Mitochondria
Subject in Life Sciences
Mitochondria has come up in 2 episodes across 2 podcasts in TMT, including Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Huberman Lab. 2 people have made recorded remarks about it.
What people said
Martin PicardProfessor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University who leads the mitochondrial psychobiology lab
Picard reports that his lab's three studies found positive psychological experiences associated with more mitochondria and better energy transformation, with animal work indicating a bidirectional relationship.
“People who report more positive experiences, like feeling more optimistic, right? Feeling like your life has purpose, feeling connections to other human beings. Those things seem to be associated with more mitochondria and mitochondria that are better at transforming energy”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 30:39
Picard suggests mitochondria are the portal between immaterial mind and biochemistry, dematerializing food-stored sunlight into an electrochemical gradient.
“Mitochondria, I suspect, are the portal. between the immaterial existence of the mind, right? Like your experience and the way it manifests, the way it materializes or crystallizes into biochemistry”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 26:55
Picard argues that a candle flame is a fair analogy for human life because both are organic, oxygen-consuming, dynamic and finite.
“A flame consumes oxygen and releases CO2, which is exactly what you do when you breathe. You breathe in oxygen, you breathe out CO2. And that happens in your mitochondria”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 2:37
Jared RutterAmerican biochemist, professor of biochemistry at the University of Utah and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator specializing in mitochondria and metabolism
Rutter cites work from Craig Thompson's group showing a single cell can contain two functionally distinct populations of mitochondria.
“in one cell, you can have two different kinds of mitochondria that have two different functions, and they're distinct in one cell”
Huberman Lab: How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter (Sep 7, 2026) · Listen from 23:32
Rutter says mitochondria congregate at the leading edge of a crawling cell where ATP demand is highest.
“mitochondria will congregate at that leading edge where that ATP is being consumed to make ATP right there so it can be used”
Huberman Lab: How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter (Sep 7, 2026) · Listen from 19:10
Rutter explains that because sperm cytoplasm does not enter the egg, mitochondrial DNA is inherited entirely from the mother.
“So the mitochondrial genome of you came completely from your mother. Mine came completely from my mother”
Huberman Lab: How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter (Sep 7, 2026) · Listen from 16:23
Podcasts
- Mayim Bialik's Breakdown · 1 episode
- Huberman Lab · 1 episode
Episodes
Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena PodcastMayim Bialik's Breakdown · Sep 12, 2026 · 1 h 18 min
A re-aired Phenomena episode in which Ivy Ross, Martin Picard, Richard Hammerschlag, Neil Theise, Meredith Sprengel and Jonathan Cohen ask what energy is in healing.
How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared RutterHuberman Lab · Sep 7, 2026 · 2 h 4 min
Biochemist Jared Rutter explains to Andrew Huberman how mitochondria allocate cellular resources between energy and growth, shaping aging, heart failure, and cancer.