#100 Simplifying Horse Brain Science with Dr. Steve Peters

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:00:00-00:00:10]
In this episode, we're talking with Dr. Steve Peters, a neuroscientist, educator, and international clinician who teaches horse brain science clinics around the world.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:00:12-00:00:32]
Learning is two steps. One is sympathetic arousal to that state where they're challenged. This is where information is inputted. This is where their attention is so good, they're capturing it because they're challenged. Step two, we have to consolidate the information. And only the horse's brain can do that.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:00:34-00:01:51]
Welcome to the Equestrian Connection podcast from WeHorse. My name is Danielle Kroll and I'm your host. Dr. Steve Peters is a board certified clinical neuropsychologist and internationally recognized equine neuroscientist. With more than three decades of experience in brain research and clinical practice, he brings together human and equine neuroscience to support thoughtful, science-informed horsemanship. For more than a decade, Dr. Peters has presented neuroscience concepts to equestrian audiences across the United States and internationally. And in recent years, he founded Horse Brain Science Clinics, combining classroom instruction, live horse demonstrations, and equine brain dissections to provide clear, practical insight into behavior, learning, stress, and welfare. His vision is that understanding the horse's brain is the most direct path to better communication. reduce stress, and deeper connection between horse and rider. It's science serving the art of horsemanship. So let's dive in. Steve, welcome to the We Horse podcast. We have a lot of interest around the idea of how the horse thinks and the behavior. So I'm really excited for this interview. So welcome.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:01:51-00:01:53]
Oh, I'm glad to be here. Thank you very much.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:01:53-00:02:06]
So there is, based on your bio, it seems like you've spent a lot of time, decades even, working in the human neuropsychology. And I'd love to know how you began to bring this into the horse world.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:02:06-00:05:04]
Well, as you just mentioned, I'm a... Clinical neuroscientist. And my day-to-day job for decades was assessing brain functioning. But I always had horses. And it's not a major leap to consider horses from a neurological standpoint, if that's all you're doing with humans. All the time. So I kept up to date with all the peer-reviewed scientific literature on horses and all the mammalian research. And I began to dissect out horse brains just to get a comparison with human brains, which I had dissected before. And what I discovered was that a lot of veterinarians would contact me and say, we don't get any neurology or very little. in our training, would you come give a presentation? Then I would find that there were lay people in the audience who said, this is all new to me. You know, can you come speak to my horse group? So without knowing that this was going to turn into a rocket. I found myself at conferences and talking to the lay public. Basically, another piece of this was that I knew in science, you can't really say much. Unless you have large numbers. So having seven horses in my herd really doesn't help me generalize out to the horse world. They're just horses in my area. Right. So I found this cowboy, a fifth generation cowboy, Martin Black. And he had thousands and thousands of observations, and he was very much an observant scientist, although he wouldn't call himself that. But this is what we call empirical evidence. It's still part of the scientific process. So he matched his observations with my observations. science, and then we wrote the book, Evidence-Based Horsemanship. And evidence-based is an important piece because so much is said out there and so much which is on the internet and floating around without any scientific evidence to support it. So throughout my career, I've been very strict in that everything I say is not my opinion. It's evidence-based. I know where I can go to support those things. And I felt science should be applicable. To the entire horse world, because if they better understood their horses, if they could connect and speak a language their horses understood through the nervous system, it would benefit horse owners and horses.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:05:05-00:05:25]
Absolutely. Yeah, the thing I find really interesting is your ability to balance technical speak for veterinarians. And then also, like you said, like more layperson speak for the average horse owner to understand. So that's a really unique ability to have as an educator and author.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:05:26-00:08:54]
Well, thank you very much. I don't know that you could take my most recent or my last book, Horse Brain Science, which is almost a textbook. As an example of how simple I can make things, because it's designed really as a reference book. I want it to be a well-worn reference book where people can go get evidence-based information. So it may even be a good textbook for an equine science class. So this drove me because I'm constantly looking for ways to, to translate scientific information, useful information to the public, because I believe science belongs to all of us. Yeah. So I wrote another book, which is due out in October, Horse Brain Science Simplified. But I want to make a point that only the language and the way I... I describe it and present it as simplified. The science is in no way watered down. And it's interesting because when I first started this, I went to some veterinary programs at universities or veterinary hospitals. And I told them, I said, I'm getting more and more requests to present to the public. They said, are you kidding me? Neurotransmitters and neuroendocrine system, you know, you're going to end up with one or two geeks in your audience. And that's it. Well, every day I had to speak to the general public in my job. Because I would make diagnosis on complex medical diagnoses and have to explain those to a lay public who's not only listening for the first time, but usually frightened with what they were hearing. So. I knew that I could translate information in an understandable way for the public because I did it every day. So it wasn't a big... stretch to then use that to talk to the public. One of the things I do is, you know, science is so wrapped in jargon and scientific language that it keeps people isolated from the science. So When I give presentations, horse brain science clinics, what I do is I have lots of slides, but they're not the boring 10 paragraph slides that I read to people. They know how to read their images, simply images. And I think images can reach anyone. You know, if you see how a dendrite. Fires and creates more dendrites in the brain. If you see stress, and I could say, well, here is the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and glass over all the audience, and then that really does us no good. But if I say, do you see these connections? They go down to an area of the brain related to fear. And actually, we don't want to send our messages down that route because look what happens over time. And then I can give some examples. So what they're seeing is real observations. And they may know the how on how they got their horse to do something. But what I hope I'm able to do for them is provide the why. Why does this happen?

[SPEAKER 3]
[00:08:55-00:09:00]
You mentioned stress and fear in there. And the thing.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:09:00-00:09:22]
that's really interesting within the horse world is the idea of humanizing horses, like projecting our feelings, our emotions onto the horses. Can you talk a little bit about that where we make it into trouble with the idea of humanizing horses from that neurological perspective?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:09:23-00:12:46]
Absolutely. Horses are not human beings. Horses do not have a human brain. Humans have a very large frontal lobe that allows us to perform abstract thinking, contingency plans, predict the future. I don't think your horse is. thinking, wow, there's a flake of hay left. If I kick it under this bush, I'm going to come back on Tuesday when no other horses are around and pick that back up again. One of the probably most detrimental humanizing terms for horses is this idea of respect and disrespect. Disrespect is an abstract concept. So there is no way that the horse can understand what that means. Horses do what horses do if we've inadvertently allowed our horse to come into our space, maybe we've trained them actually to do that. Maybe we're sending some signal that tells the horse that they can do something, but the horse is basically reacting and trying to interpret the world in their terms. Why would this be detrimental? Well, a term like disrespect then justifies punishment. I'm going to discipline this horse. And there is no research anywhere to support the use of punishment as a form of learning. In fact, that diminishes your returns on what you're trying to teach. So calling a horse lazy, stubborn. argumentative. Those are our human terms. But I would ask you, how would that help you to better interact with your horse? However, if we say, just change our lens a little bit, and we were to say, what is my horse struggling with? Why is my horse feeling it has to be this way, then our horse is actually communicating something to us and we can address that. If our idea, and often this is what happens, is that if people struggle to understand the nervous system, the first thing in their toolbox is more pressure. And when we're working with the brain, that's actually the worst tool to use. Because when our horse is so... sympathetically aroused and starting to go to defensive physiology, starting to protect themselves. We don't want them to predict that they have to protect themselves. We actually want to answer the question every horse asks, am I safe? And if we can answer that question and allow them to reset, They can stay open and they can be an active participant. But when we put on more pressure or we decide we're going to punish them for something, typically something they don't understand, it often leads to confusion and confusion will lead to actually more sympathetic arousal. They're heading not in the direction we want if we're going to have a good learning environment.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:12:47-00:13:12]
I'm so glad that you brought up the disrespect concept, because like you said, it is something that is so prevalent within the horse industry that people are very quick to say this horse is disrespectful when in reality. it's just kind of the human taking it personally when it doesn't need to be. So I'm so glad that you brought that up. And I wanted to also... Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:13:12-00:14:02]
I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I was just going to add that sometimes we tend to take things personally based on ego. Even though we may on a conscious level know that our horse isn't trying to purposefully play a trick on us or get one over. on us or go tell all the other horses, did you see how I made the chump of this guy? You know, there's no way that's going to happen, but we act as if it will or as if it did, even if we consciously know better. So I think our awareness of how our human perceptions can color this in ways that actually are detrimental to our learning environment, benefits the horse and benefits the human as well. If we can stop for a moment and become a little more self-aware.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:14:03-00:14:34]
So good. When we look at like our own behavior, so some of our human behavior, our human patterns that to us we think is normal and maybe even clear to the horse. But knowing their brain the way that you do, it may not actually be clear to the horse. It may not be a language that they truly understand. What are some of the ways that our own patterns can interfere with the way that a horse learns?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:14:35-00:16:48]
I would recommend that your listeners go check out the story of Clever Hans. Clever Hans was a horse that was actually not doing algebraic problems. But was reading the teacher, every micro movement, every breath, even the posture, and realized that that's the way the The nervous system is built for the horse. They're highly sensitive in almost every sense. So that when we interact with a horse, we're bringing in a whole environment. Our nervous system to the horse is an entire environment. The way we move, the way we breathe, the way we posture, all of that is taken in and being processed. If we're unaware of that and we're inconsistent in our movements, if our movements are not congruent with the way we speak, that incongruency is stressful for a horse. Why? Because... For horses to feel comfortable, they want their world to be predictable. And if you're not consistent and if you're not bringing the same environment, that's a mismatch for the horse on a sensory level. And right away, they'll start to move towards. Distrust towards becoming more self-protective. And that'll be confusing to them. And all confusion will do is actually get in our way. When we do that, and we are consistent, and we do become aware of our presence with the horse, what happens is we become predictable. If we become predictable, like clever haunts, we become readable. And if we're readable, we're safe. I know what to predict. I know what I'm going to get. I know this is safe. We've done this before. And my brain can predict that probably things are going to be just as good as they were the last time. And I can count on it.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:16:50-00:18:00]
I also think too, like the idea that I remember being, you know, a young kid at a lesson barn. And so these school horses, they knew when the kid was coming. To get them for their lesson. And so, you know, these horses would always avoid the young kids with the halters, you know, coming to get them. And, and so then they would learn, oh, well, if I put the halter behind my back, maybe the horse, it won't see it. And so then I can catch the horse. And it's like, Well, if you can go up to the horse without the halter and you can scratch it because you're not going to catch it, you're just going up to say hello and it allows you to go up to it. But then it knows you have the halter. So then you try to hide it behind your back. The horse can still tell that you have something because you know you have the halter. You know you have the intention of catching this horse. And so even if the horse doesn't see the halter necessarily, they pick up on the sense that you almost have like a predatory sense about you. You know, like you're kind of sneaking up on this horse, like, you know, you're going to catch it. Like it's, it's those sorts of.

[SPEAKER 4]
[00:18:00-00:18:02]
things that the horse can sense.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:18:02-00:18:19]
Exactly. If you were simply to just change that picture around and say, how could I scare my horse? How can I come across as a predator? Well, I'll creep and I'll hide things. And then at the last moment, I'll capture you.

[SPEAKER 4]
[00:18:19-00:18:20]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:18:21-00:20:29]
So all those things actually are in line with predation. And if our horse is asking, am I safe? We're almost going to the opposite extreme to prove that you may not be. I'm going to turn on an evolutionary pattern. This is already built into you that protects you. And this is where horses get in trouble is that there are some pathways in the brain that are designed to work with really out any thinking because they have to happen that quickly. So instead of, for example, there's an area of the brain, I don't want to go too technical. Called the lateral geniculate. And basically, it takes in visual information. And normally, visual information just goes into your eye, to the back of your head, to the occipital lobe, gets processed, then goes to an association area that then may tell the motor system, okay, move. If all that's going on, that horse is going to be dead if a lion's coming out of the woods. So what happens is the... information gets shunted. It goes to the eye and then can go immediately to the amygdala. So the amygdala is an area of the brain about even with your ears, right about here. Same with a horse. And this structure is associated with fear. So No thinking is going on. It's an automatic built-in reflex and especially highly attuned in prey animals. So we have to get our horses to trust us enough that the information just travels the normal path, what I call the high road. The low road actually is going to get us a response. But if we yell at our horse or get upset with our horse, the horse had no thinking process. It had no way of overcoming that behavior. That behavior would be built into automatic patterns that have been placed there through. Hundreds and thousands and millions of years.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:20:31-00:21:06]
I just find this so fascinating. It's also making me very aware of the way that I interact with my horse and my horses. Because even the difference between my mare and gelding is so big in, you know, in their own unique little personalities and how they respond to things. There's a very big difference in the confidence level between my mare and my gelding. Or what I feel is confidence. So it's really interesting what you're saying that I'm going to be able to apply to my communication with them.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:21:07-00:28:02]
And I'm glad you brought that up because I think sometimes we get really focused on, you know, whether it's a mayor or whether it's a gelding. But bigger differences exist in just individual horses. There are plenty of Arab horses that are pretty docile. And quiet. And there are plenty of draft horses that can have a lot of energetic expression. So just even based on breed, you know, generally, yeah, the big draft horse is likely to be more docile. But the best way I think to look at it is every horse is going to have a different nervous system. And it has to because its previous experiences have helped to create that brain and create that prediction. Neurons that fire together wire together. So all of your experiences are different than mine. So if you say the word horse, you have totally different images in your brain than I have. We think we're talking about the exact same thing. But let's say you were bucked off and had a trauma, a traumatic brain injury, and I'm so romantic about horses, I've watched Black Beauty 37 times, right? And nothing's wrong with you. way, but just Our idea of what a horse is plays into this as well. But every horse, every horse you deal with is different. And the horse that comes to you that day is built on everything that happened previous to that. This expression, the horse lives in the now. Let me tell you how inaccurate that is. If you go and put your saddle on your horse and it rolls underneath your horse and your horse goes to bucking and you finally get your saddle back. And then I am very gentle and the horse has a pretty good experience. And then I get the saddle off and I let them. Reset their nervous system, breathe out, process that whole thing. And the next day, which horse, if they live in the now, and it's going to be a complete blank slate, do you want a saddle? Right? Yeah. So the horse that comes to you, and it's so interesting, is that The same horse can bring a different nervous system in a different state to you tomorrow. They could be sore. It could be windy. You could be angry. There's so many variables there that to be a really good horseman, I think you have to be able to read all these variables. You don't need big scientific labels on them. But understanding that this is always evolving. And if we're dumb. landing perfect rigidity, actually what will happen is oftentimes our horses will get irritated. The learning will become very rigid. The horse can almost become robotic and sometimes shut down or tune out so that they stop communicating with you. And you might say, well, that's a good thing. Well, your learning is going to be impaired. And if they tune out enough information and then they wake up, then almost anything has the potential to cause them to explode and become sympathetically aroused. So I think exposing them to the world, giving them some agency so that. They have some choice. Now, don't go say, Dr. Peter said, just let the reins go and let them just ride off. But having some agency can be as simple as getting your horse to think they're training you. For example, you know, just if you put your leg on and take it off with a response, in your horse's brain, it starts to become, well, When that leg comes on, I can get that leg off. All I have to do is do this and the pattern will play out. So it almost feels as if the horse, their behavior matters. Learned helplessness, the definition of learned helplessness actually is having aversive stimuli. And nothing you do, there's no behavior that you can do. It's inescapable. And so you eventually just shut down and give up. So your behavior has no purpose. Your behavior has no effect. So you give up. And unfortunately, there are horses that have gotten to that extent. So we always want to keep our horses alive, realizing that what they do has a difference. And in fact, I don't know if you've read about the five domains. This is a new way of looking at horses. There used to be the three Fs, forage, friends, freedom. The five domains was created by this scientist, David Meller, another scientist, a friend of mine, actually, Andrew McLean. Help design this structure that truly benefits the horse. We're not looking for survival so much anymore, but how can we optimize the environment to create the best brain, the healthiest horse? And so there are elements, nutrition, health, that you'd imagine to be in there. But some of those are interactions, interactions between the horse and the human so that those are positive, but interactions with other horses because they're herd animals. And then right in the middle, mental health of the horse is getting a lot more. emphasis, which is great. And a lot of that involves agency, that the horse feels that they have choices in their life. We can direct those choices. But this is the opposite. The opposite end of the spectrum is I can make a horse do anything and you have no choice and I will make you do what I want. And by God, I'll get what I want. If we're dealing with a living creature and we want to optimize their learning and we want to make them an active participant in their learning, because when they are, when their neurochemistry is right, it's incredible. They can become super learners and their neurochemistry is the same as ours. If I want you to be excited about learning, you know, I want to be passionate enough so that Your arousal level, which would be norepinephrine, gets to a certain point, and that will create another neurochemical called acetylcholine. Now you can really focus your attention, and that sets you up for a big dopamine hit. So if I've done all that as a teacher, and then I teach you something, and you go, yes, I got it. That's your dopamine hit, and your horse is no different.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:28:02-00:28:03]
Hmm.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:28:04-00:28:23]
If I put on a lot of pressure, I'll get so much norepinephrine that they can't even find the dopamine. In fact, they won't even look for it. In their mind is, how do I get the heck out of here? And then if we put on even more pressure to think we're going to get their attention, their attention goes elsewhere. It's... Moving toward fight or flight.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:28:24-00:29:04]
So I have a question about that. With all of that in mind, are there ways for us to be able to acknowledge when we can continue with training. So maybe we say, okay, I see the horse is starting to get this, you know, it's starting to, you know, grasp what it is that I'm asking. Let me continue so that then it does have that click and it does have that dopamine moment of like, yes, I got it. Or When to know, I think I'm going a little too far here. I think I'm overloading the horse a little bit. So is there sort of a sweet spot for us to know, or I guess the signs to know when to continue and when to pause?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:29:05-00:29:15]
Absolutely. And that is the art because we had spoken earlier about... Every nervous system being different. Sometimes you actually have to go too far to know you went too far.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:29:15-00:29:16]
Right. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:29:17-00:35:02]
That particular horse. So just staying in the comfort zone entirely, you really don't know where that challenging point is. You may think your horse feels best in that comfort zone or could learn best in that comfort zone. But let's take a look at this. I do something two times. I do something three times with my horse. I do something four times. By about the fourth time, even though they're getting release and relief from pressure and release or a reward, each effort gets a lower reward, less dopamine. So the first time, wow, I did it. I got this dopamine hit. Second time, okay, I am expecting this much dopamine. I got that much dopamine. I mean, third, fourth, fifth time that we, now we're drilling. So you'll get to a point where there's almost no dopamine. And you'll know that because your horse will start to get irritated. Look, we've done this 15 times, you know, and they start thrashing their tail, etc. Sometimes if you've turned left three times in a row, just turn right. Well, we know the brain gets a surprise. It's called reward prediction error in the literature, meaning that if we can keep it exciting, if we can keep the learning novel, then the dopamine hits are larger and your horse starts to seek those out. And if we challenge them, that may be arousing. But what we want to do is when we've, let's say we've done something three times, we say, this is new. I know they have it. Let me try it one more time to make sure they got it. They've got it. That may be the point at which if you kept going on, you would either be drilling or too sympathetically arousing. So this is where we stop and we're not providing any outside stimuli. We're waiting to watch our horse recover and process. We're waiting to watch their head come down. We're waiting to watch their eyes blink. We're looking for that lick and chew. Yeah, that lick and chew, a lot of people have made a lot about it. Really what it is, is there's a nerve, the ninth cranial nerve. It's called the glossopharyngeal nerve. So there's your $10 word for today. Next time you see me. Licking and chewing, you say, well, that's activation of that glossopharyngeal nerve. It runs to the salivary glands, and it's all parasympathetic. So if your horse is sympathetically aroused, they're going to clamp their lips shut and their mouth will go dry. So when they start to gradually fall back into a more parasympathetic state, then it reactivates those parasympathetic fibers. It's not the only sign, but that's also a good one to look for. In fact, there's some people that get into, okay, now I'm going to look for how many licks and chews do I get after I taught this new? Information. Learning is two steps. One is sympathetic arousal to that state where they're challenged. This is where information is inputted. This is where their attention is so good, they're capturing it because they're challenged. Now what we have to do, that's only step one. Step two, we have to consolidate the information. And only the horse's brain can do that. What happens is an area called the hippocampus that's related to memory does a replay. And so in the literature, it's called hippocampal replay. It replays that about 20 times really fast. Faster than you can. So if you're going to drill, I'm going to drill this six, seven, eight times. You can't do it as well as the hippocampus because one, some of those times you're going to be sloppier. Two, some of that's going to create fatigue after a while. But if you just let the brain replay it, then it really gets consolidated. And I'm sure everybody has experienced this where they've done something that's a little frustrating. If they kept doing it, then they'd reach diminishing returns. Oh, the hell with this. But then you go to sleep at night. And the next morning you say, well, you know, I'm going to try it again. And you go back and you try it and you're even better. That's because your brain isn't sleeping at night. You're sleeping and your brain is sleeping, but it's active. And it's replaying this information. Much in the same way, when we've put... Patients in a functional MRI, which is an MRI imaging machine where we can look at your brain in real time. So, you know, if you're reading a book, I can see which areas of your brain you would be using to read that book. And what happens is after we've taught somebody something, we had them do a task. If we don't interfere from the outside, their brain... Same areas that they used, even though now they're not using their arm, they're not using their legs, but their brain replays it and lights up those exact same areas. So you're actually allowing the horse's brain to replay that information and lock it in. If you move to the next thing, you move to the next thing, you move to the next thing without allowing this consolidation process, then they get bits and pieces. And they're not always sure how they all fit together either. So solidifying your learning. And if it's especially challenging, something that, you know, you figure the horse's brain likely said something, but they don't say this. Wow, that was challenging. I didn't know we'd make it through there. But we did. And they process it through. That may be a good time to put that horse up for the day and go get them tomorrow and let the brain do what it can do better than you can.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:35:03-00:35:20]
Yeah. What about yawning? So you mentioned licking and chewing like after, let's say. Some sort of an exercise. And so they get more saliva in their mouth and they begin the licking and chewing process. But what about yawning post some sort of an exercise or interaction?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:35:21-00:35:33]
Yeah. And this is, I'm glad you brought that up because there is a big difference. And yawning actually research hasn't tied that down to a specific event.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:35:33-00:35:33]
Okay.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:35:34-00:37:21]
But what they do know is that there's a change in state, in nervous system state, that that's indicating. There's some evidence that it's tapping into the opioid system so that it's a stress reducer. And... If you, you know, you'll look at a horse and it's not typical that they say, well, this is boring and they yawn once, right? Or it's a nice sunny day. They yawn once, right? So typically it's a change in state and they'll yawn once, twice, three, four, five times. Pretty soon their eyes will almost look glassy. They can yawn so much, their lower lip will just droop and almost hang on the ground. They'll look like they're drugged with opiates. That may be because they tie. Are able to tie into it. For you to read yawning, don't use yawning alone. Look at the context in which the yawning occurs, because horses will yawn when they're colicky. Horses will yawn when they're in pain. Horses will yawn when they've got what's called allostatic. response. They know that their nervous system needs to do something to meet the demand asked of it. So that's called allostatic demand. So when they bring up that state to deal with whatever the demand is, then oftentimes after that demand, they help to bring themselves down and self-regulate. With that yawning. I think the University of Guelph. Guelph, is that how you pronounce it? Guelph. Well, I think they did a study with about, it was a huge study, a large sample, maybe a thousand horses. And one area that they found that had pre and post yawning was around bridling.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:37:23-00:37:26]
So like the mechanics of the mouth?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:37:27-00:37:30]
Or is that a highly stressful?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:37:30-00:37:31]
Oh, gotcha. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:37:31-00:41:47]
Situation for a horse. Because not everybody's careful about putting metal in the mouth. And in fact, there are some veterinarians that think a lot of this head shaking is due to what's called trigeminal neuralgia. Trigeminal neuralgia is like this electric shock that runs down the trigeminal nerve. And humans get it too. Humans, oftentimes, it's related to a dental procedure. So if you stop and think about it, if you're not careful with that bit, it would be like my taking a ball-peen hammer and maybe whack a couple of your molars. That would be highly stressful every time I get that hammer out. So it would make sense that the horse is either preparing themselves for... The stressful event that's coming, or they've gotten through it and now are yawning afterwards. So what I would tell you, your questions are great. And there are tons of questions we've never asked before, right? We're just starting to ask. We should have answers for, but we don't. And so I would... Encourage everyone, be your own scientist. You already are. Just be observant. I've done this three times and this always seems to happen. Or I do this with this horse. Let me try it with that horse. Or I'll do it with these two horses and not with those other two. And let's see if there's a difference that I can make out. All that's great information. And who knows? You may be one of them. those people who are answering questions that need to be answered that no one's addressing. But think of yawning more trying to look at the context in which they yawn. You know, you wouldn't want to say, well, they're happy and, you know, they're actually colicking and in pain. Right. Yeah. In fact, a neurochemical. That is always used inaccurately is endorphins. People think endorphins are a happy thing. Oh, I want my horse filled with endorphins. You only get endorphins when pain's involved. What it stands for is endogenous morphine, morphine in your system. So a runner's high, If you have to create pain, you can't get it sitting on the couch. You have to get to that point where you start to create pain and you get your second wind. That's when people get a runner's high. So endorphins would be things that allow a horse to continue through an uncomfortable situation. Those would be more typical of endorphins. So there's not a happy drug that we're tapping into. And that's another problem. And I'm not going to get on a soapbox completely. But I think critical thinking, because on the Internet, there are all kinds of things. And you can go and look up. answers. And they may have a little bit of scientific jargon placed in them. But I would recommend people go to Science Direct or PubMed or Google Scholar and ask their questions, but not just necessarily go take a look on Google. There actually is a pyramid of scientific evidence that scientists use. And up at the very top, the gold standard is looking at lots of studies with lots of horses and making sure that those studies are replicable. Meaning if somebody did this study and came up with a result, then if somebody follows the same method, they should get the same result. And then if somebody else does it with a different kind of horse, they should get the same result. If you're not coming up with the same results, then that's not really showing us anything. So at the very top are lots and lots and lots of studies called a meta-analysis. And if you get a lot of studies over a long period of time saying the same thing, that's the gold standard. The very lowest rung on the pyramid of evidence, the lowest rung of all is expert opinion. Which is pretty interesting because in the horse world, there's a lot of things that are just that, opinions.

[SPEAKER 5]
[00:41:47-00:41:52]
I thought you were going to say like Facebook groups or something like that with everybody's opinions.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:41:52-00:42:19]
You know, it's interesting. Here's another litmus test for people is that good science, the science. scientist has to show you why they got the results, how they have to prove that this is showing what I wanted it to show. So the burden on proving that to you is with the scientist. Pseudoscience is when they throw out a conclusion, but you're the one who has to prove it.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:42:20-00:42:20]
Hmm.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:42:21-00:42:27]
Your, you, the burden is on you to then prove that it's right or wrong. That's not good science.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:42:29-00:43:17]
So fascinating. The thing I love about the way you speak and then also like your, um, your books, your presentations, all of that is that you simplify these things for people so that it does make it, it's translatable and it's understandable. So all of us can. Can grasp. I can't remember the name of the nerve you mentioned, but I remember it was connected to the parasympathetic state and with the saliva right away. It doesn't matter if I don't know the name of the nerve. I know the, the, you know, the point of it. So I, I really enjoy that. And I really appreciate it. And I know you have a book that you're currently working on, if not two, is that correct? I think you mentioned it in the beginning that you're simplifying some of this neuroscience.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:43:17-00:45:14]
Right. So once I retired, I had a little bit of time to write things down. I had things that have been written and banked from a long time ago, just my own notes, because I teach a horse brain science. It's clinic. And then my publisher said, let's go ahead and publish some of this stuff. So one of the first ones that we published was Horse Brain Science. It's not an easy book. It's actually meant to be a reference. But I've been told it's a readable reference, which is good because I want it to be a well-worn book. reference. The book that's coming out in October is Horse Brain Science Simplified. And it's just like you said, I want science to be accessible to everyone. And it should be. Not in some library, not to impress other scientists, not to give somebody tenure, but actually usable information. Science belongs to everyone. And really, that's a big part of my mission. So horse brain science simplified was simply changing the language, giving examples, like you mentioned, so that, ah, I know what this is. You know, I could put big terms on everything. To what purpose? You know, so I sound like this egotistical, ivory tower guy. Or I can say, you know, when this happens, this is what, how this occurs. And go ahead and I tell people, don't believe me, go ask your horse. Because I know how nervous systems work. I know how brains work. And I know. what the answer is going to be before you ask it. But I want you to have that understanding. And that's what I did with horse brain science simplified. I simplified the language, but the science is still just as deep.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:45:15-00:45:58]
I love that. As we begin to wrap up a bit here. I also wanted to discuss a bit about the welfare side of your work. And when we consider the brain of the horse, and then we consider some of the practices that people do on a regular basis with horses, whether it's competing or riding or used for work purposes or, you know, simply, you know, pasture mates, you know, those sorts of things, whatever the human is bringing the horse into their life for. What are some of the practices that may be harder to justify knowing the horse's brain from a welfare perspective?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:45:59-00:48:30]
Well, I've done plenty of research. With animals that, mammals, that are allowed to be together with their own species and interact. Then we put an animal in isolation. And over six months, let's say these are mice or rats, over six months, if we then dissect those brains out, all the brains that had social interaction way more. And if you look at them under the microscope, there's all kinds of dendrites and all kinds of brain growth. Those in isolation weigh less and have, it's almost like somebody went in with garden shears. And in fact, they call it pruning, have pruned off those dendrites. And so those brains are much less capable. In fact, if you want a human analogy, the Romanian orphans that had no interaction with people for long periods of time, just that touch, just that human connection with another of their species was missing. So they had. Tremendous cognitive and emotional problems as a result. Let's take another look from the animal world. Let's take a herbivore, social animal, an antelope. And there are prey animals that are jittery as well. And I said, okay, you are in charge. We're going to have an enlightened zoo here to create great brains in our antelopes. And they're social animals. You're in charge of the antelope. And I came back a month later and you said, I got a perfect solution. I've got them all locked in stalls and cages. They can't see each other. They can't touch each other. And you would lose your job. It would be absurd to think that. But because we're so used to putting our horses in that situation, and an argument I used to have, here was, well, they're an expensive horse and I certainly don't want them to be injured. They're a performance horse. Well, there's research. There's actually a new book, Equine Welfare. I think it came out last year. It's one of those books that cost $150 and it's written by all kinds of scientists. But anyway, The research pretty robustly shows that the risk for injury is higher in horses that are isolated and made to stand in stalls than those who are out in pasture.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:48:30-00:48:34]
Well, when they get the chance to go out, all hell breaks loose.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:48:34-00:48:53]
Oh, yeah. They get total rebound. And then we call that horse, you know, fractious. This horse is... Is causing problems. Take a kid, stick him in a broom closet, feed him a bunch of Hershey bars, and then let him out a few days later. And if he runs around the yard, would that surprise you if he's hooting and hollering?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:48:53-00:48:53]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:48:54-00:51:33]
I think the way we feed horses is also detrimental. I think, and that's been... Proving out as well, is that these sugary grains that go right through them, they're designed for constant gut fill. And so if we give them things like hay that takes four times as long to process, then they have constant gut fill. But if we're putting these grains that are pre-processed that just go right through, now we have stomach acid. Against the endothelial lining. And oftentimes what we do is we create situations that are so stressful in our housing, management, and feeding, taking them away from others of their own species, that they develop something called stereotypies. The definition used to be repetitive behavior with no purpose. What we now know is that their cortisol levels are sky high. And they're stressed. And what they found is that those repetitive behaviors actually are stress reducing. So it's actually a great adjustment to an abnormal situation. So our management strategies have worked against the horse. You know, weaving is just, we've taken away the movement. And they try to make up for it. So I think there are, if people go back to look at the five domains and look that up, they'll start to see all the things that are out there. And we're getting more enlightened. There are track systems and pasture paradise where horses can move. If we fell dead, what would our horses do if they got out? Move and eat, move and eat, move and eat. So I would use this. I would use a spectrum. And we know with animals in zoos, we've become more enlightened that the closer we can get to their natural habitat. The healthier they are. Maybe we can't get there, but if we're allowing for forage, we're getting closer. If we're allowing them to touch and interact with other horses, we're getting closer. If they're out able to move, we're getting closer. And so the closer you can move that dial towards a natural habitat, in terms of horse welfare, we'll have a healthier horse. We'll have a horse that's brain is optimized for learning. We want to keep them in a box. We want to treat them as if they're a machine and they're a living creature. And if we can appreciate that, that horse will show up for us and you'll be amazed.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:51:35-00:51:44]
So good. Every rider listening or every equestrian listening could understand one thing about their horse's brain. What would you want it to be?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:51:45-00:52:54]
Slow down. We are always in such a hurry. And we put those tasks on our agenda. I don't think if you slow down. Because we have a hectic world and we want everything to happen now. If we rush past things and the brain can't process them, we're just going to have to go back and fill in those gaps that we left in there. And if we left our horse with those gaps, then who put those in there? We can't blame the horse for that. We have to take some responsibility. And I don't know anyone that's going to say, you know what? I went so slow, my daggone horse learned tons of stuff and their brain grew. Like a flower. So I don't think you can go wrong. And in fact, I think it'll go a long way in your interaction with their nervous system. Because things that are rapid, things that are fast, tend to cause confusion and tend to cause sympathetic arousal. And if you want to answer that question for your horse, am I safe? There's no better way to do that than slow down.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:52:56-00:53:17]
There's a quote that I heard years ago that it's, you know, when like when something just sticks and you don't have to think, what was that quote again? It's just like it. It just. Yeah, it's a good one. So it's take the time it takes so it takes less time. And I always thought that's perfect.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:53:18-00:53:19]
Slow down to go fast.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:53:19-00:53:20]
Exactly. Yes.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:53:21-00:53:23]
If you try to go fast, you'll never get there.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:53:23-00:53:32]
Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. Steve, we have some rapid fire questions that we ask every podcast guest. So it's just the first thing that comes to your mind.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:53:33-00:53:33]
Okay.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:53:33-00:53:36]
And the first one is, do you have a motto or a favorite saying?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:53:37-00:53:53]
It's the brain state, not the behavior. Basically, the behavior is the end result. And if we're blaming behavior, it's because we didn't look at the brain state. So brain state before behavior.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:53:53-00:53:59]
Mm, very good. Who has been the most influential person in your equestrian journey?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:54:00-00:54:07]
And a guess that you may be thinking that he's going to come up with some big name in the horse world, some trainer.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:54:07-00:54:10]
I've learned not to guess anything with these interviews.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:54:11-00:54:43]
But actually, both David Attenborough, who just had his 100th birthday, and Carl Sagan. Because... They invited people to observe. They invited people to appreciate. They invited learning and they had a respect for the natural world and the wonder of the natural world. And I think you should feel that way towards your horse. They're part of the natural world. And so are you. So those are two big influences for me.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:54:44-00:54:50]
Hmm. If you could give a questioner one piece of advice other than what you've already given, what would it be?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:54:51-00:55:08]
Work with the nervous system instead of against it. Because if you stop for a moment, most of those issues are because you're working against the nervous system. And things clear up so quickly when you work with the brain and the nervous system.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:55:09-00:55:15]
And the last one, please complete this sentence. For me, horses are...

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:55:16-00:55:52]
Horses are a magnificent example of... Fascinating evolution. You know, for me, there are unique creatures in the animal kingdom. Horses are more intelligent than we give them credit for. Some of these human experiments where if your horse can tell a star from a triangle really aren't telling us much at all. But if we look at what the horse is actually capable of doing, horses amaze me and they've been a great teacher. Even down to a cellular level.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:55:53-00:56:02]
Steve, where can people learn more about you, whether it's your upcoming events or your upcoming book or your existing books, all of the things, where can people learn more about you?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:56:03-00:56:41]
They can go to horsebrainscience.info. And so the website will tell them about me, what I'm up to. And the events I'm involved in, and I even didn't mention, but just released was A Horse's Life that I wrote with Mark Rashid and his wife, Chrissy. And it seems to be doing quite well. It's 19 case studies. So you read these stories about horses and then you learn the science under what? Supporting what, why they did what they did. So it's like a neurological detective story. So I'd encourage you to go on Amazon and, and take a look.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:56:42-00:57:33]
Awesome. We're going to put everything in the show notes. So for everybody listening, if you're interested in checking out the website or the books or anything that, um, that you want to involve yourself with relating to Dr. Peters, just scroll down and click on the link. Thank you so much, Steve, for all of your knowledge. Oh, I truly enjoyed it. You're a delightful host. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a rating and review, as well as share us on social media. You can find us on Instagram at wehorse underscore USA and check out our free seven day trial on wehorse.com where you can access over 175 courses with top trainers from around the world in a variety of topics and disciplines. Until next time, be kind to yourself, your horses, and others.