The Cognitive Care Crisis Part 4: The Curiosity Gap

“Keep Doing Whatever You’re Doing”

This is the fourth in a series on the Cognitive Care Crisis.

• In Part 1, we explored the Diagnostic Gap — how we’re not finding root causes early enough.

• In Part 2, we unpacked the Adherence Gap — how patients struggle to follow through on complex protocols.

• In Part 3, we examined the Economic Gap — how the cost of care limits access and scalability.

And now we arrive at Part 4:

The Curiosity Gap

One of my favorite podcasts is the DarkHorse Podcast.

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to Bret Weinstein interview Jan Jekielek, a senior editor of the The Epoch Times.

He shared the story of how he developed Guillain-Barré syndrome and more importantly, what happened next.

You can watch the clip below.

TL:DW - If You Didn’t Watch the Video

For those who didn’t watch it, here’s the essence:

After developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, he ultimately experienced a full recovery through practicing Falun Gong.

When he returned to his neurologist, the response was:

“Keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

But as his wife later pointed out…

The doctor never asked what he was doing.

A Common Experience

In the interview, he mentions that this is not unusual.

And if you’ve spent any time in the world of either self-directed healing or “alternative medicine”, especially in cognitive or neurological health, you’ve probably experienced this too.

You improve your labs.
Your inflammation markers drop.
Your cognition stabilizes or even improves.

And the response?

“Keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

If you’ve had this experience, I’d love for you to share it in the comments because this is far more common than we acknowledge.

The Mystery (or Not)

In the conventional model of medicine —
one disease → one pathway → one intervention —

A recovery like this is mysterious.

Unexplainable.
Anecdotal.
Dismissible.

But in a network sufficiency model, it’s not mysterious at all.

It’s predictable.

Because whatever network insufficiency was driving his condition was strengthened.

And when networks regain sufficiency, function returns.

That’s not magic.

That’s systems biology.

The Curious Absence of Curiosity

Here’s the irony.

Medicine prides itself on curiosity.
On investigation.
On mechanism.

And yet, when improvement comes from outside the dominant paradigm…

Curiosity disappears.

No follow-up.
No inquiry.
No attempt to learn.

The Ornish Example

Consider the work of Dr. Dean Ornish.

For over 30 years, he demonstrated that intensive lifestyle intervention could reverse heart disease.

Not just slow it. Reverse it.

Today, that program is:

• Proven

• Published

• Reimbursed by insurance

• Covered by Medicare and Medicaid

And yet…

Why doesn’t every cardiologist recommend it?

Why hasn’t it scaled as the standard of care?

Now fast forward.

In 2024, Ornish and his team showed that a similar intensive lifestyle approach could also be effective in cognitive decline.

And yet…

How many neurologists are prescribing intensive lifestyle interventions?

This is not a data problem.

It’s not an evidence problem.

It’s a curiosity problem.

Why This Gap Exists

Most physicians are trained in a model that looks like this:

Symptom → Diagnosis → Intervention

But reversal of chronic illness, particularly cognitive decline, rarely happens inside that frame.

It happens inside something else.

A paradigm of network sufficiency.

Instead of asking:

“What drug matches this diagnosis?”

It asks:

“Where is the network insufficient?”

• Metabolic dysfunction

• Immune dysregulation

• Toxin burden

• Vascular compromise

• Social disconnection

• Sleep disruption

Improvement is not the suppression of a symptom.

It is the restoration of network coherence.

The Doctors Who Ask Why

When you look at physicians who are reversing cognitive decline with precision approaches, one trait stands out:

Relentless curiosity.

They ask:

• Why did this person decline?

• Why did this person improve?

• What patterns are emerging?

• What am I missing?

And most importantly:

“What can this patient teach me?”

The System Bottleneck

The biggest bottleneck in reversing cognitive decline isn’t data.

It’s not even technology.

It’s the absence of curiosity.

Because if every unexpected improvement triggered real inquiry, the system would evolve rapidly.

Instead, too often, it shrugs:

“Keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

Why This Matters Now

I was recently speaking to a neurologist who owns six practices in Southern California.

He said something that stopped me in my tracks.

He told me he was watching the results of the randomized controlled trial that successfully treated Alzheimer’s with real interest, and then said:

“Honestly, if neurologists don’t start to get their head around this, neurology is over as a profession because we don’t actually have many tools that improve brain function.”

That’s the moment we’re in.

The Invitation

This is why the worlds of lifestyle medicine, functional medicine, and precision medicine exist.

Not because they are fringe.

But because they are curious.

We are building a movement grounded in a different principle:

Curiosity as a clinical responsibility.

If you believe in a future where reversal is investigated, not ignored where outcomes lead to insight where patients become teachers

Then join us.

Sign the Cognitive Declaration.

Join TruNeura. The software can pick up patterns across the clinics that no individual clinician can.

And if this teaser wasn’t enough already, I highly recommend listening to the full DarkHorse podcast episode - it’s absolutely fascinating.