Brain diversity and modernisationBrain diversity and modernisation
All In The Mind
A neuroscientist and entrepreneur in rural India is researching on the way brain activity may be influenced by modern progress, and even by income.
28:52•19 Nov 2017
How Modern Life and Money Shape the Human Brain
Episode Overview
- Tara Theogarajan links measures of EEG complexity and alpha oscillation to income and access to modern technology in rural Indian communities.
- In some low-income, low-technology groups, alpha oscillation previously considered a basic brain signature could not be detected.
- The episode explains brain plasticity: fine-scale connectivity patterns reflect individual life experience, making every brain structurally unique.
- Current mental health diagnoses rely on subjective questionnaires and lack robust, global data on what counts as normal brain function.
- Sapien Labs aims to build large, shared databases of brain activity to better understand human diversity and support brain-based diagnostics.
“"If we want to understand what a human brain is, it's not one human brain. We need to understand the spectrum of human brains."”
Ever wondered how much your daily life actually shapes your brain? This All In The Mind episode lifts the lid on that question, as neuroscientist and entrepreneur Dr Tara Theogarajan chats with host Lynne Malcolm about brain diversity, modernisation and money. You’ll hear how Tara’s unusual path – from rural Tamil Nadu and "accidental entrepreneur" running a microfinance company, to founding Sapien Labs – pushed her to study brains in "data dark" communities, where formal education and technology are limited.
Her curiosity led to a human dynamics lab and, eventually, to portable EEG machines turning up in remote Indian settlements, complete with shampoo lessons to get that famously oily hair clean enough for good readings. The heart of the episode sits in Tara’s striking finding: in some low-income, low-technology communities, "we couldn't detect it. There was no alpha oscillation." That’s the same alpha rhythm long treated as a basic signature of human brain activity.
As Tara explains, measures like signal complexity and alpha oscillation climb steeply with income up to around $30–50 a day, then flatten once people can afford things like vehicles, smartphones and higher education. This isn’t framed as a simple rich-versus-poor story, but as evidence of powerful brain plasticity: the idea that "no brain can be exactly the same as another" because each one is wired by unique life experience.
Tara argues that this huge diversity means current mental health practice, based on short questionnaires, badly lacks a genuine picture of what "normal" brain function looks like across different contexts. By the end, you’ll have a fresh sense of how experience, technology and wealth might shape attention, cognition and mental health diagnostics – and why Tara wants a truly global, shared brain database.
It’s the kind of episode that makes you ask: if your brain reflects your environment, what story is yours telling?
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