Speaker 1: Guess what, Mango? What's up? Will do you remember back
Speaker 1: in the episode where we asked will we ever live
Speaker 1: without sleep? We talked about how sleep appears to be
Speaker 1: this really critical component of our brain's memory consolidation. Right, yeah, definitely. Well,
Speaker 1: I started thinking about some of those rat brain monitoring
Speaker 1: studies again because I was reading about these two neuroscientists
Speaker 1: at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina. Their
Speaker 1: names are Sam Deadweiler and Robert Hampson, and they've been
Speaker 1: studying rat brains for a few decades now. But one
Speaker 1: of their studies on what's going on in these tiny
Speaker 1: rat naggins suggests some fascinating implications for the future of
Speaker 1: adding technology to the human brain. How's that? Well, all right,
Speaker 1: so let me set this up here. So, in a study,
Speaker 1: they got two sets of rats that are trained to
Speaker 1: run between two areas of their cage and on one
Speaker 1: side of the cage, they learned to press these levers
Speaker 1: at a certain sequence and that helps them get a reward. However,
Speaker 1: over time, one set of these is trained to wait
Speaker 1: for up to thirty seconds before they could press the
Speaker 1: appropriate lever to get their reward. Now, the second set
Speaker 1: didn't have a wait. But when the second set was
Speaker 1: forced to experience a delay of their own, they were
Speaker 1: completely thrown off and they forgot which lever they needed
Speaker 1: to push. So here's where the crazy part comes in.
Speaker 1: The brain activity in the first set of rats. You know,
Speaker 1: these are the ones that had to learn to wait.
Speaker 1: They had been recorded, you know, once they'd learned the
Speaker 1: lever to push, and then using electrodes dead Wilder and
Speaker 1: Hampson stimulated this same series of brain activity for the
Speaker 1: second set of rats, and this time they began behaving
Speaker 1: as though they had been trained like the first set
Speaker 1: of rats, and began choosing the right lever despite the
Speaker 1: fact that they had not actually been trained to do this.
Speaker 1: That's insane. Yeah, It's as though they had memories and
Speaker 1: planet of things they had not actually experienced. And this
Speaker 1: got me thinking, you know, as this evolves, what will
Speaker 1: it mean for humans? And how are scientists currently using
Speaker 1: machines in the human brain? And what are our brains
Speaker 1: capable of when computers are built in These are just
Speaker 1: a few of the questions will be asking him today's episode.
Speaker 1: So let's get started, hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and on
Speaker 1: the other side of the soundproof glass, eating but apparently
Speaker 1: not sharing a big old bag of Smarties as our
Speaker 1: friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And that seems fitting because
Speaker 1: in today's episode we're going to be talking about the
Speaker 1: incredible advances and understanding the human brain, as well as
Speaker 1: hacking the brain with technology so that we can treat
Speaker 1: diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's as well as those who
Speaker 1: have been affected by stroke, but also just to see
Speaker 1: how much more the brain is capable of if given
Speaker 1: some additional firepower. Yeah, I'm sure this is just the
Speaker 1: first of a ton of episodes we'll do on the brain,
Speaker 1: but there's just something so fascinating about the research happening
Speaker 1: right now, and so many things that once seemed like
Speaker 1: science fiction that are now possible. So that's what we
Speaker 1: decided to focus on. Yeah, and I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: have a real superstar in this field on with us
Speaker 1: in a bid. His name is John krak Our, and
Speaker 1: he's a neuroscientist and neurologist at Johns Hopkins and he's
Speaker 1: also the director of the Brain Learning, Animation and Movement Laboratory,
Speaker 1: also known as BLAMAM. The best aconem in the business,
Speaker 1: and obviously he's so interesting. I can't wait to get
Speaker 1: him on the line. But before we do, we need
Speaker 1: to back up just a little and and talk about
Speaker 1: how we got where we are in terms of the
Speaker 1: technology being added to our neural systems. I mean, not
Speaker 1: our specifically, but humans in general. Right right, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's crazy to realize that two thousand seventeen marks sixty
Speaker 1: years since the first human trials for cochlear implants. These
Speaker 1: implants were designed with electrodes positioned in the inner ear
Speaker 1: to transmit sound to the brain, and then in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, after those trials, the first cochlear implant was
Speaker 1: tested in a human volunteer. This was a huge step
Speaker 1: in helping us to see that electronic devices could be
Speaker 1: built to take sense reinformation and you know, such as sound,
Speaker 1: to translate it into a language that the brain could
Speaker 1: then process. So I really had no idea than that
Speaker 1: long and and of course today they are much more
Speaker 1: sophisticated cochlear implants helping tens of thousands of new patients
Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, we should probably quickly note that there
Speaker 1: are two general types of neural implants. First, you have
Speaker 1: input devices, you know, like we described with cochlear implants.
Speaker 1: These are the kind that takes sensory information from the
Speaker 1: outside world and pass that along to our nervous system
Speaker 1: via electrical signals. And then you have retinal implants, which
Speaker 1: are also pretty amazing and they're another form of input device.
Speaker 1: And then you'll also find devices that are used to
Speaker 1: help control seizures, you know from epilepsy or maybe tremors
Speaker 1: caused by Parkinson's against signals brought in from the outside world. Sure,
Speaker 1: and and the progress they're making on treating things like
Speaker 1: Parkinson's through deep brain stimulation implants is incredible. So I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that there have now been over a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people treated with these. And for our listeners when
Speaker 1: Will and I were at Mental Floss, we have really
Speaker 1: teamed up with National Geographic to help demystify brain surgery.
Speaker 1: We did the show called Brain Surgery Live, where we
Speaker 1: followed the story of this wonderful man who had been
Speaker 1: suffering from Parkinson's tremors for over a decade and we
Speaker 1: got to see how when surgeons inserted electrodes into the
Speaker 1: patient's basil ganglia, which is this area of the brain
Speaker 1: that's most affected by Parkinson's, and then when they stimulated
Speaker 1: those electrodes with a battery, the patient's tremors stopped completely.
Speaker 1: Like it was one of the most miraculous things I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. This gentleman who couldn't easily hold a piece
Speaker 1: of paper because he was shaking so much, suddenly had
Speaker 1: these tremors turned off, and he had so much dexterity,
Speaker 1: Like he sent a message to his family from the
Speaker 1: operating room on an iPad and it was just incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it definitely was. Alright, So so those are all examples
Speaker 1: of input devices. So now let's talk about output devices,
Speaker 1: which have come along more recently. And you know, these
Speaker 1: are the devices that take information in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: They read and record brain activity and then translate that
Speaker 1: into signals for some outside use. You stay controlling a
Speaker 1: prosthetic arm, for example. And I know this is much
Speaker 1: more recent, but we're still talking to a couple of decades, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was. Which is the your most
Speaker 1: people associate with the release of Mariah Carey and Boys,
Speaker 1: Two Men's One Sweet Day. I mean, you remember what
Speaker 1: a huge year that was because of that, But you know,
Speaker 1: it was also the year that researchers first and planted
Speaker 1: electrodes into the brain of a monkey and then helped
Speaker 1: it use a prosthetic arm. And as we mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: back in our will We Ever Live Without Sleep? Episode,
Speaker 1: we talked about how we've gotten so much better at
Speaker 1: observing brain patterns and can actually see the same areas
Speaker 1: of the brain light up as we run through those
Speaker 1: memories again during sleep, and that helps us consolidate those
Speaker 1: memories well in a similar kind of observation. When they
Speaker 1: place electrodes on the motor cortex of these monkeys, they
Speaker 1: can then observe spikes in the activity of certain neurons.
Speaker 1: And as they observe these of the course of several studies,
Speaker 1: they began to figure out what patterns of spikes corresponded
Speaker 1: with certain our motions, and over time the researchers figure
Speaker 1: about how to teach the monkeys to control a robotic arm,
Speaker 1: you know, just using their brain signals. And of course
Speaker 1: the next step was then to figure out how to
Speaker 1: do this, you know, for people. Yeah, so I actually
Speaker 1: read a good bit about this, especially as it related
Speaker 1: to helping those dealing with paralysis, and I think the
Speaker 1: first person to use a brain implant to both use
Speaker 1: certain functions on a computer screen and to gain some
Speaker 1: functionality from a prosthetic hand was this guy named Matthew
Speaker 1: Nagle back in two thousand four. So he was paralyzed
Speaker 1: from the neck down. So this was a big step,
Speaker 1: and though with the brain being such a complicated organ,
Speaker 1: there's clearly a long way to go. So researchers are
Speaker 1: still working on ways to improve this technology, and as
Speaker 1: of now, patients still have to be connected to a
Speaker 1: computer for it to work. But it's still pretty remarkable
Speaker 1: what's happened in efforts to help those fighting paralysis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were talking about some of these yesterday, and I
Speaker 1: actually think it would be helpful if you would just
Speaker 1: walk us through some of the most recent progress in
Speaker 1: this area. Sure, well, several things have happened in the
Speaker 1: past year or two. On the communications front. We've placed
Speaker 1: electrodes inside the brain of woman with a LS, allowing
Speaker 1: her to communicate simply by using her thoughts. Basically, she
Speaker 1: uses an eye tracker to spell words on a screen.
Speaker 1: But at some point, like many people with a LS,
Speaker 1: she may lose that ability as well. So she's participating
Speaker 1: in this other study where they've implanted an electrode system
Speaker 1: over the region of the brain that affects hand movement,
Speaker 1: and after a bit of training, just by imagining moving
Speaker 1: her hand, she was actually able to make selections on
Speaker 1: a screen, And she's apparently gotten this down to accuracy,
Speaker 1: which is just unbelieved. I just have a hard time
Speaker 1: wrapping my head around how this is even possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really is amazing. So in recent years we've also
Speaker 1: seen some major leaps in terms of motion and touch.
Speaker 1: So last year, this partially paralyzed man was able to
Speaker 1: pour liquid from a bottle, and even more impressively, he
Speaker 1: was able to play guitar hero because they had an
Speaker 1: electrode sleeve that was connected to the motor cortex in
Speaker 1: his brain. And in another study, scientists helped this quadriplegic
Speaker 1: man feel as though he was touching certain objects through
Speaker 1: a robotic arm, like he could actually yield objects all
Speaker 1: by tapping into a somatosensory cortex. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: only imagine how strange and guessing overwhelming that was to
Speaker 1: regain this sense of touch. Definitely, it all just seems
Speaker 1: so unreal. And there's also this electrode cap that's actually
Speaker 1: helped some paralyzed people begin walking again. It's a little
Speaker 1: different than the others because the cap is connected to
Speaker 1: this exoskeleton which is on the person's legs, and as
Speaker 1: signals get sent from the cap to the exoskeleton, it
Speaker 1: allows the legs to move, which is awesome. But there's
Speaker 1: actually been some cases that paralyzed people learning to walk
Speaker 1: without the exoskeleton in recent years. Like the cap sends
Speaker 1: signals to electrodes implanted into the person's own legs, that's
Speaker 1: so cool. A Alright, so we've talked about input devices
Speaker 1: and output devices, and you might be wondering what the
Speaker 1: next step in the evolution is, and it's something called
Speaker 1: bidirectional interfaces, and these combined the input and the output
Speaker 1: and they could be huge and helping those deal with
Speaker 1: damaged nervous systems. So, well, let's say somebody had a
Speaker 1: stroke and as a result of that, there are parts
Speaker 1: of their nervous system that are not really communicating or
Speaker 1: appropriately connected anymore. And so through the use of a
Speaker 1: bidirectional implant, you might be able to re establish this
Speaker 1: connection and give them the ability to use a body
Speaker 1: part that had effectively been paralyzed due to the stroke.
Speaker 1: But what's even more fascinating is that there's a developing
Speaker 1: area that's still very very early days. So what's that. Well,
Speaker 1: it involves playing with memories, and apparently we might be
Speaker 1: able to restore memories by using an implant to replace
Speaker 1: the input and output flow from the hippo campus. And
Speaker 1: and this is the area of the brain that's responsible
Speaker 1: for memory formation. Well, let's talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about memory and some of that research you mentioned at
Speaker 1: the very top of the show. I mean, the idea
Speaker 1: that scientists could basically transplant the memories of a bunch
Speaker 1: of rats into a single rats brain and then watch
Speaker 1: it behave as though it learned certain things through experience,
Speaker 1: even though it hadn't. I mean, that's just so crazy
Speaker 1: to me and also just so hard to believe. And
Speaker 1: that's pretty much what Deadweiler said about the science community's
Speaker 1: response to his five findings at first. I mean, he said,
Speaker 1: no one's going to believe this until I do a
Speaker 1: hundred control experiments. But play this out for me a
Speaker 1: little like what does all of this mean for people, Well,
Speaker 1: there's obviously a long way to go to apply this
Speaker 1: to the same type of neural and plant and humans,
Speaker 1: but you know, the thinking is that something like this
Speaker 1: could play a very real role in helping somebody with
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's or someone who out of stroke, you know, get
Speaker 1: some of their brain function back. I mean, the problem
Speaker 1: of memory losses that it often results in damage in
Speaker 1: the brain that prevents the flow of information between two locations.
Speaker 1: And so if you could essentially create a way to
Speaker 1: bypass the damaged areas, you might be able to create
Speaker 1: both new memories and hopefully regain the ability to access
Speaker 1: old ones, which is a fascinating idea. Though obviously memories
Speaker 1: this super complicated thing, right, I mean, while the hippocampus
Speaker 1: is where long term memories are formed, you still have
Speaker 1: to consider all these other areas of the brain that
Speaker 1: are working together. And that's true, so it's it's a
Speaker 1: very difficult task. But there are many researchers that believe
Speaker 1: at some point it might be possible to put in
Speaker 1: implant in the hippo campus and actually be able to
Speaker 1: record memories as they come together. Of course, they then
Speaker 1: have to figure out that you know, the neural signals
Speaker 1: or the codes that are the indicators of certain memories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and of course no one's saying this will be
Speaker 1: an easy task, but I was reading about some researchers
Speaker 1: that are working to try and figure out how to
Speaker 1: crack the code around certain memories and understand this has
Speaker 1: to happen among the millions and millions of neurons firing.
Speaker 1: But scientists like Theodore Burger at the University of Southern
Speaker 1: California are actually making real progress towards this. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: actually Burger was one of them that teamed up with
Speaker 1: dead Wilder and Hampson on some of their rats studies,
Speaker 1: so specifically in studies where they drugged rats to mimic
Speaker 1: amnesia so they wouldn't be able to remember the whole
Speaker 1: lever pushing thing. But then after using electrodes to stimulate
Speaker 1: the same neural pattern, the rats were able to remember
Speaker 1: what to do. Yeah. So, uh, I don't know about
Speaker 1: roofy rats, but the potential applications of this are truly staggering.
Speaker 1: But but I guess one question I have is whether
Speaker 1: there's a neural code that applies to everyone, or whether
Speaker 1: everyone's is different. That's a very good point that they're
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out all the specifics of this.
Speaker 1: But I have to be honest, I can't wait to
Speaker 1: get our guests on the line to get his thoughts
Speaker 1: on some even more mind blowing possibilities of this brain
Speaker 1: machine connection. Yeah, let's do it. So our guest today
Speaker 1: is a neuroscientist and professor at Johns Hopkins. He's also
Speaker 1: the founder and director of the Brain Learning, Animation and
Speaker 1: Movement Laboratory or BLAM as mango and I love to say,
Speaker 1: and his work in helping treat stroke patients is just
Speaker 1: fascinating and we're thrilled to have him on today. John Krakauer,
Speaker 1: welcome to part time Genius. Thank you. I certainly I'm
Speaker 1: only a part time genius. So you're joining us from
Speaker 1: a cafe in Lisbon, Portugal, Is that right? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: mean Portugal. I spend a month and you know too,
Speaker 1: usually a month and a half every year. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: that a visiting exhibition of a fantastic place. It's talking
Speaker 1: about names. It's called the Shampolo mo Center for the Unknown. So, John,
Speaker 1: knowing that stroke is the leading cause of disability in
Speaker 1: the US and often causes complete arm and or leg
Speaker 1: paralysis and people. This is obviously very important work to
Speaker 1: many many people. Yeah, but you've explained that one of
Speaker 1: the things we failed to understand for so long was
Speaker 1: just how critical it is to begin rehab as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. So can you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: this and the studies that led to this realization. Yeah, so, Um,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a long story really. In other words,
Speaker 1: Strokes has been really interesting to neurologists over a century,
Speaker 1: and they were very much interested in studying animals, particularly
Speaker 1: primate non even primates sort of guests some of the
Speaker 1: mechanisms of the deficit office Strokes. And it's ironic that
Speaker 1: if you look at the very early study in the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, there was evidence that the animals had
Speaker 1: the potential to get better early on after the lesions
Speaker 1: were into and especially if you encourage them with training.
Speaker 1: So it was there in the early literature, um, and
Speaker 1: then it's not clear that ever sort of got through
Speaker 1: to the clinicians and the therapists, and a certain nihilism
Speaker 1: and a certain pessimism seconds um, and the general impetus
Speaker 1: was to try to make people better early but not
Speaker 1: with very high doses or to help people cope with
Speaker 1: what they had left. So, John, your team developed a
Speaker 1: system of therapy. They're involved in exo skeleton, robotics, brain stimulation,
Speaker 1: and a game where you control a dolphin. Can Can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about the game you
Speaker 1: developed and how things are going in you're testing well,
Speaker 1: I should stay stay right from the beginning, it's been
Speaker 1: a painful, low process. We are hoping to be able
Speaker 1: to look at the data by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you any results. I don't know that yet.
Speaker 1: Um Now, in terms of why, it's actually a bit
Speaker 1: of a bit of a story, the major answers, how
Speaker 1: do you get people to make hundreds, if not thousands,
Speaker 1: of continuous movements day in day out. In other words,
Speaker 1: the animal egg suggestive you needed thousands of movements of
Speaker 1: titrated difficult movements. You know, you're not going to get
Speaker 1: somebody to pick up a glass of water five hundred
Speaker 1: times in a row. You're not going to get someone
Speaker 1: to use in life and fork, you know, thousands of repetitions,
Speaker 1: so it's not a trivial thing. How do you get
Speaker 1: people into a context where they're going to be making
Speaker 1: the kinds of movements you want them to use in
Speaker 1: everyday life, but in a way you trick them into
Speaker 1: making them in the under conditions. But there's so much
Speaker 1: fun they don't realize they're practicing one. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if any of you've ever had the abilitation
Speaker 1: for anything, you know, elbow surgery, shoulder surgery, and I have,
Speaker 1: and it's so boring that I was a terrible patience.
Speaker 1: I didn't even do the ten minutes quite a day
Speaker 1: that I was meant to do. It was so dull.
Speaker 1: Now imagine that in the conditions of strokes. So one
Speaker 1: thing we know is having an illness, being brain damaged
Speaker 1: business in it of itself an incentive to go to
Speaker 1: the gym or the equivalent. So we had to find
Speaker 1: a way to make people do stuff that was fun,
Speaker 1: and we also wanted to do something that the movements
Speaker 1: they made were general, they were useful for everyday life.
Speaker 1: Because there's something, you know, the learning that's called the
Speaker 1: curse of charte specificity. But if you practice task A,
Speaker 1: you only get good at tak A, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: make you any better at task B, two or D.
Speaker 1: And how do you guys, come up with a dolphin concept. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of data to show you if
Speaker 1: you put wraps after brain injury into enriched environment and
Speaker 1: as you put them in a little cage full of
Speaker 1: ramps and spinning wheels and balls and friends, they do
Speaker 1: much better even if you don't train them on the
Speaker 1: top to test him on. So that was the final
Speaker 1: sort of clue it needs to be in an emotional, immersive,
Speaker 1: motivated environments. And then I met these remarkable to people
Speaker 1: to meet Roy and o'barmage who were both graduate students,
Speaker 1: well they've both been undergrad and grad ad Hopkins and
Speaker 1: they were doing beautiful gaming um where they were simulating
Speaker 1: animal movements. And I had gone to the Hopkins campus
Speaker 1: looking for young gamers and I found them, introduced to them,
Speaker 1: and they showed me what they had done, and I
Speaker 1: realized that I wanted to go a step further and
Speaker 1: not to have people watch beautiful movement on a game,
Speaker 1: but the to take the execlusive step of controlling it
Speaker 1: if you became the character in the game. So basically
Speaker 1: imagine gaming meats Pixar meets new controlling the characters using
Speaker 1: into the idea that if you had a dolphin, which
Speaker 1: is a beautiful animal that we love to watch moves.
Speaker 1: That's why we love dolph, which you love their acrobatics
Speaker 1: and they love continuously in the water and there's no
Speaker 1: stopping is starting. I mean you can be moving your
Speaker 1: arms around continuously without starting and stopping because eused to
Speaker 1: you stop moving your arm, the animal will continue to
Speaker 1: move through the water. Bribesmen, So we thought that we
Speaker 1: could make patients babble like children do, moving in this
Speaker 1: cloud of everyday life. We'll tell us what else you
Speaker 1: guys are focused on it blam right now. So you
Speaker 1: can actually take somebody who's locked their hands through an
Speaker 1: actiment soldier for example, so they can have just a
Speaker 1: stump where their hand was and the using prospect for years.
Speaker 1: And you can take the towns of someone who died
Speaker 1: and basically reconnected to someone else's body, so you can
Speaker 1: basically have someone else's hand. There are many many ways
Speaker 1: that you could basically expand the the repertoires in the
Speaker 1: movement by actually having more than just your hands. In
Speaker 1: other words, the irony right on the one hand, you
Speaker 1: want to use this app to training just to have
Speaker 1: a hand like everybody else it is healthy people. You
Speaker 1: could go beyond the hand. Yeah, that was one of
Speaker 1: the things that Will and I were both fascinated by
Speaker 1: in that article, the idea that we could almost like
Speaker 1: upgrade our boring old hands. We don't know what the
Speaker 1: upper limit times. What if you what if somebody was
Speaker 1: to be born in eight homes? Because in the minute,
Speaker 1: each of your muscle fibers might be the admit you
Speaker 1: see many many, many many muffles make up your arm.
Speaker 1: And we talk about just controlling, but you're actually controlling
Speaker 1: much the d of your muscles in your heart. So
Speaker 1: you can you start thinking the way I'm laying out now,
Speaker 1: imagine what the range of its impacting, the words you
Speaker 1: could have if you were to st combinatory slow in
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, it's so crazy to think where your
Speaker 1: brain might max out. Yeah, instead of we could have
Speaker 1: a New Yorker cartoon where the the conductor, instead of
Speaker 1: having all the musicians in the orchestra is all the musicians.
Speaker 1: That's pretty incredible. Well, John, we we really appreciate the
Speaker 1: work you're doing. It's both fascinating and obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: life changing for a lot of people. So thank you
Speaker 1: for that work and thank you for joining us today
Speaker 1: on Part Time Genius. It was an athlete pleasure and
Speaker 1: you guys are wonderful. A pat to welcome back to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius, no Ango. Before the break, we were
Speaker 1: talking about the possibilities of using devices in our brains
Speaker 1: to assist with memory. Yeah, and there are actually a
Speaker 1: few other things related to this field that I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about before we move on. All right, we'll
Speaker 1: go for it. Well. The first is something I was
Speaker 1: reading about a new scientist, and this is the possibility
Speaker 1: that we could one day and plan a chip in
Speaker 1: people who had suffered some sort of brain damage, and
Speaker 1: this chip would include code that would help these people
Speaker 1: accomplish some of the basic things lost after a stroke
Speaker 1: or some other form of damage. There's a quote from
Speaker 1: Justin Sanchez, who works in neuroprosthetics at the University of
Speaker 1: Miami and Florida, and it goes, before we can get
Speaker 1: someone with brain damage back to work, we want to
Speaker 1: return their capability to form those fundamental declarative memories. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to think of that being a possibility, and
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine how life changing it would be
Speaker 1: for people struggling to tackle some of the basic life
Speaker 1: skills they may have once had. Sure, and and then
Speaker 1: you take it a step further right, because Sanchez also
Speaker 1: told new scientists, think of the guy coming back from
Speaker 1: war who can't remember his wife's face. And that's heartbreaking
Speaker 1: to think about. But the science behind it and how
Speaker 1: they're approaching the science, that's fascinating. And we can actually
Speaker 1: come back to more studies from dead Wilder and Hampson
Speaker 1: on this sod did you read about their studies on maccas, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did so for the listeners. This is a study
Speaker 1: where they showed the maccas and image on the screen
Speaker 1: and and then have them pick out that image once
Speaker 1: it was part of a much bigger collection of images.
Speaker 1: This happened a minute or so later, and and during
Speaker 1: this the researchers were martyring their brains and observing the
Speaker 1: signals involved in this process. And then they added drugs
Speaker 1: and these were to prevent the macaques from turning this
Speaker 1: event into a long term memory. It effectively made them
Speaker 1: forget it happened. But then the scientists had them performed
Speaker 1: the task again, and when they did, they hit the
Speaker 1: neurons with the same pattern of signals they observed earlier,
Speaker 1: and the macaques seem to know exactly what to look for.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a couple of pieces of us
Speaker 1: that are just super interesting to me. So one is
Speaker 1: what Deadwiler and Hampson and other researchers believe about how
Speaker 1: memory works, and and that is that the brain patterns
Speaker 1: they observe aren't necessarily attached to an exact image. It's
Speaker 1: really more that our brains tend to break things down
Speaker 1: into features, so you know, like by shape or color
Speaker 1: or size, and then this collection of information, when that's
Speaker 1: piece together, that's what helps us recall an object or
Speaker 1: a person specifically. That's crazy, like I never would have
Speaker 1: thought about that. Well, and the other thing that's so
Speaker 1: interesting is our brains plasticity and its ability to learn
Speaker 1: to work with these devices. So so let's go back
Speaker 1: for a minute to the neural implants used to control
Speaker 1: a robotic arm. The interesting thing is the way that
Speaker 1: the neurons are working to control the robotic arm, that
Speaker 1: that they're not identical to the way it would move
Speaker 1: a typical arm. But our brains adapt and they observe
Speaker 1: and they learn, and then because of this neurofeedback, they
Speaker 1: master attack ask, even if it means doing that task
Speaker 1: in a slightly different way. Yeah, and the same thing
Speaker 1: happens with the stimulation used to assist with memory, Like
Speaker 1: our our brain's plasticity helps us work with these devices
Speaker 1: to learn. And now DARK was getting more and more
Speaker 1: interested in this type of research, and I always forget
Speaker 1: what it stands for US. I wrote down, that's the
Speaker 1: US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and they have something
Speaker 1: they're calling the Restoring Active Memory Project. They're basically investing
Speaker 1: significant sums to try and develop technology that could be
Speaker 1: implanted to help a range of people dealing with brain injury.
Speaker 1: So that means like the soldiers were turning home with injury,
Speaker 1: to to those battling Alzheimer's, to those who suffered strokes.
Speaker 1: You know. And while the applications are truly incredible, I
Speaker 1: do think we have to at least note some of
Speaker 1: the ethical concerns and risk involved in all of this.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about what it means to be able
Speaker 1: to implant memories, especially memories that might not be our own.
Speaker 1: I mean, some would argue that our collection of memories
Speaker 1: is really at the core of who we are, and
Speaker 1: if our memories at some point, are are more of
Speaker 1: a computer algorithm than you know then something our own
Speaker 1: brains are producing. Are we still us? I mean that's
Speaker 1: kind of deep to me, Mano, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you feel about it. Well, I had to drop out
Speaker 1: of a philosophy course for too deep. Another concern is
Speaker 1: just the possibility of certain flaws or downsides to the
Speaker 1: way the chips work. So let's say they don't just
Speaker 1: bring up things we want to remember, but things we
Speaker 1: really don't and have moved on from. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it's not worth doing this for the people who we've
Speaker 1: talked about. I mean, I think we absolutely should, but
Speaker 1: they're definitely gonna be some hurdles ahead. Well, there's there's
Speaker 1: one other weird thought about this. So so let's say
Speaker 1: we're using these devices and because of regained access to memories,
Speaker 1: we might behave a little bit differently for better or worse.
Speaker 1: Let's say in this case it's for worse, and then
Speaker 1: there are consequences for that behavior. Could you then have
Speaker 1: somebody that would argue that the memories that lead to
Speaker 1: that said behavior were you know, not really their own,
Speaker 1: and therefore shouldn't be the ones facing the consequences. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the legal stuff is gonna be this other
Speaker 1: patch of problems. But I'm going to choose to be
Speaker 1: optimistic here and especially in the way it will help
Speaker 1: those dealing with brain injury and disease. And I just
Speaker 1: think it's going to be fascinating to watch. Well, you
Speaker 1: don't have to wait decades to be fascinated, because guess
Speaker 1: what time it is? Time for the PGG fact off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I'm gonna kick this off here. It turns out
Speaker 1: researchers are better at understanding why after a night of drinking,
Speaker 1: despite all those recent self promises you've made to eat
Speaker 1: better and lose a few pounds, your hungry brain goes
Speaker 1: into overdrive and you find yourself running for the border
Speaker 1: to down a handful of Darrito's tacos. In a study
Speaker 1: of mice, of course, they booze them up and martyred
Speaker 1: their brain activity, and when the mice were completely pickled,
Speaker 1: they noticed a spike in activity in a group of
Speaker 1: neurons called a g r P and these are the
Speaker 1: ones that are activated when our bodies are actually facing starvation,
Speaker 1: and as a result, the mice ate more. But when
Speaker 1: the scientists got them drunk again and block the A
Speaker 1: g RP neurons. With medication, the mice didn't eat as much.
Speaker 1: And the thinking is these same neurons are the ones
Speaker 1: responsible for our post drunken feast. You know, I feel
Speaker 1: like we've talked about drunk mice a couple of times
Speaker 1: in this episode. All right, where do I want to start.
Speaker 1: Let's see. Um. Well, as we've learned more about how
Speaker 1: the brain works, I find those little tricks or shortcuts
Speaker 1: that our brains used for making memories so interesting. And
Speaker 1: there's some other ways our brains take shortcuts that that
Speaker 1: I also find pretty interesting to look at. And one
Speaker 1: of these deals with peripheral vision. So, according to a
Speaker 1: study in the journal Psychological Science, researchers found that our
Speaker 1: brains often make up things in our peripheral vision that
Speaker 1: that aren't actually there. And this is because our brains
Speaker 1: focus on our central vision intend to just make educated
Speaker 1: guesses about our peripheral vision. I love that. So, despite
Speaker 1: what your mother may have told you, it's a myth
Speaker 1: that we're born with all our brain cells will ever have.
Speaker 1: This study out of Sweden in the late nineties help
Speaker 1: scientists prove that the hipocampus forms new neurons pretty much
Speaker 1: our entire lives. And in this other study, also out
Speaker 1: of Sweden, Wow, Sweden is really doing it. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: killing it. A team of researchers show that new brain
Speaker 1: cells are formed in the striatum. It's a part of
Speaker 1: the brain involved in motor control and decision making, among
Speaker 1: other things. All right, well here's another one. I think
Speaker 1: we've all heard that exercise is good for the brain.
Speaker 1: In fact, studies have shown that taking half hour walks
Speaker 1: a few times a week helps our abstract reasoning skills
Speaker 1: and even helps with the growth of new cells and
Speaker 1: the hippocampus. Kind Of like you were just talking about,
Speaker 1: but I didn't realize that the effect can happen in
Speaker 1: the reverse direction as well, That is, mental exercise can
Speaker 1: be good for your physique. To one, study done at
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Clinics show that those who spent fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: a day thinking about exercising their biceps actually increase the
Speaker 1: strength of their biceps by over a three month period.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start thinking so hard about my biceps. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Uh so, do you know a bigger brain
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean a smarter brain. Uh, the average human
Speaker 1: brain is three pounds and Einstein's was only two point
Speaker 1: seven pounds, And I think that's pretty solid proof. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would agree with that. Well, your brain generates twenty
Speaker 1: watts of power, which is actually enough to run a
Speaker 1: regular sized LED bulb. You know how we talk about
Speaker 1: people being auditory or visual learners. Yeah, well, well, while
Speaker 1: it may be true that we all have our preferences
Speaker 1: and how we learn, like you might prefer to read
Speaker 1: something instead of hearing it in lecture form, there really
Speaker 1: aren't studies to back up this idea. I mean, when
Speaker 1: tested students tended to perform similarly regardless of whether they
Speaker 1: were taught in their preferred method or some other method.
Speaker 1: That is surprising. Yeah, I've always just assumed that we
Speaker 1: were either one or the other. So I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you this week's fact Off trophy. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: and if there any brain facts you feel we should know,
Speaker 1: hit us up at part time genius at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. You can also find us on Facebook
Speaker 1: or Twitter, or as always called our fact hot Line
Speaker 1: one eight four four pt genius. It's it's still seven
Speaker 1: fact hot Line. I think it's still all right. So
Speaker 1: call us there. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how
Speaker 1: stuff works, and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
Speaker 1: who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the
Speaker 1: theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry
Speaker 1: Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our
Speaker 1: lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson,
Speaker 1: Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets
Speaker 1: the show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you
Speaker 1: like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if
Speaker 1: you really really like what you've heard, maybe you could
Speaker 1: leave a good review for us. Do we do? We
Speaker 1: forget Jason Jason who