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[Dilini Sumanapala] [What if we could control the brain?]
The rubric of this series is the power of ideas,
or ideas that can change the world.
But what if we took a second to think about where those ideas
and feats of human innovation actually come from?
Well, quite simply, they come from the brain.
With 86 billion neurons - you will take that figure to the grave
- but 86 billion neurons and about a hundred trillion synapses connecting them,
is it any wonder that we still consider the brain
to be the most complex object in the known universe?
Now, can you imagine what it would be like
to control an object of this kind of complexity?
Well, I'm going to tell you that it's already kind of possible,
I mean, we use pills everyday to treat everything,
from anxiety and depression to OCD and schizophrenia.
But, if that doesn't sound hardcore enough for you,
I'm going to show you an example of live brain control in a mouse.
This mouse is basically remote-controlled.
It's going to start running counterclockwise.
until that blue light that's being presented to its head
is basically stopped by the experimenter.
And it stops right there. How is this possible?
It's possible because of this amazing technique known as optogenetics,
which basically involves controlling the activity of cells with the power of light.
In the case of that mouse, it's got a fiber-optic electrode,
embedded in its brain, that's telling its brain to run counterclockwise,
run counterclockwise, every time that blue signal is presented.
Now, why are we doing this? I mean, this is kind of expensive
and you don't want to put these critters through such abuse for nothing.
Well, it's thought that optogenetics will actually help understand
the genetic roots of everything from Parkinson's disease
to schizophrenia, to drug addiction.
And the idea is that, once you find the genetic roots,
finding a treatment will be the natural next step.
Now, you could argue that we're doing this kind of thing on mice and rodents,
I mean, I started with, you know, stats on the human brain,
but here I am, kind of sneakily talking about a rodent brain instead.
If you're skeptic, I'm going to show you not one, but two kinds of brain stimulation
that are being applied to human subjects in research today.
On the left-hand side, you have Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS.
And on right-hand side, you have Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation, or TDCS.
On the left, you're stimulating the brain with fairly mild magnetic pulses
and, on the right, you're kind of doing the same thing,
but this time, you're using an electrical current,
a very, very small electrical current.
Just think about that for a second.
You're zapping people's brains for research.
Now, TMS, that's the method on the left, can actually be used to alleviate
the symptoms of clinical depression in certain individuals.
It doesn't work for everyone, but it does show promise
in treating behavioral disorders, such as clinical depression.
And it's also been shown to be helpful in assessing the severity of paralysis,
or loss of motor functioning, after something like
sustaining brain trauma or even brain disease.
Now, TDCS, that's the "electrical current method" on the right,
TDCS is used for similar things.
But the application I want to talk to you about is kind of scary.
It's military in nature.
We're now at this age where our technological capacity in warfare
actually outstrips the human capacity of its operators.
We're very physically limited in terms of speed and accuracy.
And this is kind of a problem for militaries all over the world.
Suffice to say, it's a problem for the US military,
and they are not going to stand by,
they are going to use TDCS to train their recruits.
What are they actually up to here?
Well, they're getting their recruits to wear TDCS electrodes
and train on this accuracy and reaction time tasks,
and what they're finding is that these recruits are learning faster.
Their accuracy and reaction times are improving at a rate that is quicker
than if they were to do these tasks without any kind of brain stimulation.
That is an incredibly scary idea, if you have my opinion on that.
So, I just want to wrap up by saying, you know,
we have this notion that it's our infatuation with warfare
that's driven the technology that we've used so far.
If it wasn't for the numerous wars that we've had till now,
technology really wouldn't be where it is today.
And, yet, here we are, in the 21st century, in the year 2012,
we, as humans, are trying to catch up to the very technology that we created,
and that is incredibly surreal.
And the only way we can do that,
the only way we can maximize our human capacity
is to deepen our understanding of the human brain.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)