The future of parent-child bonding
Biologist Lauren O’Connell studies poisonous frogs, but not just the toxins that make them dangerous.
She also studies the neuroscience of their complex parenting. She’s learned that tadpoles recognize their mothers by smell and do a “begging dance” when hungry, and that the frogs produce a protein that protects them from their own poisonous chemistry. That protein could help treat overdoses in humans, O’Connell tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Russ Altman: This is Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything, and I'm your host Russ Altman. I thought it would be good to revisit the original intent of this show. In 2017 when we started, we wanted to create a forum to dive into and discuss the motivations and the research that my colleagues do across the campus in science, technology, engineering, medicine, and other topics. Stanford University and all universities, for the most part, have a long history of doing important work that impacts the world, and it's a joy to share with you how this work is motivated by humans who are working hard to create a better future for everybody. In that spirit, I hope you will walk away from every episode with a deeper understanding of the work that's in progress here, and that you'll share it with your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers as well.
[00:00:48] Lauren O'Connell: Their mom like, comes in and then the tadpole is like, oh, that's my mom. Um, and they recognize her based on smell, so they can smell their mom versus, and tell her apart from not mom. And then they're like, oh, this is my mom. I need to tell them I'm hungry. And so they do this little dance behavior. And so we've been able to work out like, oh, the, you know, the tadpoles are recognizing them by smell. Then this activates these neurons, which then activates this circuit. And then this is how, like, if we turn on this neuron, then this is how tadpole full communicates that it needs food. Um, because we don't understand a lot about how, you know, communication and, uh, kind of parental recognition happens in the infant brain. And so we've been able to work that out in tadpoles and, you know, now people have a blueprint of what to look for in other organisms like mammals.
[00:01:45] Russ Altman: This is Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything, and I'm your host, Russ Altman. If you're enjoying the show or if it's helped you in any way, please consider sharing it with friends, family, colleagues, neighbors. Personal recommendations are a great way to spread news of The Future of Everything. Today, Lauren O'Connell will tell us that a great way to understand parenting and parent child interactions is by studying poison frogs. It's the future of parenting chemistry. Before we get started, a reminder that if you're enjoying the show, please spread the word to friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues, anybody who you like to tell them about The Future of Everything and how you're finding it interesting.
[00:02:35] So all species have to manage parent-child relationships. Many of us are well aware that it is not easy. There are questions of how do you establish that initial bond? How do children communicate their needs when they're very tiny and can barely do anything? How do parents negotiate the different duties that they have? Who's gonna do what? How is it gonna all work? Well, what better organism to study this in than poison frogs? Yes, poison frogs. It turns out that they have been studied for decades and their behaviors are well understood. The tadpoles are see-through, so you can see what's happening physiologically, and we can make chemical measurements about both the parents and the offspring to understand the chemicals that are driving the parent-child relationship. Lauren O'Connell is a professor of biology at Stanford, and she specializes in studying parenting chemistry between poison frogs and their offspring.
[00:03:34] Lauren, what led you to choose poison frogs as a major organism of attention for your basic research in biology?
[00:03:43] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, so the reason I chose poison frogs was because they show a variation in behavior, social behavior, and reproductive strategies that is kind of unparalleled among vertebra animals. And so I was really interested in the neural mechanisms of social bonding and bonding between parents and offspring and, and how, you know, how it's decided whether mom or dad cares for offspring. So I was looking for a system where mom cares for offspring, or dad cares for offspring, or both, or nobody. And that led me to poison frogs. They were kind of the only option for this behavioral diversity question that I had.
[00:04:24] Russ Altman: Okay. So there's a few things I have to ask before we get into all the interesting stuff that you just alluded to about parent offspring relations. And the first thing is, is it dangerous to work with these frogs?
[00:04:35] Lauren O'Connell: Uh, no. Um, well, I don't work with any that could kill me. This is a, this is a promise I made to my family. Um, and so they actually get their toxins from their diet. And so all the frogs we have in the lab are non-toxic, unless we're like making them toxic on purpose to study that process. Um, and then in the field, like, we use like gloves and things like that to like, to handle them. Um, but they, they wouldn't kill you. They might make your, if you decide to lick them, they might make your tongue a little tingly. Or they might make you throw up, but you would not die.
[00:05:16] Russ Altman: Okay. This is really important and, and I, otherwise everybody would be worried about this for the entire conversation. So thank you. Um, so, so, so let's get into the, what you alluded to, which is this really interesting behavior about, uh, an opportunity to study the bonding of parents with, with offspring. Um, what are the questions that you can ask in these frogs and what makes them, so, one of the things you pointed out already is that there's a huge diversity of them. So you can probably find, uh, in different, uh, biological niches, you can probably find different strategies. Um, how do you approach this? How do you wrap your head around it? What are some of the experiments that you do and what do you learn? So that's about seven questions. I apologize.
[00:05:55] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah. Well, we take two approaches. One is a comparative approach across species. And we're trying to figure out like why in some species only dads care for offspring and in some species, only moms do it. And is there like any general themes across species that are like signatures of parenting? Um, and then the other is like within a species, there's a lot of variability in like the care that parents put into their, their kiddos and things like that. And so we also look at like individual or family variation within a species. So we have this both comparative aspect and this like kind of deeper, uh, kind of, question about plasticity.
[00:06:36] Russ Altman: Is it easy to tell when a parent is caring for one of its tadpoles and when it's not? So it seems to me you have to define a lot of things in, in order to make progress.
[00:06:47] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, yeah. Well, the, the beautiful thing about the system to me was that they had been a model system in ecology and evolution for a really long time. And so their behavior was really well worked out. it's just that no one had done anything molecular, no one had looked in the brain before. And so that's what I decided I was going to do. Um, so the behavior is really, really well worked out. And, um, it mostly, um, can, so they lay their, I'll give you like a brief overview
[00:07:18] Russ Altman: That's, this is what we want. Yes.
[00:07:20] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah. Because when you think of good parents, you don't think of frogs. And so this, like, hopefully this next three minutes will change that. Um, and so they have,
[00:07:30] Russ Altman: I hesitate to tell you who I do think of and don't think of when we talk about, so let, let's just move on. Yes.
[00:07:36] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah. Um, and so, they lay their eggs like on the leaf litter on the rainforest floor, and dad takes care of them. And then, um, either mom or dad, depending on the species, will transport their tadpoles piggyback style, because when the tadpoles hatch, they're still aquatic. And so they need to make it to water somehow. And so their parents will transport them, either one at a time, or in batches like with a school bus kind of method. Um, and then, and then they, they place them in these pools. And then in some species, they have this like really extended care where moms will come back and feed them these trophic unfertilized eggs, like throughout development. So like every day they'll come and check on them, give them food. And this happens for like two months, um, until the tadpoles complete metamorphosis and walk out of water. So it's a, it's a really intense period where they put a lot of energy into their, into their offspring and, and individual care.
[00:08:36] Russ Altman: Do we have an idea, you said that there's a lot of variability and you're interested in the molecular basis. Um, are, have you been able to identify the sources of these variability? So one thing that I had to ask is, you know, in the, in the human literature, people talk about oxytocin, and I, I don't even know if frogs have oxytocin, but is, is the expectation that they will be, um, similar molecules or are you expecting big surprises?
[00:09:00] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah. Um, so it's thought that oxytocin is involved in parenting, kind of co-opting this, uh, maternal circuit of lactation in mammals. Um, and so, you know, frogs don't do lactation. Um, and so, we've also, we've tested this idea of whether or not oxytocin is involved in parenting, and it doesn't seem to be the case. What seems to be the case, at least in our frogs, and what kind of, um, we've, we've seen creates this variability of how much you bond to your babies is variation in endogenous opioid signaling. So this is like something that kind of reinforces your interactions with your offspring as a rewarding experience or not. And so like high care families where they put a lot of investment into their tadpoles, they find it a very rewarding experience and a lot of like opioid stuff is happening in their brains. Um, and then like low care parents, they don't seem to find that as, like a reinforcing, uh, or rewarding behavior.
[00:10:05] Russ Altman: Wow. So, and I know that you've also written a lot about sex hormones, testosterone, estrogens, and similar. Do those play a role? I mean, I would, I, I, I mean, I, I guess I, I assume that they are male and female frogs. I, I think. Uh, and, and, but you said that there are very different strategies. Does that, does that modulate the, like, the levels of these chemicals or, um, how, how do they figure into these if, if at all?
[00:10:32] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah. Well, that's a good question, and I don't know if I have the exact answer for you. What we do know is that, um, is that the same like kind of brain regions and neurons are turning on whether or not it's a male or a female who's performing care. So there seems to be this like core circuit for parenting. And, you know, hormones might, you know, toggle them to be more or less active in each sex, but there seems to be this kind of like core parenting pattern. Um, but like in our frogs, just like in human males, like testosterone goes down when you become a dad, um, when they're uh, when in monogamous species they have these correlated levels of hormones. So in humans, you know, and, and like in, in people who are in love, they tend to have like correlated levels of hormones. And our frogs that are pair bonded do that too. Um, and so similar levels of, similar patterns are happening with hormones in these relationships as we see in human families.
[00:11:34] Russ Altman: And, and, so, um, you mentioned humans and I was, I was being very careful because you, you know, part of what you're studying is just to understand and discover how these things work. And it's not always about learning things for human-like application. But since you mentioned humans, can you tell me how do you approach this work? Um, you know, is there a distant hope to have this be relevant to humans or is that really not the point? It's like, how is nature doing these things? What are the options? What's the diversity of approaches?
[00:12:02] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, so for sure frogs and humans are very far apart. Um, and so we're not like seeking to cure a disease here. Um, what we're trying to learn is like the basic blueprints of how parenting happenings, happens, like, and is reinforced in the brain and how social relationships are, are reinforced. And we think, you know, we, we've been working on frogs. I think they're a good system 'cause they have these like complex family relationships that you don't see in a lot of like traditional lab model systems. And they have like a very simplified brain. You know, not as many neurons, it's a little bit easier to understand what's happening. Um, because just like there's, it's, it's a little bit more of a simple system, you know? And so like for us, we're trying to address this basic question. And if like insights come out of it, then this is something that can be tested by others and more like complex animals to like have like treatments for, you know, things that are related to like opioid signaling and parenting, like postpartum depression or something like that. So, um, I think, you know, there are several steps that go along that, but, I mean, we need to understand this like basic building, like the basic building blocks of what's happening before we can understand how something like breaks in a disease context.
[00:13:23] Russ Altman: Great, great. Thank you. So, so at looking at the work that you've done on parent-child relations, it's, it's so rich and we've talked a little bit about bonding and some of those chemicals, but you've also looked at teamwork and coordination between the parents, uh, and communication. So can you tell us how that work proceeds and like what are we learning there?
[00:13:40] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, so, um, well what we've mostly paid attention to is the role of, or what's happening in offspring. Because it's very easy to, to do experiments in adult animals, especially in mice. You know, there's a lot of really lovely work there. Um, but it's, it's a little bit harder to understand what's happening in the offspring, and so the reason we think that they're useful, the tadpoles that we study, is they have this really robust behavior where they have to recognize their parents when they come to visit them, and they have to communicate that they need food. And so they do this with this like little dance behavior. Their mom like comes in and then the tadpole is like, oh, that's my mom. Um, and they recognize her based on smell, so they can smell their mom versus, and tell her apart from not mom.
[00:14:29] Um, and then they're like, oh, this is my mom. I need to tell them I'm hungry. And so they do this little dance behavior. And so we've been able to work out like, oh, the, you know, the tadpoles are recognizing 'em by smell. Then this activates these neurons, which then activates this circuit. And then this is how, like, if we turn on this neuron, then this is how this tadpole communicates that it needs food. Um, because we don't understand a lot about how, you know, communication and, uh, kind of, parental recognition happens in the infant brain. And so we've been able to work that out in tadpoles and you know, now people have a blueprint of what to look for in other organisms like mammals.
[00:15:10] Russ Altman: It is very charming to think about a little child, a little offspring dance and I, I can imagine I've seen some of that myself. So, on this issue of the communication, I know that one of the experiments you did is take a gene that, I believe, was implicated in human autism and put it in the tadpoles or, or mutated it or did something to it. Um, can you tell me about that and how does, like introducing a gene or mutating a gene affect the dance, the recognition of mom, the, the whole shebang.
[00:15:40] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah. Yeah. So we started, uh, working on this gene, um, called FMRP. So it's the, it's a gene that, um, is most often linked to autism. It's like, if you could pick one gene for autism, you know, gene autism is a single, is a multi-gene, you know, trait. But if there was one gene that's most often associated with it, it would be this gene, this Fragile X gene. And so what we see is that when tadpoles are doing this communication behavior that this, the neurons containing this gene like really ramp up and like kind of turn on. And so when this gene is mutated in humans, you see these like deficits in sensory signaling or in communication, um, and things like that.
[00:16:26] So it creates a lot of variability in sensory motor, uh, behavior. And so we, we were curious then we were like, okay, so we wanna understand how this gene might be regulating this behavior in our system. Um, and so what we do, you know, tadpoles, the nice thing about tadpoles is they're kind of still squishy and, uh, and they're transparent. And so you can look at them, you can see the brain, um, just by like looking through them. And then you can also like inject, um, some genetic constructs or morpholinos to either express genes or turn off genes and then ask, you know, and then wait a couple days and then ask like, okay, do you still know who your mom is?
[00:17:06] Like, do, can you still communicate that you need food? Um, and so these are kind of how experiments go. And so when we knock down some of these genes, like for example, when we knock down the ability to make dopamine or knock down, you know, some, uh, autism associated genes, then we see that they can't coordinate their behavior as well. Um, or they tend to like, you know, beg to everybody, instead of just their parent, you know, like, so, so some of the, the, this like kind of the ability to distinguish between individuals, um, sometimes, sometimes goes away. Um, and so these are kind of experiments that we do to test the role of a specific gene in behavior.
[00:17:47] Russ Altman: So, so as a side effect of this, of this answer, you told me a couple of really interesting things. So their see-through, which now it becomes clear why it would be very attractive for you to study because certain things become much easier. How big are they? Because you're now injecting, you said you were injecting like basically biological reagents. Um, I guess I don't know how big tadpoles can be. I guess they start out very small, but can you gimme a sense of the size ranges we're dealing with?
[00:18:13] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, their body is somewhere between half a centimeter to a centimeter, you know, and then they have a tail that's like two to three times about that. Um, so yeah, they're, they're transparent and so then we can look at things like, you know, we can inject 'em with a dye and watch their neurons like go on and off while they're, you know, we're giving them the smell of their mother versus their not mother and, and things like that. So it's we're, we kind of treat them like a zebra fish. Um, except we study these behaviors,
[00:18:42] Russ Altman: Which are also see-through, which are also see-through.
[00:18:43] Lauren O'Connell: Which are also see-through when they're larvae, exactly. And so, but then we study these kind of central behaviors that are important for family relationships that aren't seen in, in other organisms.
[00:18:54] Russ Altman: I just have to ask, are they aware of their siblings? Like, or have you studied the sibling interactions versus like, you're not my sibling, we don't have the same mother. I could imagine there's stuff there, but I don't know if you've gone there.
[00:19:08] Lauren O'Connell: Um, so well, this is important because the species that we study, they put their tadpoles in individual pools. So each tadpole has their own nursery. And this is important because they are cannibals. And so if a parent ever puts two of them together, there will only be one.
[00:19:27] Russ Altman: Oh my goodness.
[00:19:28] Lauren O'Connell: A day later. So they are intense about defending their resources. They don't allow each other into each other's bedrooms. You know what I'm saying?
[00:19:41] Russ Altman: And this is even the siblings. Even the siblings.
[00:19:43] Lauren O'Connell: Even the siblings. I think some other people have shown that they're like the late, the time at which it takes them to like show aggression will decrease when it's a sibling, but it still happens.
[00:19:55] Russ Altman: Well, and we're all gonna just quietly ponder that. Um, and as, as I say, this is The Future of Everything, I'm Russ Altman and we'll have more with Lauren O'Connell next. Welcome back to The Future of Everything. I'm Russ Altman and I'm speaking with Lauren O'Connell from Stanford University. In the last segment, we learned about these fascinating poisonous frogs and how they can be used to understand parent offspring relations. In this segment, we're gonna hear about a special apparatus that Lauren and her lab has developed for tracking frogs, they're actually wearing these little pant speedo things, that allow the lab to track them over a kilometer as they find home after foraging. In addition, we're gonna hear about how those poison frogs prevent themselves from poisoning themselves. If you're carrying around a bunch of poisons, you might wanna make sure that you don't poison yourself.
[00:20:59] Lauren, I wanted to ask you about a fascinating set of experiments that you're doing on understanding how frogs kind of understand their physical environment and how they go out foraging and then get back home. And you've done something quite remarkable in terms of instrumenting these frogs. Uh, can you tell us about that?
[00:21:18] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, so we, the, because our frogs are really good parents, they leave their babies in these little nurseries throughout the forest and they have to remember where they put their babies, 'cause they have to come back and feed them. And so what we were curious about is how do you remember like where this exact thing is in a very complex environment like a rainforest. And so we were trying to figure out how they recognize where they are and if they're displaced, how they find their way home. Um, and so the frogs though, are really tiny.
[00:21:52] And so, uh, you know, usually you would like stick a GPS on something, you know, like, like, because if you wanted to like look to see what a whale was doing, but these frogs are tiny. And so we developed these kind of frog pants or like a frog kind of speedo situation. It's kind of like a G-string and it has this like string coming off that we can detect with an antenna. And so the frogs can kind of go about their daily lives and then we can keep track of where they're located as they're moving around. And so what we do is we like figure out where home is for them. And then we move them, um, you know, some amounts of distance. So the farthest we've moved some frogs is over a kilometer. And they like sit there for a moment and it looks to me like they're getting their bearing. I don't know what's actually happening.
[00:22:46] Russ Altman: Are they looking around?
[00:22:47] Lauren O'Connell: They, they kind of like look around and they kind of sit there for a moment. And, and then they like take off and they beeline straight to home. It looks like they're like trying to figure out what to do and then they make a decision and then go. Um, and so, and then we track them like over several days and like trying to see like how they get home. Um, some individuals are really good at that and some aren't. Um, and so we're trying to figure out like, you know, what, how they're able to do that because, you know, they don't have very many neurons, compared to a mouse or a bird, but they're able to get home from a kilometer away. So how does that happen?
[00:23:24] Russ Altman: And, and this is even when you've placed them there. So it's not a question of them replaying how they got there and undoing it.
[00:23:32] Lauren O'Connell: No, no, 'cause they can't see where they're going. So we like carry them around in a bucket with a magnet. So just in case they're like paying attention to the earth's magnetic fields. And so then they like, we just place them somewhere and they just have to like figure out where they are and figure out what direction home is in. Um, and I would have a hard time doing that. I don't have a good sense of place.
[00:23:55] Russ Altman: Okay, so there's two, two things I have to ask. The first one is just about the physical setup here. So I imagine that these have to be very light and, uh, they probably don't even carry their own power. Are they passively powered or do they carry it?
[00:24:07] Lauren O'Connell: They're, yeah, they're passively powered because the, because it's kind of a like animal ethics issue. Like we don't want to weigh them down very much. They still need to be able to forage and mate and take care of their offspring. And so what we have to do is make a passive antenna and then, um, and then we go around with an, with a receiver and try to, um, to, to locate them.
[00:24:31] Russ Altman: Great. And then the second question, which, and it, it refers to the comment you just made, um, have you studied and are there differences between male and female frogs in their abilities to do this? I think you've written about this, uh, and, and what, what have you found?
[00:24:46] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, so we were curious about this because there's some sex differences in mammals. Um, and so we wanted to see that, you know, that it's proposed to being like, tied to parenting and to like, uh, roaming around for resources. And so we wanted to test that because different parents have different responsibilities in these family structures. And so what we found was that usually male frogs were better at navigating home than female frogs, kind of regardless. And so it kind of, um, gave, uh, support to this idea that has been around for a long time, and has been found in mammals, that having testosterone around, um, kind of changes the hippocampal function and makes some types of spatial tasks a little bit easier to accomplish.
[00:25:38] Russ Altman: Wow. And, and, well that's interesting. And I can imagine fraught when you, when you, when you announce this, and so you have to be very careful, I'm sure about like, bounding the, uh, the, the what you did and what it means and, but very interesting. Oh, okay. So, because, um, we don't have a ton of time and the, I, the, the homing behavior is just really fascinating. But I do wanna move to another thing that you've done, which is, you know, we started the whole discussion talking about the, these are poison frogs and we, we're glad that you and your lab are safe and that maybe a little tingling, I think you said, if, if, if you're kissing it or, or something, but, um, but, but they have to deal with this toxin as well. And so I, and I know you've studied the mechanisms by which these frogs tolerate carrying around what's essentially a bunch of poisons. Uh, and what, what have you found there?
[00:26:26] Lauren O'Connell: So they can carry around a lot of different toxins. And so there's been a lot of studies in like newts and snakes, for example, pufferfish, that have like a really potent toxin and they, and they have a mutation in their ion channel that gives them some resistance. Um, this isn't, that's not how it really works in the frogs because they have so many different kinds of toxins and they're just kind of getting them all from the environment, so you kind of dunno what you're gonna get.
[00:26:51] Russ Altman: So they're, so it sounds like they're like opportunistic toxin collectors.
[00:26:54] Lauren O'Connell: Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And they get it mostly from like the ants and mites that they're eating. And so we wanted to figure out how they were doing that. And what we found was that they've evolved this kind of toxin sponge protein that binds a bunch of different toxins that would be lethal, um, at, you know, at similar doses to people. Um, and so, and it even, and it's a very like promiscuous binding sponge, so it like binds a lot of different things. Um, and so this was really interesting to us 'cause it was a new protein that they kind of like, you know, that kind of evolved in this. Um, and it has like very broad functionality, so it binds things, you know, like cocaine and like other toxins that can cause like a bunch of like overdose issues in, in other species. And so to us, this was really exciting 'cause it provided a mechanism as to like why they can take up all sorts of different things from their environment without making themselves sick.
[00:27:54] Russ Altman: And, and can they control, so this is a protein and, and you said it's kind of like a sponge, it kind of, but can they release then, like what, um, how do they do the release or how do they manage then using it to protect themselves or their offspring?
[00:28:07] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, so I think it protects their own nervous system. And then the, the toxin is stored in these glands in their skin. And so to, so when we go to the field, we, we, it's called milking them. We milk them for toxins and it's, you kind of like rub their back and it's kind of like this, like milky white substance that's released. It kind of smells. Um, and so, you know, 'cause they're not just like releasing toxins into the environment at all times. That's a waste. Um, and so we like milk them for their toxins, like, you know, do a toxin collection and then analyze it, uh, later in the lab. Um, and so the protein I think is just, what we think is that it's, it's there to protect them from getting sick and it's not really involved in the delivery process.
[00:28:53] Russ Altman: And, and when you, so, and therefore when you analyze this milk, you're not seeing huge levels of this protein in that, in that fluid.
[00:29:00] Lauren O'Connell: No.
[00:29:01] Russ Altman: Um, and, and so I just have to ask, um, you said ants, so just tell me a little bit more about where these toxins come from. I mean, we know that like, especially like in the Amazon, there's this image of like, it's a, it's a battle between organisms for survival and that they, and we as, and as you know, there's lots of drugs that have been described, human disease drugs, that have been discovered based on looking at these molecules that are basically part of the warfare between bacteria and fungus. And I guess frogs too. Um, uh, how, how diverse these molecules and where do they come from ,and like, what is their typical mechanism of action? What do they, how do they kill each other?
[00:29:35] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah. So, um, this is tapping into a very ancient system from, as you alluded to, from, mostly from plants and from microbes, to release compounds to protect themselves from predation, so like plants and herbivores. Um, and you know, and then like microbes and, you know, their other like microbial interactions and things like that. Um, and so what we think is that there's this like trophic chain, or like this relationship, and a healthy ecosystem that passes on these molecules from microbes and plants, to the insects that the frogs are eating, to the frogs themselves. Um, and, and we don't know of a predator that eats the frogs that kind of co-ops this, um, and, and sequesters the toxins. Um, it's thought that some snakes might do it, um, but it's basically this like complex species interaction chain and these toxins, um, what they do is they bind to different ion channels in the nervous system.
[00:30:34] And so the most toxic poison frog toxins like batrachotoxin toxin for example, bind sodium channels in your muscle, in your heart, and then, and it causes cardiac arrest. Um, and so, and then like, but different compounds, find different things. Like, there was, um, someone discovered, um, John Daly in the eighties discovered epibatidine in poison frogs, which is about two hundred times as potent as morphine. Um, and so a lot of them have like also, not only like effects on, on sodium channels in your heart, but also can affect like your pain sensing pathways or some are hallucinogenic. And so there's a really kind of treasure trove of molecular, uh, tools that are available.
[00:31:15] Russ Altman: Yeah. So in, in the, thank you so much. So in, in the final minute that we have, I just wanted to ask about, like, you're in a biology department and, um, it's different from a medical school. Um, and in a medical school everybody's looking for understanding disease, curing diseases. The, the, the, the mission of a biology department is much more broad. And even though, um, you've touched upon some things that are of, of relevance to humans, that really isn't your focus. And I just was wondering, as we close up, how, can you give us insight into how a biologist thinks about their work?
[00:31:47] Lauren O'Connell: Yeah, so you know, we're, well, so we're a biology department. Uh, we have a huge teaching mission and education, and so that's one thing. Um, but we're also really dedicated to, you know, addressing a basic science question. And so a lot of what I think people find value in about science, about like technology, or some like disease application, many of those discoveries kind of came as a kind of a, a side effect or a byproduct of basic science research. And we really have to have this like basic science research foundation to be able to make the, then these technological or disease-based leaps. Because you have to like figure out how the basic system works if you're going to figure out how to fix something. Um, and so like our toxin sponge was a good example. We were trying to figure out how poison frogs protect their own nervous system and discovered this protein that like can protect people against overdoses. And so we were not looking for a tool like that. It was a side effect of understanding something very basic about an evolutionary process.
[00:32:54] Russ Altman: Great. And, and, and that is the value proposition for basic science. Uh, not to mention it sounds like it must be pretty fun going to the Amazon looking for frogs and studying their, their offspring. Well, well, thank you so much.
[00:33:08] Lauren O'Connell: Thank you for having me.
[00:33:10] Russ Altman: Thanks to Lauren O'Connell. That was the future of parenting chemistry. Thank you for listening. Don't forget, we have 250 or more back episodes of The Future of Everything, and you can listen to discussions on a wide variety of topics at the touch of a button. Please remember to hit follow in the app that you're listening to right now. That'll ensure that you're always updated about new episodes and you never miss the future of anything. You can connect with me on many social media sites @RussBAltman, or @RBAltman on LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. You can also follow Stanford School of Engineering @StanfordSchoolOfEngineering, or @StanfordENG.
