WEBVTT - Optimal Inattention 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.120 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.360 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:17.400 You know, we're both writers. A lot of writing goes 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.840 into what we do here at at How Stuff Works 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.760 and Stuff to Blow your Mind. Um, and as writers 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:28.560 were always engaging in those, uh, those environmental situations where 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.200 how am I how am I going to focus on 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.479 what I'm working on here on the page and in 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.200 my mind and in that sort of unreal space between 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:41.520 the two, while also having to deal with vehicles roaring by, 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:46.880 with people walking by, people falling down, animals, weather patterns, 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.440 you name it. Yeah, it's a lot of wooing of 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.599 the mind. And Chekhov has said, if you look at 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.760 anything long enough, say just that wall in front of you, 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.920 it will come out of that wall. And that's the idea, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.840 right that we're going to cover today, this idea of 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.720 optimal inattention and willful ignorance, This idea that you can 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.039 put a spell on your mind long enough to concentrate 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.480 on teasing up the things that will come out of 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.960 the wall. Yeah, especially that that woman in the yellow wallpaper, 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:22.440 ilways got to keep her push back indeed. Um. American 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:27.800 poet Robert Creeley, uh two thousand five Uh, he said, 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:32.160 quote the necessary environment is that which secures the artist 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.960 in the way that lets him be in the world 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.120 in a most fruitful manner, which I think is an 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.840 interesting way of thinking about it, because when we sit 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.120 down to work on something, often we think about, um, 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.320 how much we're shutting out, But there's also the attention 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:50.760 side of it. And and as someone who often works 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.320 in a coffee shop, Um, I it's like I'm purposely 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:58.000 going to kind of a busy, semi chaotic environment to 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:02.480 engage with the task that require a lot of concentration, 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.440 because it's kind of like the Goldilocks and the Three 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.440 Bears of sound or optimal sounds, right, because you know, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.240 on the one hand, you could have something that was 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.840 so silent, like or Field Labs has that quietest room 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.959 in the world that shuts out sound. Too quiet, you'll 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.600 start hallucinating. Actually, you know, on the other end of 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:26.000 the spectrum, a bar with thumping music is way too distracting. 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.680 That's like a jackhammer on your brain. But yeah, coffee 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.440 houses have just the right amount of ambient noises to 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:38.400 allow your brain some effort to kind of crowd that out, 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.400 but have enough left over to actually deal with the 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:45.240 task at hand. Indeed, now we were looking at an 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.120 article titled the Importance of Place where Writers write and 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.280 Whine by Alexandria Enders in the Literary Life, and she 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:56.560 mentioned a number of different um famous authors and and 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:58.720 where they've written and what their approach has been, and 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.640 of course it's it's it's all over the board, like 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:02.320 some of the ones that a that I found interesting. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.280 Robert Graves wrote in a room furnished only with objects 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:11.640 made by hand. Ben Franklin wrote in the bathtub baalzac 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.800 ate an enormous meal at around five in the morning, 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.160 and he slept on midnight, got up and wrote it 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.880 a small desk in his room for sixteen hours straight, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.120 just drinking cup after cup of coffee to fuel the 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:27.160 frenzy brain. We also have the example of Marcel Proust, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.360 best known for his novel Remember Remembrance of Things Past 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.040 h He decided to shrug off society and all of 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:38.240 the clamor that came with it. In nine he installed 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:43.760 himself in his apartment and he actually took cork, and 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.680 he lined his room, his bedroom with it, and to 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:52.240 keep out the ambient noises of Parisian streets below him. 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.640 And not only that, he kind of gets a little 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:56.440 bit o c D with his process here, and I 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.200 feel like a lot of writers do this. By the way, 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.680 He installed heavy blue silk curtains to keep the light out, 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.920 and he slept until late afternoon each day, at which 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.200 point he would get up, smoke some opium, and then 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.880 his housekeeper would bring him an elaborate coffee service for 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.560 him to make his own cafe a. He'd have a croissant, 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.680 he would go through his mail, read his newspaper, have 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.280 a second croissant, which, by the way, this is all orchestrated. 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.000 At certain times his housekeeper knew to bring in the croissant, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.480 and it had to be from the same backery every day, 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.320 and then and only then would he begin his process 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.480 of writing in this sort of muffled womb like environment 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.600 he had created for himself to actually finish the novel 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.000 Remembrance of things past. Wow, Well, that's that's quite a 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.960 quite a cocktail, quite quite a recipe. He created friend 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.800 stelf there, both both chemically and environmentally, but I think 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:54.760 all of us can relate to that on some level, 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.120 because we've all had something we had to work on, 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.479 whether or not was a piece of fiction or something 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:04.240 for work or whatever, that's just required us to get 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.800 that sort of balance in our environment. And here's a 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.880 bit from Alan Lightman writing for The New Yorker about attention. 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.560 He says, quote, the eyes alone convey more than a 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.320 hundred billion signals to the brain every second. The ears 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.160 receive another avalanche of sounds. Then there are the fragments 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.080 of thoughts, conscious and unconscious, that race from one neuron 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.719 to the next. Much of this data seems random and meaningless. Indeed, 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.480 for us to function must have much of it has 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.880 to be ignored, but clearly not all. How do our 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:39.320 brains select the relevant data? Indeed, I mean to his 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:41.560 to his point, we live in a just a chaotic 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.520 storm of sensory information, but we've evolved to navigate it 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.240 with relative ease, weeding out the useless information and focusing 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.200 and on the crucial stuff. I mean to say nothing 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.400 of of the storm within, also dealing with the with 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.719 thoughts of past and future. We're able to ignore internal 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:02.680 and external distractors, but we can also inhibit competing responses 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:07.600 to situations in order to accomplish tasks. So yeah, the 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.240 key here is that that we're not processing everything. As 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.760 we've discussed in past episodes, is a great deal of 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.600 sensory computation that occurs beneath cognition, were we don't even 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.800 we're not even consciously aware that we're seeing this or 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:22.800 hearing that, because we're rooting it out. I think we've 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.160 talked before about the scenario of being at a party 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.000 and being able to focus in on the conversation you're having, 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.080 or tuning out of that conversation and listening to the 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.680 one next to you while also ignoring all the other sounds. Um, 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.400 but a lot of the sensory data that enters our 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.760 sensory system remains untouched. I mean, it basically goes one end. 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.640 It basically goes in one ear and out the other 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:49.159 as the saying goes. Typically, a neuron in the brain 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.720 receives hundreds or even thousands of different inputs along its 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.040 den rights, and yet it sends just one message out 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.039 to the next neural area. So scientists continue to study 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.119 attention to distract, and in this podcast episode, we're looking 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.520 at a couple of more recent studies that look at 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:09.960 both attention and willful inattention. Uh, and how we roll 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.280 with it. Yeah, And when we look at these studies, 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.240 keep in mind that's kind of metaphor when you think 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.520 about all that stimuli and the attention that you need. Um, 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.160 think about a chorus. All right, You have one specific 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.600 part of the brain, the interial front or cortex, that's 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.440 like the conductor, and he or she is muting one 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.680 section of voices while queuing another section to raise its 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:38.560 voice over the others until there's something that feels like cognition. Right, 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:44.800 this one cohesive symphony of neurons, even though there's still 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:50.360 the murmuring or murmurings of these random neurons underneath it. 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.560 So that's that's this kind of symphony of cognition that 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.680 we're going to explore today. Now, we'll often find ourself 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.960 in in that situation where you're torn, Betwen, paying attention 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.840 to two different things. It might be your math homework 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.560 versus a TV. It might be the book you're reading 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.280 versus on the beach versus the person playing volleyball on 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.240 the beach, or the motion on the beach. Um you 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.480 want to focus on one thing, but to focus on 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:16.600 one thing is to ignore the other. How does it 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.880 work well when your face with these two different bits 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.040 of stimuli, It triggers a conflict circuit in the brain's 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:27.840 dorsal anterior singulate cortex or deck, part of a larger 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.800 brain structure, the anterior cicular cortex that controls rational thought 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.480 and emotions. Uh, that's the inner workings of what's going on. 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.000 But we can also tell a lot from the outside, uh, 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.240 particularly looking at the eyes. In recent years, researchers have 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.880 gained even more appreciation for the importance of eye movements 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.440 pupil size when it comes to trying to figure out 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.200 what the brain is focusing on, how much it's focusing on, 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.520 how much computation power is being leveled at a particular task. 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.839 And in order to examine this conflict right when you're 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.120 trying to attend to attend to one thing but you're 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:08.360 distructed by another thing. Juke University actually had a study 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.560 in which Michael Platt and his team of researchers implanted 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:17.800 sensors into the decks of rhesis macaques. And again, the 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:23.120 deck is the dorsal anterior singulate cortex. Now the best 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.640 way to create conflict in the deck of monkeys is 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.920 to introduce too things that they really love and then 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.960 just kind of square them off. So in this case, 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.760 we're talking about juice, one thing they love, and other monkeys. 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.640 I feel like I'm the same way, like juice and monkeys. 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.640 Like really, it's a toss up. It's not juice and humans, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.000 it's juice and monkeys exactly like, show me a monkey, 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:47.640 show me a juice box. I don't know which one 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:49.280 I want to pay attention. All right, Well, if we 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.079 were to implant a censer int your brain into this, 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.040 it would be very interesting to see what the results 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.320 would be. Because the researchers took the two things that 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.960 they love. They offered a juice reward if the monkey 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.240 could keep their eyes trained on a visual target on 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.440 a screen. But then they took the other thing that 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.920 they loved, other monkeys, and they flashed images of them 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.760 on the periphery of the screen. So what was even 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.920 more distracting is that some of the monkey faces that 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.200 they flashed on the screen exhibited specific emotions like terror, 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.520 which would be really hard for another monkey to ignore, 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.840 infect another human to ignore. Right, Yeah, basic social signal 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.160 something terrifying is happening. I should pay attention to what 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.760 that monkey is doing. Right, And again, they had a 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.160 juice reward here. If they could keep their eyes on 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:35.800 the price, they would get the juice, but a lot 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.720 of times they failed. Now the results here. The researchers 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.960 discovered a set of neurons that were active only when 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.880 monkeys were completing the task and trying to override those 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.240 distracting monkey faces, but not when faced with either of 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.800 the stimuli alone, just the juice box or just the 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.360 monkey faces. And the more active the DAK neurons were, 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.600 the better the monkeys were at tuning out the distracting 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.760 faces in later trials, and the pupils seemed to change 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:07.120 in size to compensate for how difficult the task was 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.520 constricting when the faces were hard to ignore, such as 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.880 those terrorized faces we were talking about, And the smaller 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.520 they got the pupils, the better the monkeys performed in 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.559 subsequent trial. So the key here is fight or flight. 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.000 The fight or flight response causes the release of the 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.840 stress hormone noor adrenaline, widening the pupils so as to 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.840 take in more sensory information for the challenge at hand. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.320 I feel like we've talked about that in memory before. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.320 You know, those like really stressful situations, it may at 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.679 least seem like you're taking in more sensory information well, 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:41.240 especially in fear as well. So Key findings that DACK 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.760 doesn't directly control pupils size, but it connects to other 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.160 regions of the brain that do. The researchers think that 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.840 DAC might play a role in keeping us calm in 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:52.800 the face in face of the demands for our attention 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.600 that might otherwise make us confused or stressed out. Now, 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.199 in a follow up study in two thousand and thirteen, 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.880 platfound that the cats performing the same I gaze task 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.960 did a better job of concentrating if they had inhaled oxytocin, 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.640 And the idea is that the hormone may have contributed 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.760 to better task attention because of its calming effects and 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:21.160 its role as a social bonding agent, Which makes you 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:25.800 wonder if one day classrooms will have oxytocin piped in there. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.520 We're more likely this is just going to give us, uh, 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.600 these studies are just going to give us better insight 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.720 into how something like say driving while texting or even 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.280 talking on the phone while we're driving means that we're 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.760 seriously impairing the neuronal symphony that's been set forth by 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.000 the brain right to try to get us where we're going. UM. 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.320 These studies could also give us insight into attention deficit 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:51.760 hyperactivities disorder a d h D as well. And I 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:56.520 do love that term optimal inattention because it really it 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.559 really makes you think twice about any kind of task 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.760 you're doing, about what you're focusing on, but also what 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.360 you're shutting out. That the the optimal inattention level that 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:08.439 you're reaching in order to get things done. It's just 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.360 something that I want to put on my next assessment 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:15.920 I was demonstrating optimal inattention. Well, there's a two thousand, 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.720 fifteen study from Brown University that that really digs into 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:24.520 this that UM neuroscientists they're scanned the brain waves of 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:28.400 twelve volunteers while they were told that they would feel 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:32.360 a brief tap either on the left middle finger or 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.040 on their left big toe. Now, some were told to 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.040 ignore stimuli on the foot and some were told to 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:42.320 ignore stimuli on the hand. The researchers measured the power 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:46.840 and timing of different brainwave frequencies in various brain regions. 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.680 While this was going on, UH and a particular interest 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.720 in the brain wave synchronization between the part of the 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.720 somatosensory cortex that processes touch in the hand and the 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:02.600 right inferior frontal cortex tied to suppression of attention and 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.959 end action. Now, I wanted to mention that the researchers 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.400 used magneto and cephalography to scan subjects. And this is 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.480 significant because I'm like f M R I, which has 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.280 a pretty decent delay when scanning the brain. MEG is 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.400 more precise because it can really reveal the timing of 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.160 neural activity down to the middleseconds, so you can see 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.960 that neuronal symphony at play here. And the researchers anticipated 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:32.160 that they would see a greater synchrony between the somatosensory cortex, 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.080 that part of the brain again that processes touch, and 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:41.520 the right inferioral frontal cortex, which is again governing suppression. 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.400 And they wanted to control though right because I wanted 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.840 to make sure that this right inferial frontal cortex was 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.680 in fact governing, So they looked out at the frontal 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:54.680 cortex to make sure there wasn't a lot of activity 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.600 going on there, and they found indeed that there was not, 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.840 that it was the r I f C that was 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.320 tamping down their urges to become distracted, and they did 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:11.880 indeed find that correlation of synchrony between the sematosensory cortex 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.200 and the r I f C. Moreover, when volunteers were 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.480 simply told what was about to happen just a fraction 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.120 fraction of a second later, they saw the alpha wave 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:27.800 synchrony increase between those two brain regions already gearing up 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.880 to partner in this sort of shared process of stimuli 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:36.320 and reporting. And researchers found a similar spike in synchrony 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.640 when volunteers were about to report a sensation. This time though, 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.360 it was beta wave synchrony between the somati sensory cortex 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.520 and the r I f C, which is painting this 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.600 picture of these two brain processes really trying to tether 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:56.120 themselves together and create that willful ignoring. Now at this 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:57.800 point you might be wondering, well, what are what are 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.480 some of the possible applications of this, because you know, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.240 we've we've been talking about you know, taps on the 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:08.440 hand and the foot ignoring slight sensory information like that UH. 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.560 But one application here gets into possible UH use as 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.800 a as a means of treating chronic pain. UM study 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.520 co authors Stephanie Jones and Katherine Kerr are actually working 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.440 with the Dr Breen Brent Dr Ben Greenberg, a professor 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.640 of psychiatry and human behavior, to explore the possible use 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:33.680 of non invasive transcranial altering current electrical stimulation or TAX, 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:38.440 to take advantage of this willful and attention process. Now, 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.920 TAX has previously been explored for possible applications tackling diseases 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.240 where abnormal oscillatory patterns in the brain player roles, such 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.320 as Parkinson's disease or schizophrenia, as well as in therapy 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.480 for optic nerve injuries. In this case, however, Kieren Jones 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.120 are curious as to whether TAX could be used to 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:02.000 manipulate alpha and beta waves between parts of the brain 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.440 such as the somount of sensory cortex and the right 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:11.119 inferior frontal the right inferior frontal cortex to suppress attention 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.919 to or even the detection of pain. So again that 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.280 the possibilities here in the treatment of chronic pain especially 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.600 are pretty significant well. And also pain is probably the 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.720 most distracting thing that you could throw out their rights 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.280 in some sort of environment your internal state um to 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:34.560 try to tamp down. So what's interesting is that researchers 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.080 also looked at pain through meditation. So if you want 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:42.479 to test out how well meditation works and blocking pain, well, 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.680 here's the study by wake Forest Baptist Medical Center which 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.280 was published in the April six and eleven edition of 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.679 the Journal of Neuroscience. And what they did is they 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:57.240 recruited fifteen healthy volunteers who had never ever meditated before. 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.960 They attended for twenty minute us is to learn a 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.840 meditation technique known as focused attention. This is a kind 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:09.800 of mindfulness in which people are taught to attend to 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:13.360 the breath and then let go of distracting thoughts and emotions. 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.520 And in fact, the meditation app that I use does 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.280 this um to great effect. It really teaches you how 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.479 to not force these thoughts away but let them just 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.760 recede into the background. So they learned how to do this, 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:32.679 and both before and after meditation training, their brain was examined. 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:35.600 They used something called a s l m R I 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.639 which actually captures longer duration brain processes than just regular 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.840 f M R I. And during these scans, this is 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:47.000 the great part, a pain inducing heat device was placed 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:51.639 on the participant's right legs and this device heated in 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:55.320 an area of their skin to one and twenty degrees fahrenheit, 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.639 a temperature that most people would find, you know, uncomfortable 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:02.240 and even painful in just like a cigar, because that's 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.879 what I know. Now, this was not like run by 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.960 the mafia or anything. This experiment um and they endured 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.159 this for over a five minute period. Now here are 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:15.760 the cool findings. The scams taken after meditation training showed 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:21.600 that every participant's pain rating was reduced, with decreases ranging 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:28.520 from eleven to and moreover, activity in the smuto sensory cortex, 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.600 which was processing the intensity of the heat, was really 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:37.440 high when scans were taken before the participants underwent meditation 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.280 training and while they were experiencing the heat. But when 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.880 participants were meditating during the scans and having the heat 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.240 applied to them, activity in this region, this pain processing 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:55.439 processing region could not be detected at all. So Fidel Zaidon, 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.320 who is a lead author of the study, wrote, we 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:00.240 found a big effect about a four what do you 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.199 percent reduction and pain intensity in a fifty seven percent 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.439 reduction and pain unpleasantness. Now compare that to something like 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:12.080 morphine or other pain relieving drugs, and they typically only 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:17.800 reduced pain ratings by about And this is even more 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.359 telling when you again realize that these are just normal 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.879 people that were essentially given a crash course in meditation, 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.600 not yogis, not Tibetan monks, just normal folks, right, not 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:32.480 zen level. You know, I'm gonna endure this pain and 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.520 suffering from my entire life, right, people who are just like, Okay, 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:40.840 I'll participate in this study. All right, it's okay, we're 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.679 gonna get in our time machine. And you are in 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.399 serious need of some sort of isolation so that you 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.919 can really concentrate. And uh, by the way, you're this 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.359 guy who happens to be named Hugo Gernsback. You're an 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.920 editor of Science and Invention magazine, and you're a pioneer 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.080 and sci fi. What do you do when you need 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.760 a little respite from the world and you need to concentrate, Well, 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.840 you cook up a little sci fi essentially a space 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.320 helmet to escape from the environment that you're working in, 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:16.600 which I imagine is filled with cigarette smoke as well. 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.919 Uh yeah, because this is again so it's probably one 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.240 of those When I was in newspapers, I would I 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.320 would hear about old environments where someone would would have 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.520 to say cigarette me while they were working on a story, 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:32.120 you know, where someone comes up and actually just puts 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:33.840 the cigarette in your mouth and lights it for you. 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:36.560 So I think it's very much a cigarette me world 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:40.639 that Hugo was the suffering through, that's right. And he 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:45.120 didn't come up with a solution, which he called the isolator. Yeah, 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:49.560 basically just a big sort of Darth Vadery looking contraption, 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:51.600 a big helmet that he would put over his head, 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:57.320 uh soundproof headcage essentially with its own oxygenainst oxygen supply again, 0:21:57.359 --> 0:21:59.399 so you don't have to you're not distracted by all 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:01.880 that cigaret at smoke or what have you that you're 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.880 breathing in in your in your office. Yeah, it has 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.439 just those two round eye holes in a sort of 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:13.359 protruding mouth hohole area where the hose for the oxygen 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.080 comes in. And it really is just an example of 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.040 artful terror. Yeah, it kind of has a man in 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:22.199 the iron mask look to it, or some sort of 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.080 like face shackle that you would put on a suspected 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:28.720 warlock in a medieval setting. But hey, I mean, you 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:30.720 gotta do what you gotta do, and you need to 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.960 get down to business. And the hugo Grim's back was 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.639 just taking the reins there and if you want to 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:38.679 see a picture of it, uh the landing page for 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.040 this episode, I'll make sure to include a link at 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:43.960 the bottom. All Right, you know we've got a few 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:46.800 minutes here. Let's call over the robot and get through 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:52.200 a little listener mail. This is from Brian. He says, Hello, 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.520 Julie and Robert. I'm seventeen years old and have been 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:56.919 listening to your podcast since you guys were stuff from 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.159 the Science Lab, which is a pretty long time. But 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:01.480 I never bothered to write you, as I'm sure you 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:03.840 have enough emails and junk to go through. I love 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.639 the podcast and it inspired me to learn oodles. Is 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:10.359 this a word of creativity? But one problem I have, 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:12.960 and I hate to be a party pooper, is how 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.760 you guys seem to be almost purposely avoiding the concept 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.159 of race. While race should be unimportant in society. It 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:21.640 no doubt has an effect on how we treat each 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:25.160 other in modern day society. Plenty of topics you've done 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:27.600 could have mentioned race, but I feel like you guys 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:31.000 are just avoiding it. There's plenty of science, interesting science 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.760 about race and discrimination that can be talked about in 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:36.520 a completely objective way, the same way you talk about 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:39.719