people
that are physicists mathematicians engineers
or especially computer technology So anywhere
in the world like you have a cluster of people
in the IT world like Silicon Valley has the highest
concentration of autism in the world why because
that phenotype that engineering type brain Is
the foundation that is the phenotype of autism
and if you get two people that have that and
they have a child that even has a stronger version
of that phenotype. It leads to more vulnerability,
especially in a world that from the moment of
birth doesn't really build the right brain the
way it needs to be. Okay, so I want to talk about
the sensory processing and orienting our attention
to the environment. I also want to talk about
functional connectivity. So let's just start
with the functional connectivity, I think, since
you brought it up. And what is your best research
and information on which networks? Is there a
common networks kind of abnormal or different,
I should say, or hyperconnected? And why is that,
you think? Sure. Our research shows that it all
goes back to development and maturity. And as
we said, movement is what initiates it. Right.
And so what a lot of my expertise and I think
I'm probably considered the world expert right
now is an early development movement. There's
something called primitive reflexes. Primitive
reflexes are these reflexive movement that we're
born with in the womb, help us get out of the
womb. and help lead us through the first year
of movement and development and activating our
genes. And they're well documented. They go back
over 100 years. We've known about them. Pediatric
neurologists look at them in the first year of
life. Pediatricians used to look at it. And so
what started coming out in the research many
years ago was that there may be maybe these reflexes
aren't going away so they're there to lead us
through that first year of movement and develop
and then they need to go away and it was becoming
more noticed by many clinicians that if they
checked many of these reflexes weren't gone in
kids with developmental issues and likewise We
know that many of these kids were clumsy and
awkward and physically had low muscle tone, you
know, weird ways in which they'd hold a pen and
their posture was poor and they have head tilts
and body tilts. And so we knew that there was
a motor component, fine motor, gross motor coordination,
but no really kind of tied it together. And so
it became recognized that these reflexes may
not be going away. And that they may have something
to do with, you know, the foundational issue,
but nobody really looked at it and said, all
right, well, you know, is that can we document
for sure that they don't go away? Because in
traditional medicine and traditional neurology,
these reflexes go away at one 100 % of the time
without fail. There's no such thing as retained
reflexes. So my lab, what we wanted to do was
first of all, prove that no, these reflexes often
don't go away. And then the next question was,
okay, well, if they don't go away, what does
that mean? What does that actually end up doing
to the brain? How does it actually affect the
brain? And how does it relate to autism in particular?
And also what's been noted is that some of these
reflexes, which are always naturally symmetrical,
When you examine people, they're often asymmetrical,
meaning that you see them gone, they may be inhibited
on one side, but retained on another. And what
does that mean? And so what we were able to show
really with a pretty extensive study is that
these reflexes often don't go away. And in autism,
in almost virtually 100 % of the cases we saw,
there are some retained reflexes, if not all
of them, to varying degrees, which has something
to do with the varying in the spectrum level
of severity, right? There's also, what it does
is when these reflexes don't go away, it prevents
the next level of complex movement and it keeps
the brain in an immature state, but also it has
a disruptive effect on this normal sequence of
the right brain taking the lead in development
in the first three years and keeping the left
brain down and then allowing the left brain to
come up and keep the right brain down forming
the foundation of the brain asymmetry and it
leads to these it alters that sequence and in
autism what happens is that when the reflexes
don't go away it keeps both sides of the brain
down And so the right brain loses its advantage.
And in kids that are unusually gifted in their
left brain, the left brain comes online too early.
And now it pushes the right brain down and now
develop this developmental imbalance. And that
is when people regress in autism, when they lose
these skills that they're developing. That's
what's happening. And then what we see of these
early left brain skills come online, like being
able to read or stimming or ticks or hyperactivity
or tantrums or chronic inflammation or eczema.
All of that is because of the left brain coming
up and the right brain going down. And once that's
established, it doesn't self correct. And so
this disrupts the normal flow of communication.
So it all comes down to maturity and the brain
stays in an immature state and the asymmetry
of the reflexes reflects this asymmetry of this
maturity imbalance. And all of the phenotypical
differences and behaviors, gifts and weaknesses
all lie in that imbalance. And there are different
networks that are involved. So it's not always
just the same networks, but there are different
networks that are involved. And depending on
what networks are involved more is where we see
more of the different spectrum of autism lying
in there. That's why there's different presentations
of the same root problem. And ultimately, even
at a lower level with maturity, what we've been
able to show is that when the brain matures,
not only is there this sequential difference,
but also initially the brain connects with what
we call short range connectivity, local connectivity.
And this is where we form hubs and networks.
And this is where we form the foundation of the
network. And these small connections are local,
but they're very powerful. After we develop these
networks and we segregate the brain into these
localized networks and areas, then we need to
lose some of those local connections and replace
them with long -range connections. So that we
can now start integrating the networks and integrating
the hemispheres so that we can work in a very
smooth and efficient and fast way. The analogy
I use it is, you know, I live on Long Island.
If I in the town I live here, I have a lot of
these short little roads that connect different
parts of my town, right? And if I want to drive
from one part of my town to the other, I use
those little short roads and it's very fast.
But if I want to go to another area of Long Island,
and I use the back roads of every little town,
it's going to take forever. So I jump on a highway
that connects me on a long range fast and it
improves the efficiency and the connectivity
and the way they decide how that works is through
what we call graph theory, right? That's how
we figure out those efficiencies. So what we
know in the autistic brain and in most developmental
issues, and we've proven this, is that there
is a deficit of long range connections and they
have too many short range connections, which
means that, and why is that? Because their brain
is immature. As the brain matures, we lose and
the brainwaves get faster and less powerful.
So what we've also proven is that in autistic
brains, the brains, the brainwaves are slower.
Which is what you see in small children right
smaller children younger brains have more Delta
and Theta and You know more mature brains have
more alpha and beta and gamma. We've shown that
in all ages that The autistic brain is more Delta
and Theta based Especially on the right side
of the brain why because it's immature not because
it's damaged and because they and so these These
short range connections are very, you know, they
have slower brain waves, but they're very powerful.
They have a lot of electric power. So this is
where we see that there's hyper connectivity,
especially in the left side of the brain. And
there's hypo connectivity of the long range connections
and especially between the two hemispheres of
the brain. So this is This is what's happening.
And it's been shown that, you know, that ratio
of short range to long range, when you go from
a small brain like a mouse to a human brain that's
very large, that ratio has a logarithmic scale
to it. That's really miraculous. It's unbelievable,
actually. And but there's a very specific ratio
of long range to short range connections at every
size of the evolutionary brain. And in the human
brain, the ratio is very specific for the optimal
brain function. And it's been shown that just
a little deviation of that, a five or 10 % deviation
on long range to short range can be the difference
between someone functioning at the highest level
we can imagine to someone functioning at a lower
level. But if you look at the brain, There's
the exact same amount of connections, and there
isn't any damage, and you won't see anything
in the brain. The only thing you would be able
to, if you can functionally measure the ratio
of the short range to long range connections,
that's the only way it becomes apparent. And
we've been able to show that that's exactly,
and other people have shown this as well, that
that's exactly one of the foundational issues
in autism. And it all comes back to immaturity
of the brain. Okay, so like these short localized
hubs or connections, I should say, stay there
because the brain prefers to send signals to
activate what it knows because these connections
are growing in size, I'm assuming, and staying
localized. So if that's the preference, of the
brain, then that's what's going to keep us there.
And it's very much aligned with that early development
timeframe. Like they're just stuck. OK, I follow.
That's very nice. Because we get stuck in our
movement, right, we get stuck because these reflexes
aren't going away. And that holds our so we stay
in a more immature state. And so our brain is
immature and that's what we've been able to show.
The autistic brain is a more immature looking
brain. That's the only difference really. But
the features of that is really that as part of
the immaturity, we see that it's not necessarily
size because an immature brain can actually be
a bigger brain. We actually lose cells as the
brain matures and it becomes efficient. But it's
a less efficient brain, but long range efficiency,
short range efficiency. It's more efficient and
more powerful, which is underlies a lot of the
savant level skill that's there. But it also
disrupts this normal sequence of right and left
development. And so we get this. Favouring left
brain side and not right brain and so that also
disrupts that long range connectivity. And this
is what leads to the different and depending
on what networks exactly are different what are
what are overactive what are under active really
leads to the various variety of symptoms that
we see not only in the autism community but in
the entire neurodivergent world. Yeah, those
are all just downstream and then we can how they
manifest is we can label a phenotype on those
Exactly. Okay. So with with these Problems with
these distal connections especially for like
the prefrontal cortex. That's very distal From
those sensory processing areas like the brain
stem and the thalamus the thalamus is deep inside
the brain So how do you kind of? provide intervention
to strengthen that myelination. Is there anything
that sends out? Absolutely. It starts with the
bottom up. That's the thing. A lot of people
go right to the top, to the top down, right?
Where to get there first. Right. So the foundation
never was built appropriately. And so you need
to go back to the beginning. That's why understanding
the root cause. So what is blocking the maturity
and the development of the brain? It's these
reflexes that never went away and preventing
really more complex purposeful movement. And
it's this imbalance. Those two things are at
the root. So we need to remove what the blockage
is. So the first thing we do is work on remediating
these reflexes. And there's a series of physical
activity and stimulations. not exercises, because
many of these kids, because their right brain
is so division, they can't move their body on
their own to try to make them do exercises is
not going to work. So we have to do it to them.
And we stimulate the reflexes to get them to
become integrated and eventually then lead them
into being able to having more complex, purposeful,
coordinated movement. We also want to stimulate
their senses in a way to activate the right brain
and inhibit the left brain and promote that crosstalk.
And then we want to then do things cognitively
to them to activate the right brain and inhibit
that left. We do things like, you know, electrical
devices like transcranial, which can literally
do that, or lasers or magnets. But we have to
start with the bottom up. If you're just doing
that and you're not working on the foundational
root problem with the reflexes and with movement
and with sensory stimulation and processing and
balancing, that's not going to stick. And you've
actually said that, you know, it just doesn't
stick. And also you need to understand the nature
of the imbalance. Like a lot of people that do
brain stimulation therapies, They automatically
assume that a child with autism or an adult that
can't speak has a left brain language deficit.
They don't and they stimulate the left brain
which is already overactive and they make it
worse. Whereas you need to stimulate the right
brain and literally inhibit the other side of
the brain. So, you know, that's why understanding
the nature of the problem is so critical. And
that same area, which called Broca's area, or
Broadman area 44 and 45 on the left, which is
where we have expressive verbal language. Right
near that is the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex
and orbital, which causes OCD. And right behind
that is Broadman area six, the premotor area.
On the left, which is what causes ticks and stimming
and repetitive behavior. So if you go there and
you stimulate it. You're not only not going to
correct the language problem, but you're probably
going to make the OCD and the ticks worse. So
this is where taking this knowledge of neuroscience
and functional neuroscience at the highest level
and turning into a treatment. that's actually
going to address the issue is really what my,
you know, what my whole career has been about.
And that's the whole basis of the Malila method.
Okay. Do you mind walking us through that as
much details you want to give? Yeah, sure. Well,
like I said, you know, it starts off with a proper
evaluation. The thing is like seeing if reflexes
are retained, you know, there's not a lot of
people that are trained properly to do that.
I've worked, you know, I've trained over 10 ,000
health professionals around the world. But, you
know, being able to most effectively check for
these reflexes, it requires a really good physical
exam. So you can't do it virtually. So that's
one of the challenges. But, you know, we look
and do a really good exam and do functional measurements
to put everything on a functional developmental
scale, because any sort of approach, intervention
approach needs to be goal -directed and it needs
to be objectively measurable, right? A lot of
the treatments that are out there are just trying
to manage symptoms and they're a hope and a prayer.
Let's try this and see if it changes anything.
What do we mean change? Well, let's see if their
symptoms are less. Okay. Well, why are there
symptoms there? What is the issue to begin with?
And whereas our approach is about looking at
the whole person, looking at the whole integrated
system, we do a really good neurodevelopmental
exam. We do all different types of other measurements,
cognitively, sentry -wise, sentry processing.
We'll do brain mapping. We do lab work that looks
at immune markers and inflammatory markers and
things like food sensitivities. We look at the
whole individual person and then we individualize
a program to really kind of address the issues
at the root cause and correct and balance targeting
the specific networks in that individual and
targeting their specific needs. You know, people
are often told that the problem starts in the
gut. It doesn't. It starts in the brain stem
and the brain with the balance of the sympathetic
and parasympathetic nervous system, which is
what regulates gut development. And because the
brain doesn't develop the way it should, the
parasympathetic nervous system in many of these
kids and adults doesn't come online. So they
stay in this fight or flight state and their
gut stays open and leaky. You know, we start
out life with a leaky gut. That's the way we're
born. It's supposed to be that way because babies
don't form antibodies when they're first born.
So they need, you know, about six months to a
year before they start developing their own antibodies.
and they need antibodies and they get it through
the mom's breast milk. But antibodies are big,
large proteins that wouldn't get through a normal
stomach lining. So the gut needs to be more porous
and open and leaky to allow these large proteins
through. Then we also can't produce a lot of
acid and enzymes during that time because those
acids would kill those antibodies in the gut.
So The sympathetic nervous system, when it's
on, makes our heart rate really fast and also
keeps our gut shut down. But as the brain matures
and as the brain stem matures, as the reflexes
go away, the parasympathetic nuclei come on and
that starts to shut down the sympathetic fight
or flight. The heart rate drops. The gut closes
up. We produce acid and enzymes that promotes
the proper environment for good bacteria and
kills all the bad things and the bad bugs like
parasites or fungus or mold that shouldn't be
able to live in our body and now increases blood
flow so we can absorb nutrients and vitamins
and minerals to help our brain and body grow
more. But what we know and what we've also proven
is on the autism spectrum and in most developmental
issues, that parasympathetic nervous system never
fully comes on and they stay in this fight or
flight. And so they do have a leaky gut. They
do have inflammation and they do have food sensitivities
and they have vitamin and mineral deficiencies
and, you know, folic deficiencies. But that's
not the root cause. It doesn't mean that we don't
need to address those things. We do. But the
ultimate solution is to get the brain and get
the sympathetic and parasympathetic and right
and left because they control sympathetic and
parasympathetic differently. The right brain
activates the sympathetic, the parasympathetic
and the anti -inflammatory part of the immune
system. The left brain activates the sympathetic
and inflammatory part. So these kids are in an
inflamed state. But again, it really all comes
down to the brain and the nervous system. But
most people in the biomedical world have no idea
of the neuroscience. They know nothing about
it. So, you know, they just know there's inflammation
and there's a leaky gut and there's vitamin and
mineral deficiencies and they have these bugs
in their gut. And so that's causing autism. No,
that's not the way it works. Yeah, okay. I just
want to check my understanding here, and I'm
kind of adding something into it, just wanting
to check those. Does the role of the excitation
inhibition imbalance play a role? And the reticular
formation of like through the brain stem and
so forth? Yeah, it's a little bit more complex
than just the reticular activating system. The
reticular activating system actually activates
the brain more through the thalamus, through
what we call the intralaminar nuclei in the thalamus,
which is what these are non -specific nuclei
that activate the brain and generate most of
the foundational brain waves, but especially
the gamma waves. And gamma waves is the ultimate
signal. When we're at our highest cognitive functional
level, the linking signal that really links things
together fast is the gamma rhythm between 40
to 60 Hertz. And that is all generated through
that. So the reticular activating system goes
into the intralaminar nuclei in the thalamus
and then up to the brain and the toothed thalami
are like oscillators they're constantly they
create the pulsation that the brain is pulsating
at and they're completely independent so the
right and the left are different and that's where
part of the desynchronization or dysrhythmia
comes from because ultimately what we're talking
about in functional connectivity is a problem
with this with desynchronization Or dysrhythmia,
where the synchronized signals, the timing is
off. You have one side of the brain oscillating
at a much faster rate than the other, and they
can't communicate. It's like, you know, having
an old computer try to talk to a new computer,
because there's nothing wrong with either one
of them, but they're different processing speeds.
They can't communicate. because of the processing
difference. And so that's part of it. And, you
know, so what we see is that, you know, trying
to change the speed of that processing and the
maturity, the brain becomes faster as we mature.
And a lot of those signals originate in the body
and in the muscles, and especially in the muscles
along the spine. Okay. All right. That's a great
perspective there. with the root of the GI problem.
Well, the GI problem really, yeah, is there.
So, you know, when we approach the Malila method,
again, we're looking at it all, right? We're
not just looking at the brain. We recognize that
we have to look at the whole body, but we're
also looking at it, what is the foundational
issue that we need to address and doing that
in a measurable way. And so looking at the gut
and the immune system is all important. But if
that's all you're doing, you're not really dealing
with the root cause. And so it's about looking
at motor system and sentry and sentry processing
and the immune system and the balance within
the immune system of what we call the TH1 and
TH2 systems and the antibodies versus the white
blood cells. And then looking at the gut. and
the detoxification system and the vitamin and
the minerals and enzymes and all of that. But
the reason why there's the root issue really
comes down to looking at the brain and the brain
stem and this maturity and this development of
this functional connectivity and this synchronization
of the brain. Okay. How long have you had this
malevolent method kind of available? Well, I
mean, I started working with this and started
really researching this. You know, I started
working, as I said, in the neurology and development
work and teaching clinical neurology back in
the mid 80s, late 80s. I started really functioning
on understanding what's happening in the brain
development and learning and mental health area
in the early 90s and started developing a program
of how to change it around 1995. And so I've
been working with it since then, evolving it,
evolving it, evolving it. I created a program
called the Brain Balance Program, which is a
more kind of non -medical type of approach. And
I started a company called Brain Balance Achievement
Centers. And, you know, we developed over 100
centers across the country that is still in existence
today. But that was more with milder, you know,
kind of higher functioning issues that were a
little less challenging. And then, but I really
wanted to understand and work with. the most
challenging, especially non speaking autism.
Um, and I wanted to work with all ages, including
adults. And so my research went on, my education
went on, my experience got more and more. I continue
to teach and write. I've written eight bestselling
books on the topic. Um, and ultimately the Malila
method evolved out of that as a, as more of a
much more complex version. of that that really
could address any age and any level of challenge.
And that has been really evolving and being utilized
over the past 10 years in my centers here in
New York. And now we're actually starting to
expand that around the world. We're going to
be starting centers in different countries very
shortly because we want to bring this technology
out wherever people need to be. So right now
we're going to be developing a center in Columbia,
Sydney, Australia, we have one now, and Mexico
City very shortly, and then from there. It's
a great success and obviously a very important
topic. Can you say a little bit before we wrap
up about the nonverbal speaker? Because I just
appreciate so much about how You were talking
about how their intelligence is in there and
so forth about some of the malevolent method.
I know it's very individualized, but some of
the more common things that you do with the nonverbal.
Yeah. So to me that, you know, was the most fascinating.
And what really opened the door to me on understanding
this was when I started working with a woman
who does spelling. Um, and you know, she had,
she has a child that I had worked with and for
20 years she was working on spelling with him
and, um, you know, open the world. And honestly,
I'd been exposed to it, uh, years before. And
like many parents, I looked at it and because
my understanding of the problem and the root
cause wasn't sophisticated enough. I looked at
it and I thought, Oh, that's. That's BS, you
know, that kid doesn't know that. How would they
know that? You know, they can't, they don't know
anything. So how could they have the spelling
these complex sentences? And it looks like somebody's
guiding their hand. Um, and I thought, okay,
that's not real. And then I, as I understood,
and as my search for really understanding why
they can't speak evolved and, and really, you
know, we. We published a paper on that. I understood
that the root cause is that is that they don't
know where their body is. They're not building
these sentry motor maps in the right side of
their brain. And it's not a lack of words. And
it's not a lack of speech on the left side of
the brain. And then I met somebody who explained
it to me in neuroscience terms that, you know,
we're not guiding their hand when we touch them.
Now they know where their hand is and they can
spell because the words are there. And that really
resonated with me because I went, wow, OK, that's
exactly where my model is going. And that made
sense to me because now you're not guiding them
or even you're actually resisting them. And that
feedback allows them for the first time to know
where their own hand is. And now they can spell.
But the words and everything are already there
because they're so brilliant. And so now with,
you know, we work with, you know, hundreds and
hundreds of kids like this. And I ask them questions
like I love asking them questions like the first
question I ask them is why can't you speak? And
they'll tell you. if you ask them, but nobody,
even the parents don't ask them that question.
Even people that are spelling, I say, have you
ever asked them? And they tell me the same thing.
I don't feel my body. I can't move my body. One
kid described it perfectly. I mean, you know
neuroscience, so you know we developed something
called a humunculus. Yeah, I was going to ask
you about that. Right. So as we're developing
in the right brain in the parietal lobe, we develop
what's called a sentry homunculus, which is a
distorted 3D map of the body. And in the right
brain, we have a whole body because we become
a whole person through the development of what
we call interoception and proprioception. And
then once we develop a sentry map in the parietal
lobe, we then develop a motor map in the frontal
lobe of how to move that part of our body. And
the biggest part of the map by far, like one
third of the whole map is the face, the mouth,
the tongue and the lips. And then the next third
is the arm in the hand and the finger for fine
motor and pointing. And so the hardest thing
they have and they tell us these kids started
telling me I don't feel my tongue in my mouth.
I don't feel my face. I don't feel my body. I
don't know where my body is. I don't realize
I have a body. I don't know where my hand is.
That's why, you know, you ask them to point to
something they can't point, or they may point
to something completely, you know, that they
know the answer, but they can't point to it.
They can't write. They can't type. But it's not
because the words aren't there. Their words are
beyond other people. And so hearing them tell
me this by typing, Was it was unbelievable because
now they were confirming everything that I thought
and I literally you know I had them look at videos
that I've created and Said am I right is this
why you can't speak and they were like absolutely
You're the only one that has ever said this to
us that this is actually the reason why and they're
so brilliant I trust them more than I do most
other doctors and scientists to give me the right
answer and to critique my work and you know they
give me the most fascinating and they literally
describe they'll say to me there's a battle going
on between my right and left side and and the
left brain is too dominant and it won't give
up control and it won't let that right brain
come up And that is exactly what's happening
in their brain. And this is what this is their
words, their typing, they're saying this. And
it's really unbelievably amazing. And it's something
that I continue to want to research and understand
it. And, you know, and they all say, almost all
of them will say, please help me speak. Please
help me stop stimming. You know, they want that
right? So, you know, that's my goal is to try
to give them the voice and and and the majority
of the time we do the majority of the time we
do give them the ability to speak You know not
not always fully but you know they're able to
speak and communicate at a much higher level
and You know the longer we work with them the
more that changes. So that's Probably my greatest
accomplishment is to be able to do that for somebody.
Yeah, I love that. Because I was going to ask
you about that as soon as you were talking about
it. Because somatosensory and then the motor
cortex right there on top of each other. Exactly.
And the thalamus. But you won't develop the motor
map until you develop the sensory map. Yeah.
Right? Yeah. And one kid said it to me perfectly.
I said to him, why can't you speak? And he said,
I don't see my body in my brain. And so therefore
I can't move my body myself the way I want to.
They stim, they tick, they move, they look like
they're doing complex movement, but none of it
is under their control. It's just automated actions.
And they don't even want to be doing most of
the things that they're doing. you know again
this is what they tell us and if you've read
books there's a lot of really good books out
there by non -speaking adults that have you know
can type and spell and this is how they describe
it they they this is absolutely and they and
they tell me all the time you know that this
is this treatment is helping me and they've helped
guide me to tell them you know do this this way
and and help me get better Yeah, I would anticipate
the indirect pathway of the basal ganglia is
also involved because the brain stem the substantial
nigra up to the dorsal striatum and things they
can't shut these motor movements off Well, you
know one of the things that most people in neuroscience
and especially clinical don't aren't aware of
you're exactly right there's a deficiency of
the indirect pathway and There's an overactivity
of the hybrid of the direct pathway, but the
indirect deficit is more related to the fact
that there's a hyper direct pathway. You're familiar
with that. The hyper direct pathway is only in
the right side of the brain. I wasn't aware of
that. And so, yes, it's only in the right side.
It's in the right sentry motor area, which is
where ticks and stimming are stopped and hyperactivity.
And it's in the right inferior frontal gyrus,
which is what regulates OCD and emotional outbursts.
Right? So those two hyper direct pathway only
go to the indirect pathway. And in particular
to the subsalamic nucleus of Louise. And so when
you don't have a right brain development, you
don't develop the hyper direct pathway. You don't
develop those inhibitory connections in the basal
ganglia. And you have too much activating excitatory
and the left brain is more connected to the direct
pathway and the dopamine pathways and the left
brain is more dopaminergic and excitatory so
you talked about the in the excitatory and the
inhibitory imbalance the right brain is inhibitory
the left brain is excitatory dopamine is more
excitatory serotonin is more inhibitory and so
That is where all of the stimming and the ticks.
And so there's five primary pathways in the basal
ganglia, in that balance. And one of them is
from Brodmann area six, the supplemental premotor
area in the left brain that goes into the basal
ganglia. The left brain activates the direct
pathway and turns on stereotypical movement,
programmed complex movement. And the right brain
inhibits that through the hyper direct indirect
pathway. When you don't have that right side,
that left brain is unregulated. And that's why
they have ticks and stimming and same thing with
OCD. That's where it comes from. Yeah, it's like
flip the light switch. It's just sitting there
constant flip the light switch. But it has to
recruit the basal ganglia to actually do the
motor movement. I'll flip the light switch. That's
fantastic Well, she'll tell us how people can
get a hold of you. Let me ask you something I
know you like to speak about neuroscience and
you said you've spoken to neuroscientists on
this Podcast before and I think it's great. How
many other neuroscience know this? How many other
neuroscience know that aspect of what's happening
in the brain and the basal ganglia as a root
issue related to autism? No, not enough Not enough
at all. Really, almost none. Yeah. And that's
the thing. And most neuroscientists are not clinicians.
How many clinicians you think understand that?
No, none. Absolutely none. That's where people
say to me, how do you know this stuff or how,
you know, how are you coming up with these unique
ways? Because you understand, I understand the
neuroscience and functional neuroscience probably
as well as anybody in the world. And also, I've
been a clinician working at this for 35 years
and combining this together is really the key.
And, you know, that's my goal is to teach others
this and put it out there to lead the way. But
I think you realize this is where health care
has to go, especially brain health. The integration
of understanding and that's where a lot of the
confusion is out there because again There's
very few to no clinicians that understand the
neuroscience in a functional complex way and
most neuroscientists Don't understand functional
neuroscience and don't work with patients So
they don't understand what this actually looks
like clinically and what what would I do about
it? They have no idea Mm -hmm. Yeah Yeah, it's
lacking bad. And it's the silos. It's a product
of the silos. And the basal ganglia is really
central. to have a lot of episodes on the basal
ganglia because it's very fascinating and well
just so you know actually know again everything
i talk about i've published papers and research
so our paper on the basal ganglia and going through
exactly what we just described is one of the
down most downloaded papers in all of neuroscience
on basal ganglia okay if you if you go it's a
it's an open access if you look at my name under
basal ganglia the paper that we go to describe
this and a lot of other papers, because I go
into the basal ganglia in most of our papers.
And like I said, you know, one of my best papers
really is really describing in detail the neuroscience
of autism. And so, you know, reading up on the
basal ganglia, our paper is one of the leading
papers ever published on the basal ganglia and
how it relates to these issues. So, you know,
I'm not just saying this, this something that,
you know, we published at the highest level.
Yeah, the baseball game has to be involved. It's
our goal. Go, no go. And it's not, it's not talked
about it. No. And people don't understand the
laterality of it. They don't understand the difference
and the way that the right brain and the left
brain interact. with the basal ganglia even though
it's clearly out there look up the hyper direct
pathway and you'll understand that it's only
in the right side of the brain one of those with
the lack of knowledge on the left and the right
with this so fantastic i love it because this
is a lot of neuroscientists are and a lot of
neuroscience because they use they they really
look at just the computational neuroscience piece
and that's the thing You know, when you look
at these subtle differences between long -range
and short -range connectivity over the whole
brain, these are subtle little microscopic differences
that individually don't really add up to much.
But over the whole brain, it adds a lot behaviorally,
right? The phenotype that is but when you look
neuroscience only at the computational part of
analyzing the connections and everything you
don't really see the big differences between
the right and left brain and so a lot of modern
neuroscientists are more like oh the whole right
brain left brain thing isn't really a big deal
where most of You know, a lot of neuroscience
in the background in the past really documented
it. But if you really look at it from a behavioral
perspective, it's the biggest piece. It is what
makes the human brain most unique. So there's
a lot of conflict even within the neuroscience
community. And again, that creates confusion
out there in the public with people that hear,
oh, that right brain, left brain thing isn't
a big deal anymore. No, it's a huge deal and
it's getting even bigger. in the world that actually
researches it and understands it. It makes sense,
you know, if you think about it, there's two,
there's contralateral for a reason, except for
the pineal. Everything else is contralateral,
correct? Exactly. It's an advantage. You should
definitely read some of Ian McGillchrist's work.
One book, his first book was called the master
and his emissary, the development of Western
civilization, Western civilization and the divided
brain. And just, you know, his his work in my
textbook, I think are foundational. But the only
thing is that, you know, Ian is great and he's
incredibly, you know, his writing is beautiful,
but he doesn't have a solution for it. Right.
I came up with the solution based on it. And
so that's the difference. But his writing and
his information on it on and especially on brain
asymmetry is amazing. Yeah, I very much appreciate
your work with the clinical side and like those
functional neuroscience side, because that's
the that's the path. Absolutely. Earlier, you're
talking about roads and I love those analogies
and that's the road. Right. Yeah, well, let's
spread the word out there through you and through
other people like you and through your community.
And, and, you know, we can create change. I mean,
that's all we can do, right? We're in this world
to hopefully make a difference. You're making
a difference by what you're doing. And I'm making
a difference. And I just, you know, once you
make a difference, you only want to make more
of a difference, a positive difference, right?
So, you know, let's, uh, this is what we do.
We put our mind and manifest that and, and, uh,
we can make it happen. Yeah. Oh, let's stay in
touch. And now, cause there's a lot of different
things that we can really zoom into that I want
to. Absolutely. Love to. Well, thank you for
your time, Dr. Malalo. And I hope you have a
great day. My pleasure. You too.