WEBVTT - Mapping the Nervous System 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.720 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, of 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.040 the podcast that looks at the future and says I'll 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.720 stay the same pack up, don't straight. I'm Jonathan Strickland 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:25.920 and I'm Joe McCormick. So I was reading this story, Lauren, 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.920 you're just giggling over there. Do you recognize the Yeah, Yeah, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.400 it's from the Yes, it is from the A as 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:33.760 you know what the song's name is, right. Maps. We're 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.880 gonna talk about maps today, but but not the kind 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.560 what with the mountains and the oceans. Now, we're not 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:41.560 gonna talk about the political borders. I'm not going to 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.760 talk about cartographers here. We're going to talk about maps 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.239 of nervous systems, which is has a specific name, a 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:55.040 connect home. Now what a connect home that I don't know. 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.960 It's CEO in an E C T O M E. 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.200 What on earth is that thing? It looks like it's 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.720 connect to me? But it's what I was thinking. Honestly, 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.880 I actually watched a Ted talk and I'm just going 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:09.800 to pronounce it the same way the fellow did, so 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.360 connect them. What it is is, it's a a complete 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.440 neural map of an organism's neurons. So think of it 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.000 like a wiring diagram. If you were an electrician and 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.600 you need to have a diagram of a wiring system. 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:23.800 It's like that, except for the nervous system of an 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.760 actual organism. Now, to have a true connect dome, you 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.640 need it to be three dimensional, because we are not 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.640 two dimensional creatures, you know, so you wouldn't want to 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.759 have just a flat representation. Most of us. See, most 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.440 of us are are well rounded individuals. Everyone in this 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.000 room is, certainly, So you want to have a three 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.039 dimensional uh ability, you know, you want to be able 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.080 to depict it in three dimensions so that you have 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.000 an accurate look at what this nervous system is. And 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.880 it's supposed to show all the neurons and connections between 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.440 them within our an organism. So surely we have not 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.279 done this to an actual organism as we have. Only 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.880 one has a complete connect dome of all of its neurons, 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.559 and that would be Senor Rhabditis elegance or see elegans 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.720 also known as worm teeny tiny worm. Um. Yeah, it 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.960 only has three hundred two neurons, so yeah, not not 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:20.600 You're like totally like, I'm not impressed by this groundbreaking 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:26.919 scientific discovery. Take that scientists deal with my puff. Three 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.040 neurons is a tiny amount comparatively speaking, but we'll get 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.480 to that. So scientists began to study these worms in 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:39.760 an effort to understand neurology better, among other things. I mean, 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.880 of course, scientists all over the place like like worms. 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.000 I mean, who doesn't, but they these particular scientists were 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.600 interested in studying the worms to to create a connect home, 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.040 and they figured that this was a good place to start. 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:53.840 So back in the nineteen seventies you had a team 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.239 that was looking into it, and it wasn't until nineteen 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.320 eighties six that they were able to publish the first 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.240 prelimit arey connect home for this worm. And more than 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:07.600 twenty years after that you had a second team produce 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:12.120 a much more complete connect home, a more accurate representation 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.680 of the connect home. So it is a very slow process. 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.840 And that's just three neurons, right, It's not that many 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:24.520 comparatively speaking. And then this year two thou fourteen, in May, 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.840 another team published a paper about creating a real time 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.640 three D map of this worm's neural system and action, 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:36.720 meaning you could see the impulses moving up and down 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.720 the length of this worm as its nervous system was 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.760 taking over for any anything like from detecting stimuli to 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.760 sending the information up to the ganglia to reacting to it. 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.600 Uh it was. This is what's really the groundbreaking. I mean, 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:54.960 all of its groundbreaking, but this is really ground baking 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.960 breaking stuff. You're talking about being able to get a 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.760 real time view of what's going on within the nervous 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.760 system of an organism. I can't even imagine how one 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.440 would do that. Well, you don't have to imagine, because 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.160 someone I will tell you. Uh no, this was really 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.159 an interesting idea. So within this worm's nervous system, essentially 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.719 what's going on is neurons are passing information in the 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.839 form of calcium ions. So these calcium ions are passing 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:29.760 from one neuron to the next, right chemical electrochemical transaction exactly. 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.800 So if you go with this calcium ion, if you're 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:35.200 able to make it stand out in some way and 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.760 then you're able to actually capture that information, you can 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.800 see what's going on. So they developed some fluorescent bio markers. 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.360 So essentially this is just meaningless information that glows. So 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.320 it's it's not meant to harm the organism in any way. 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.760 You want it to to keep everything intact, but it 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.080 ends up marking those calcium in It glows specifically when 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.760 it binds with a calcium ion exactly, so that way, 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.680 when this is going on, the scientist can see it now. 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.440 Of cour, just making the worms have little calcium ions 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:04.960 like glow doesn't mean that they're going to be able 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:06.680 to see everything that's going on, right, I mean, you're 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:08.640 not gonna be standing there looking at a worm thinking, well, 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.560 there's a flash of light. It's thinking something that's That's 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.479 another way it works that I would have gotten to 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:17.680 be fair. To be fair, worms aren't really thinking that 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.200 much anyway. So if it wasn't sparking, you'd just be thinking, well, 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.200 we got a particularly stupid worm. Oh look, he's contemplating 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:30.000 consubjection to like this. This worm is obviously a fan 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.440 of Nietzchi, a scholar. I like that. We're all just 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.400 gonna start let's just keep on naming various thinkers. So 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:39.200 what are you going to do about that? You know, 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.839 if the worm doesn't think, it just disappears anyway. The 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.320 scientists decided that the way to capture all this information 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.200 because obviously if you used a regular light microscope, even 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.559 if it was powerful enough to detect those calcium ions 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:53.640 that are glowing, you would still only have a two 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.080 dimensional representation of what was happening. Right, You're not getting 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.679 any depth there. So how do you get the depth? 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.720 And that they managed to do through a technique called 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:07.560 light field deconvolution micross scope. What I know, I love 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.520 different kinds of microscope. I do too. No, I'm not joking. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.600 I really do believe that was my cross could be 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.039 treats a snap crack on pop. Well no, okay, no, 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.719 I'm serious. So I grew up with a little, uh 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.720 kind of cruddy micro microscope that I would stare through. 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.200 I'd i'd stay in a little pain and put some 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.400 kind of junk on there and look at it. But 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.320 everything just looked like gray squiggles, you know, because it 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.480 was that back lip microscope we've all seen before. It's 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.440 you got the light coming up the tube from the 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.680 bottom and you see this two dimensional cross section that's 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:43.840 not very colorful. It's wonderful now that we have all 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:48.320 these techniques to see three dimensional shapes at the micro level, right, 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.520 and light field. This is something you guys might have 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:53.240 heard about, in fact that we may have even talked 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:57.000 about in the past. Uh, you've heard of light field photography, 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.359 which is what the lightrous camera uses. This is the 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.359 idea of upturing information by not just the fact that 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.880 there's light there, but capturing the direction of light, the 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.640 rays of light within a scene. So you're capturing all 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.120 the light that is within the scope of that camera. Now, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.440 with a litros camera, what this means is that when 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:15.880 you take a picture, you can change the focal point 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.920 of that picture after it's been taken. So i have 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.720 Lauren standing in the foreground, and I've got Joe way 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:23.640 off in the background, and I take a picture, and 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.240 at first laurens and focused, Joe's not. But if I 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.600 tap on Joe, he suddenly becomes in focus and Lauren 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.560 goes out of focus, and it's it's dynamic. I can change. 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:33.760 I can pick the focal point within the picture and 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.280 change it because it's captured all of the information, as 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.000 opposed to your classic photography, which is stuck with whatever 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.520 the focal point of the lens was at the moment 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.720 you took the picture. Sure um in the specific case, 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.000 of this light field. Deconvolution microscopy the the ideas that 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.560 you're using, rather than the single lens that Joe is 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.320 talking about through traditional microscopy, an array of lenses that 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.960 refract and collect a single point of light, thereby letting 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.200 you get a good idea of where that little blip 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.040 is in three dimensional space. Right, So now you've got 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.320 this more complete look at all these different blips within 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:12.560 this three dimensional space while you do next, Well, that 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:14.600 doesn't really help you out that much unless you then 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.000 send it to a computer running special software which is 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.880 taking all this information, crunching it and then forming a 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.400 three dimensional map of that worm's nervous system and then 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:30.000 showing the actual activity via the little florescent calcium ions. 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.440 While the worm, you know, does normal worms stuff or 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:39.000 um or abnormal worms, or or is it supposed to 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.440 a to a sort or a smell of some kind. 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.440 So yeah, if you were to give some kind of 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.360 stimuli that ends up making the worm react in some way, right, 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.600 it's it's exposed to a book of Nietzsche that has 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.040 decomposing pages that can eat. That would be probably the 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.160 best kind of Nietici for this particular type of worm. 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.760 But yes, so you're exactly right. You would be able 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:04.040 to see by the reaction in the nervous system what 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.040 is going on inside the worm. Not necessarily understand it, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:08.960 but you would be able to see it. You know, 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.640 keep in mind these are this is an important step, 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:14.600 but it's just a step. Well, we'll go into more 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.920 about the implications in a little bit, but this complex 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.800 software has to crunch all that put up the map, 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.160 and it's more or less it's it's on a millisecond scale. 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.960 It's something like fifty images per second, which is pretty cool, yeah, 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:32.000 but still not if you think of time as resolution 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.480 in the sense it's a low resolution image. So it's 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.160 not resolution in the sense of of how many pixels 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.280 or whatever, or how sharp the picture is, but rather 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.160 how how accurate is it over time? And it's a 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:48.040 time scale that's too slow for it to be uh, 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.360 you know, it's not advanced enough for it for us 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.600 to call it true real time. It's really good. But 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:55.360 I think what we're going to see is we're going 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.360 to see more development in computer software and this technology 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.359 where we'll start to have an even uh more elongated 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.480 time scale, will get down to like nanosecond level. It's 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.240 which will be especially important for things more complex than worms. Now, 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.720 in order to do all that number crunching, you can't 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:16.640 just use one computer because it actually is so um 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.960 intense that they have to use grid computing for it. 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.800 So they're using using multiple computers to solve problems in parallel, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.760 so each computer is taking a little bit of the work. 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.360 And we've talked about this in the past two about 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.880 how you use a distributed computing system in order to 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.079 divide up a big task into lots of smaller tasks, 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.520 which makes it more manageable. Otherwise you would have to 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:40.600 have the world's fastest computer, and even that might be 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.080 slower than a grid of computers working in this way. 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:44.800 But as long as your problems don't have to be 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:48.320 solved sequentially like that, that solving number two doesn't depend 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.720 on solving number one, you can split them up, right. 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.079 So that's pretty awesome, this idea of being able to 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.000 see what's going on with the neurons inside a worm. 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:02.480 But um, what else could we look at? So so 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.920 three neurons, yeah, what about something that has like a 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:12.240 hundred billion neurons or conservatively eighty billion neurons? Okay, Uh, 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.400 that's a tall order because this this this team the 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.800 best that they've done beyond the worm, and not to 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.240 I'm not trying to suggest that they haven't done their work. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.360 This is yeah. But the other thing they did was 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.760 they imaged about half of a zebra fish's neurons larva's 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.520 larva's thank you. Yes, the zebrafish lava not an actual 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.079 zebra fish, but the zebra fish larva and the zebrafish 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.240 lava have about ten thousand neurons, so they were able 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.600 to image five thousand of those. Um And there's some 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.640 other examples of organisms that we've managed to create partial connectomes, 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.320 for example, the retina's and visual cortex of a mouse. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.680 Well those have been completed or mostly complete, I shouldn't 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.240 say completed, partially completed. When you're talking about humans, it's 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.920 eighty two hundred billion neurons, something like a hundred trill 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:05.160 allion synapses connecting all those neurons and various configurations. Orders 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.480 of magnitude does not do this justice, right. You can't 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:10.560 just say it's a couple of orders of magnitude. No, 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:15.240 it's it's an enormous jump from worm to a person 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:17.760 for most people anyway, would it be fair to say 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.520 that the problem represented by doing the same kind of 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.280 thing with a brain on the scale of a human 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.840 brain is not just like a scaling up problem. It's 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.600 like it's another ballpark entirely. It's not like we just 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.120 need a little more power. It's like we're not We're 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.840 not even close. Yeah, I mean, the closest we've got 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.960 is is working our way towards building a connect them. 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:42.960 Not a real time three dimensional moving picture, right, you know, 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:44.839 the one with the worm you're actually able to watch 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.320 it's not thought, but you're able to watch impulses as 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.600 they move throughout the worm's body. With the humans, the 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.760 closest we're getting is the Human Connectome project is the 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.000 best known one. But this is just to create that 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.200 neural map. And I think it's something like participants for 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.560 the entire program for this particular approach. And this is 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:09.559 a five year mission, which is all of our Star 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.120 Trek fans out there, which began in two thousand nine, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.640 July two thousand nine, So we're getting up there kissing 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:20.720 the connect home. So at any rate, Uh, this is 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.599 a collaboration between a few different um research facilities, the 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.200 two main ones being the Laboratory of neuro Image Imaging 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.560 at u c l A and the Martino Center for 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:36.760 Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and UH it's sponsored 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.600 in part by the National Institutes of Health, and so 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.720 this is an interesting approach again trying to create a 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.680 neural map of human beings. It's not again, it's not 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.440 a real time representation, but just to actually map out 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:55.000 all the neurons and synapses at alone is an incredibly 0:13:55.080 --> 0:14:00.320 huge task. So they had to start commissioning new types 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.160 of technology and software to be able to try and 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.760 tackle this problem, and one of those was a super 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.640 scanner from Siemens, and Siemens makes all sorts of different 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.160 UH high grade technology equipment. In this case, they were 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:19.320 using a m r I that did does three different 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.440 types of m r I in one go. It does 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:26.640 a diffusion tensor imaging, diffusion spectrum imaging, and high angular 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:31.560 resolution diffusion imaging also known as HARDY, So all of 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.240 that's different types of magnetic resonance and imaging. Mri I 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.240 type stuff does it so that it can get the 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:43.040 most um complete picture of a person's nervous system. And 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.400 UH the literature that is available on the human Connectome 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:49.800 Projects shows pictures of these things and they do look 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.040 like something straight out of you know, Star Trek or 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.120 Star Wars or something like that. Uh, And they talk 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.720 about how this this equipment, while it's very useful for 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.720 this regular project, will also be incredibly useful for numerous 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.120 medical applications from this point forward. So it's not like 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.520 this was a piece of equipment that was made for 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.560 this one and only one thing and after that, you know, that's, well, 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.760 that was cool. It's actually gonna be useful long after 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.760 this project has concluded, so that's kind of cool. Um. Now, 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.840 on the computer side, they're also using grid computing to 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.640 run all this stuff and make sure that they can 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.080 process all the information in order to actually come up 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.400 with the results. So you know, you think about it, 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:38.600 if you're looking to map eighty to a hundred billion 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.720 uh little tiny neurons, like you need to map all 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.840 of those and then all their connections, even if it's not, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.040 you know, as complex as you would first imagine, just 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.280 the number alone means that that's a lot of data. 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:56.600 So that's why you have to have this kind of 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.360 grid computing approach or else it just wouldn't work. So 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.680 that's kind of interesting. I'd like to, you know, read 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.440 up on it more. Um, there is a website for 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.640 the Human Connect Home project. It is not perhaps the 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:13.360 most flashy or um sophisticated website I've ever seen, but 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.360 it's certainly effective. So I am interested to see what 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.880 I mean. I was able to understand everything, so that 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.880 that was good. There wasn't a little image of a 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.280 man in a construction hat saying, you know, like, website 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.120 under development, so that was good. But there was a 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.920 dancing baby. There was a midi of a sa base. 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.160 I don't know why. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.800 But yeah, I'll be really curious to see what all 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.880 the the outcomes are of this project when it concludes. 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.480 I am assuming they're going to publish a lot. So 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.080 I want to play Devil's advocate because, as you all know, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:54.800 I like all I'm someone who likes building weird things 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.880 that don't have an obvious benefit to the lay person, 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:07.160 or sometimes an obvious detriment. Crunch kicking robot was that 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:12.480 was that? It was? I didn't know alright, no, no, no no, okay, no, 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.119 imagine I'm the lay person who says, what are you 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.800 going to use that for all right, Well, that's a 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.800 good question. What difference does it make. I mean, it's 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:25.359 a worm brain, so from just going from the worm 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:27.200 so we're not even talking about human connect Home project. 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.159 We're just talking about that three dimensional look at the 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.159 worm's nervous system. It tells us more about how nervous 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.840 systems in general work. This is an area that we 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.680 know very little about in the grand scheme of things 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.119 we know. What we know is that we don't know 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.560 a lot, right. We do understand some things. We understand 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.879 some of the very basic things that are happening, but 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.960 we don't understand how they're working necessarily across an entire 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.240 system all at once. The way I'd phrase it, though 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.199 obviously I'm no neuroscientists, the way I understand it is 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.560 that we have a lot of observations, but we don't 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.480 know what they mean. And this is another step getting 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:08.520 closer towards understanding the meaning behind what we've observed. Doesn't 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.479 mean that we're obviously that the lightbulb has come on 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.760 and now everything makes sense, but it's the only way 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.760 for us to get to that understanding is to continue 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.600 making observations and to continue doing experimentation in order to 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.640 really get an idea of what's going on and why 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.639 it's happening the way it is. And the closer we 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.960 get to mapping out nervous systems, the more will understand 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.919 everything from basic functions of a healthy uh, you know, 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:39.560 human brain to any sort of dysfunctional activity. So whether 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.600 that's from brain damage or from any of a number 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.520 of neurological diseases or disorders, or or or even from 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:48.959 from mental health disorders. Yeah, I've seen a lot of 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:51.480 discussion about the Human connect On project. One of its 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:55.520 goals is to study things like, uh, people who suffer 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.719 from schizophrenia and to see what what is different about 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.720 their nervous systems compared to someone who does not suffer 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:07.760 from schizophrenia, and perhaps through understanding these sort of dysfunctions, 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.760 we might be able to address them or perhaps even 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:15.320 cure them in the future. Now granted all of that. Yeah, 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.440 and when you say in the future, you're talking about 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:20.919 a good distance into the future. We're not talking about 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.159 something that's going to turn around and happen within the 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:27.640 next six months. I want to be clear about that, because, yeah, 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:30.280 we mean whenever you read these reports. You know, people 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.480 like the people who write the reports. Not everybody, but 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.879 some people fall into that kind of easy journalism trap 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:41.040 where you say this will lead to curing mental illness. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:44.800 It's it's possible that let me put it this way, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:46.720 if we don't do these steps, it will be a 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.800 lot harder to do it. But this, this may or 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.479 may not lead us down that pathway, but certainly if 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.520 we don't do the work, we won't get there. So 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.240 another thing that could possibly happen way off into the future, sure, 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.920 is that by understanding more about how these neural pathways 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:08.840 work in organisms, we could create a synthetic creature, whether 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:14.159 that's biological or whether it's compurely electronic. We might be 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.159 able to create a synthetic intelligence by learning more about 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.720 how our intelligence works, or or build that that brain 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.920 like computer that we were talking about a few episodes ago. Yeah, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.320 so that's another thing that's a possibility. Again, it is 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.560 not necessarily true that what we're doing today or what 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.800 these scientists are doing today, will be a direct path 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.960 from A to B that leads there, but it could 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:42.240 very well be. That's an important step along the journey. So, uh, 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.480 you know, I always hate making big predictions and saying, oh, 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.120 and in ten years, we're going to have these thinking 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.399 computers and mental mental illness will be a thing of 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.600 the past. I certainly hope that is true. But what 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.159 I am really excited about is seeing more developments in 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.280 this kind of research and finding out what else we learned, 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.159 because again, as we've said multiple times on this podcast, 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:07.879 learning is great. I mean, the more you learn, the 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.800 better off you are. And so, uh, we were fully 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:13.639 in favor of it, even if it is something as 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.960 silly as mapping out a worms nervous system and learning 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.000 that it doesn't have a taste for Nietzsche, even if 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:23.119 the book is rotting so at any rate, Uh, just 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:27.479 those chemical treated pages there, I tell you. You know, 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.600 the odd thing was totally went for the Kindle version. 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:34.520 So uh yeah, that wraps up this discussion on just 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.639 the mapping of the nervous system. It's a really cool project. 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:41.280 Go ahead and check out the Human connect Home project 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:43.760 and also look around at some of the stories about 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:47.159 the the various projects that have gone into trying to 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.439 map out this worm's nervous system. I mean that that 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.679 alone is interesting. I mean, imagine they started in the seventies, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.280 and it wasn't until they were able to publish the 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:59.680 first rudimentary connect home that just with three two neurons. 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.760 It just proves how complex this is. And then you know, 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.080 again that leap to human big leap for most people. 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.280 I know a few people who comparison to worms not 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.480 that off base. Alright, So guys, if you have any 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.800 suggestions for future episodes a Forward Thinking, I'm not looking 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:19.760 at anyone in this room. I just love how you 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.600 always pepper our optimistic view of the future with some 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:25.840 really antisocial commentary. I made the same I made the 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:29.440 same joke in the video so um, but I've never 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.480 stopped me before, right, I'll tell the same jokelations. Thank you. 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:35.639