Andrew Huberman· PhD
let me give you a very simple example of this so for those of you listening I'll just explain what I'm doing and for those of you watching you'll be able to see I'm holding my hand out in front of me if I were to touch the top of my hand with my fingertip I can deliberately override that is I can modulate that more typical reflex which is that when something touches us if we're not aware of where it's coming from we typically move away from that thing that touches this is a very natural response but we can decide we're not going to move away we can decide to stay still or we can decide to move toward the thing that touches us but typically if you were to walk up to somebody and you were to touch them they'd either turn toward you on the side that you touch them or they'd step away it's rare that they're going to step into you but you could decide that you were not going to move away or you could step into the direction of touch and that's because you have modulatory neurons that can adjust the conversation in a very context-dependent way as to whether or not the sensory neuron will cause motor neurons to contract or not