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Robert Sapolsky

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Robert Sapolsky
Sapolsky in 2023
Born
Robert Morris Sapolsky

(1957-04-06) April 6, 1957 (age 67)
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Alma materHarvard University (BA)
Rockefeller University (PhD)
SpouseLisa Sapolsky
Children2
Scientific career
FieldsNeurobiology, physiology,[1] biological anthropology
InstitutionsStanford University
Salk Institute
ThesisThe Neuroendocrinology of Stress and Aging (1984)
Doctoral advisorBruce McEwen
Other academic advisorsMelvin Konner[2]

Robert Morris Sapolsky (born April 6, 1957) is an American academic and neuroscientist. He is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, and is a professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery. His research has focused on neuroendocrinology, particularly relating to stress. He is also a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya.[3]

Early life and education

Sapolsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, to immigrants from the Soviet Union. His father, Thomas Sapolsky, was an architect who renovated the restaurants Lüchow's and Lundy's.[4] Robert was raised an Orthodox Jew. He spent his time reading about and imagining living with silverback gorillas. By age twelve, he was writing fan letters to primatologists.[5] He attended John Dewey High School and by that time was reading textbooks on the subject and teaching himself Swahili.[6]

Sapolsky is an atheist.[7][8] He said in his acceptance speech for the Emperor Has No Clothes Award, "I was raised in an Orthodox household and I was raised devoutly religious up until around age thirteen or so. In my adolescent years one of the defining actions in my life was breaking away from all religious belief whatsoever."[9]

In 1978, Sapolsky received his B.A., summa cum laude, in biological anthropology from Harvard University.[10][11] He then went to Kenya to study the social behaviors of baboons in the wild. When the Uganda–Tanzania War broke out in the neighboring countries, Sapolsky decided to travel into Uganda to witness the war up close, later commenting, "I was twenty-one and wanted adventure. [...] I was behaving like a late-adolescent male primate."[12] He went to Uganda's capital Kampala, and from there to the border with Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and then back to Kampala, witnessing some fighting,[13] including the Ugandan capital's conquest by the Tanzanian army and its Ugandan rebel allies on April 10–11, 1979.[14] Sapolsky then returned to New York and studied at Rockefeller University, where he received his Ph.D. in neuroendocrinology[10][11] working in the lab of endocrinologist Bruce McEwen.

After the initial year-and-a-half field study in Africa, he returned every summer for another 25 years to observe the same group of baboons, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. He spent eight to ten hours a day for approximately four months each year recording the behaviors of these baboons.[15]

Career

Sapolsky in 2009

Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, holding joint appointments in several departments, including Biological Sciences, Neurology & Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery.[16]

As a neuroendocrinologist, he has focused his research on issues of stress and neuronal degeneration, as well as on the possibilities of gene therapy strategies for protecting susceptible neurons from disease.[17] He is working on gene transfer techniques to strengthen neurons against the disabling effects of glucocorticoids.[18] Each year, Sapolsky spends time in Kenya studying a population of wild baboons in order to identify the sources of stress in their environment, and the relationship between personality and patterns of stress-related disease in these animals.[19] More specifically, Sapolsky studies the cortisol levels between the alpha male and female and the subordinates to determine stress level. An early but still relevant example of his studies of olive baboons is found in his 1990 Scientific American article "Stress in the Wild".[20] He has also written about neurological impairment and the insanity defense within the American legal system.[21][22]

Sapolsky is also interested in the role of schizotypal disorders in the emergence and development of shamanism and the major Western religions. In this context, he has noted similarities between obsessive-compulsive behavior and religious rituals.[9][23][24]

Sapolsky's work has been featured widely in the press, most notably in the National Geographic documentary Stress: Portrait of a Killer,[25][26] articles in The New York Times,[4][27] Wired magazine,[28] the Stanford magazine,[29] and The Tehran Times.[30] His speaking style (e.g., on Radiolab,[31] The Joe Rogan Experience,[32] and his Stanford human behavioral biology lectures[33]) has garnered attention.[34] Sapolsky's specialization in primatology and neuroscience has made him prominent in the public discussion of mental health—and, more broadly, human relationships—from an evolutionary perspective.[35][36] In April 2017, Sapolsky gave a TED Talk.[37][38]

Sapolsky has vigorously argued for a deterministic view of human behavior. According to him, "there is no free will, or at least that there is much less free will than generally assumed when it really matters".[39] He argues human actions are determined by neurobiology, hormones, childhood, and life circumstances.[22][40][41]

Sapolsky has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987,[42] an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Klingenstein Fellowship in Neuroscience.[43] He was also awarded the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award,[19] the Young Investigator of the Year Awards from the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology, and the Biological Psychiatry Society.[44]

In 2007, he received the John P. McGovern Award for Behavioral Science, awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[45]

In 2008, he received Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.[46] In February 2010 Sapolsky was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers,[47] following the Emperor Has No Clothes Award for 2002.[48]

His conferences and talks are published on Stanford's YouTube channel.[49]

Personal life

Sapolsky is married to Lisa Sapolsky, a doctor in neuropsychology. They have two children.[4] Sapolsky was a passionate amateur soccer player and used to play twice a week, but he stopped due to back problems.[50]

In his book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, Sapolsky discussed his personal experiences with depression, revealing the complexities of living with the condition while also highlighting moments of relief provided by medication.[51]

Books

  • Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death (MIT Press, 1992) ISBN 0-262-19320-5
  • Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers (1994, Holt Paperbacks/Owl 3rd Rep. Ed. 2004) ISBN 0-8050-7369-8
  • The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament (Scribner, 1997) ISBN 978-0-6848-3409-2
  • Junk Food Monkeys (Headline Publishing, 1997) ISBN 978-0-7472-7676-0 (UK edition of The Trouble with Testosterone)
  • A Primate's Memoir (Touchstone Books, 2002) ISBN 0-7432-0247-3
  • Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals (Scribner, 2005) ISBN 0-7432-6015-5
  • Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (Penguin Press, 2017) ISBN 1-5942-0507-8
  • Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (Penguin Press, 2023) ISBN 978-0525560975

See also

References

  1. ^ "Robert Sapolsky at Stanford".
  2. ^ Hanson, E. Simon (January 5, 2001). "A Conversation With Robert Sapolsky". Brain Connection. Retrieved June 3, 2014. BC: Who were your greatest mentors? RS: Of people I've actually dealt with, ... the main person is an anthropologist/physician named Melvin Konnor ... . He ... was my advisor in college and remains a major mentor.
  3. ^ "Robert Sapolsky". Retrieved February 22, 2009.
  4. ^ a b c Brown, Patricia Leigh (April 19, 2001). "At home with: Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky; Family Man With a Foot In the Veld". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 17, 2023. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  5. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (2001). A Primate's Memoir. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 24–25. ISBN 978-1-4165-9036-1.
  6. ^ Vaughan, Christopher (November 2001). "Going Wild A biologist gets in touch with his inner primate". Stanford Magazine. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
  7. ^ Shwartz, Mark (March 7, 2007). "Robert Sapolsky discusses physiological effects of stress". News. Stanford University. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
  8. ^ "Dr. Robert Sapolsky's lecture about Biological Underpinnings of Religiosity". YouTube. I was raised in an extremely religious Orthodox upbringing and I had a break with it when I was about fourteen. That process of completely breaking to the point now where I have no religion, have no spirituality, I'm utterly atheist, and in passing it is probably the thing I most regret in my life but is something I appear not to be able to change the process of getting to that point I view in retrospect as one of the most defining things in my life, the process of turning into that person from who I was.
  9. ^ a b Sapolsky, Robert (April 2003). "Belief and Biology". Freedom from Religion Foundation. Retrieved July 27, 2023.
  10. ^ a b "Sapolsky Lectures on Stress and Health, Oct. 28 in Masur Auditorium - The NIH Record -October 16, 2009". nihrecord.nih.gov.
  11. ^ a b "Professor Robert Sapolsky Bio Page". www.thegreatcourses.com.
  12. ^ Sapolsky 2007, p. 87.
  13. ^ Sapolsky 2007, pp. 87–88.
  14. ^ Sapolsky 2007, p. 88.
  15. ^ "Transcript of How I Write Conversation with Robert Sapolsky". Stanford University. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
  16. ^ "Stanford Univ. detail of Prof. Sapolsky". Retrieved July 27, 2007.
  17. ^ Sapolsky, Robert M. (1992). Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death (Bradford Books). MIT Press. ISBN 0262193205.
  18. ^ "Robert Sapolsky". Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA). UC San Diego. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  19. ^ a b "Rockefeller University names Robert Sapolsky 2008 Lewis Thomas Prize winner". Rockefeller University News. May 19, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  20. ^ Sapolsky, Robert M (1990). "Stress in the Wild". Scientific American. 262 (1): 106–13. Bibcode:1990SciAm.262a.116S. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0190-116. JSTOR 24996650. PMID 2294581.
  21. ^ "The Brain on the Stand," New York Times Magazine
  22. ^ a b Sapolsky, RM (2004). "The frontal cortex and the criminal justice system". Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 359 (1451): 1787–96. doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1547. PMC 1693445. PMID 15590619.
  23. ^ Sapolsky, Robert M. (1998). "Circling the Blanket for God". The Trouble with Testosterone: and Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament. New York: A Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster. pp. 241–288. ISBN 978-0-684-83409-2.
  24. ^ Dr. Robert Sapolsky's lecture about Biological Underpinnings of Religiosity on YouTube
  25. ^ "Stress: Portrait of a Killer". Stress: Portrait of a Killer. Stanford University, National Geographic. 2008. Archived from the original on March 17, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  26. ^ Springer, Michael (August 22, 2012). "Do Yourself a Favor and Watch Stress: Portrait of a Killer (with Stanford Biologist Robert Sapolsky)". openculture.com. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  27. ^ Angier, Natalie (April 13, 2004). "No Time for Bullies: Baboons Retool Their Culture". New York Times Archives. New York Times Company. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
  28. ^ Lehrer, Jonah (July 28, 2010). "Under Pressure: The Search for a Stress Vaccine". Wired Magazine. Wired.com. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  29. ^ Vaughan, Christopher (November–December 2001). "Going Wild". Stanford University Magazine. Stanford University. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  30. ^ "Racism, inequality, and conflict: an interview with Prof. Robert Sapolsky". Tehran Times. July 15, 2020. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
  31. ^ "People - Robert Sapolsky - Radiolab". www.radiolab.org. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  32. ^ Joe Rogan (October 18, 2017), Joe Rogan Experience #965 - Robert Sapolsky, archived from the original on May 26, 2017, retrieved March 20, 2018
  33. ^ "Human Behavioral Biology (Robert Sapolsky) 25 lectures". YouTube. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  34. ^ Meltzer, Tom (August 27, 2013). "The 20 online talks that could change your life". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  35. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (May 9, 2017), The biology of our best and worst selves, retrieved March 20, 2018
  36. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (January 8, 2010), The uniqueness of humans, retrieved March 20, 2018
  37. ^ Vasquez, Alejandra; et al. (April 27, 2017). "Bugs and bodies: The talks of Session 8 of TED2017". TED Blog: Further reading on ideas worth spreading. Retrieved September 5, 2023.
  38. ^ "Robert Sapolsky: The biology of our best and worst selves". TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. April 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2023.
  39. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (2023). Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will. New York: Penguin Press. p. 13. ISBN 9780525560975.
  40. ^ Reese, Hope (October 18, 2023). "A Conversation With: Robert Sapolsky Doesn't Believe in Free Will. (But Feel Free to Disagree.)". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
  41. ^ Sapolsky, Robert M. (2017). "Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will". Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. New York: Penguin Press. pp. 552–583. ISBN 978-1-594-20507-1.
  42. ^ "MacArthur Fellows List - July 1987". Archived from the original on April 19, 2008. Retrieved March 24, 2008.
  43. ^ "Talk to probe roots of stress (03/16/07)". mc.vanderbilt.edu. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  44. ^ "Science writer Robert Sapolsky to speak about coping with stress April 10". Middlebury. December 17, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  45. ^ "About AAAS: John McGovern Lecture". Retrieved February 22, 2009.
  46. ^ "Sagan Prize Recipients". wonderfest.org. 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  47. ^ "Honorary FFRF Board Announced". ffrf.org. Archived from the original on December 17, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
  48. ^ "Emperor Has No Clothes Award -- Robert Sapolsky". Freedom From Religion Foundation. Retrieved December 7, 2013.
  49. ^ 1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology, retrieved June 5, 2022
  50. ^ 17. Human Sexual Behavior III & Aggression I, retrieved February 11, 2022
  51. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (2023). Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. Penguin Press. p. 389. At some point in this writing process, I was struck with what seemed like the explanation for why I've been able to stick with an unshakable rejection of free will, despite the bummers of feelings it can evoke. A point made earlier in the chapter is personally very relevant. Since my teenage years, I've struggled with depression. Now and then, the meds work great and I'm completely free of it, and life seems like hiking above the tree line on a spectacular snow-capped mountain. This most reliably occurs when I'm actually doing that with my wife and children. Most of the time, though, the depression is just beneath the surface, kept at bay by a toxic combination of ambition and insecurity, manipulative shit, and a willingness to ignore who and what matter. And sometimes it incapacitates me, where I mistake every seated person as being in a wheelchair and every child I glance at as having Down syndrome.

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