[Music]
hello I am a neuroscientist or more
specifically I’m a DIY neuroscientist
and what that means is a neuroscientist
obviously studies the brain if you know
any neural scientists they went to
graduate school for five to eight years
toiling away in their PI’s lab just to
get access to the tools to be able to
study the brain now that’s a bit of a
shame because 20% of the entire world
that’s one out of five people have a
neurological disorder and how many
curious do we have zero so it seems a
bit odd the only way that you could
study the brain is to dedicate your life
to that field right it’s not like that
in other fields for example in astronomy
you don’t have to get a PhD in
astrophysics to get access to a
telescope you can buy cheap one at
Walmart and set it up and maybe start to
learn about the heaven to become
interesting become a scientist or make
discoveries the hale-bopp comet was
discovered by an amateur but there was
nothing like that in biology in general
and specifically in neuroscience and so
we started an organization called
backyard brains and what we’re trying to
do is take graduate level research
equipment that allows you to record the
brain and make it available for kids
from kind of fifth grade on up in order
to sort of change Howard
handling neuroscience and for the future
to go to create neuroscientist for the
next generation so I’m gonna do some
experiments today showing this kind of
DIY technology we’ve created and I’m
gonna be introducing a concept you might
not be familiar with called mental
Koenig rafi so from the name mental from
the brain and Kronig Rafi meaning you
know the time we’re gonna be able to
clock the inner workings of the brain to
be able to understand how mental
processes are working and to do this I’m
gonna introduce this person to you guys
yes may be familiar with him he is Rene
de cartes in early 17th century
philosopher but I’m not gonna be talking
about that decart I’m gonna be talking
about a different one and we’re gonna
start with a young boy so decart in
france when he was young he went to the
Royal French gardens and the French King
was a bit of a prankster and he would
put these kind of lifelike mannequins
hidden in the bushes and when people
would walk
they would sort of pop up and score
scare them and then so this happened to
Rene and he was wondering how does this
work and he looked it was a hydraulic
system there was these water pipes that
were going underneath it when you
stepped on it would cause almost
lifelike action in these mannequins
right and so that that stuck with him we
think and that went on throughout his
life and so if you followed his work you
know that he’s also very keen about I
understand how the brain works he was
the father of vivisection so he was
trying to take apart animals and
understand how does these things that
are inside of our body give rise to
behaviors and so if you if you read
about it you’ll see a whole bunch of
discussions about you know how does the
nervous system possibly work and when he
starts thinking about you know this this
experience he had as a child he gets
this idea of stimulus responses from a
figure that he has in 1641 publication
for some reason a baby is sticking his
hand into a flyer but what he’s asking
is is how does this baby like how does
it bring his hand back right and so he
has a couple of hypotheses and one of
them is that there could be like a
thread that’s coming from our body up to
our brain where it interacts with
consciousness you couldn’t escape that
and then it would come back down and
sort of complete the circuit and allow
that muscle to to retract and so we are
gonna test that hypothesis today using
our DIY gear and so I’m gonna ask Zach
to come on on stage so I’ve pre-selected
a few volunteers just because we have a
I’ll set it up over here we’re on a bit
of a time constraint now so I’m gonna go
ahead and whoopsies all right nothing is
destroyed okay I’m gonna go ahead and
hook up some electrodes to Zach it’s
what I want to do is I want to be able
to measure the output from Zach’s brain
out down to his body sort of this thread
that we’re seeing in the in the figure
behind me and so to do that I’m gonna
put some electrodes and these have a
little bit of salt water on them that
allow the electricity to flow from his
body into the electrodes and I’m gonna
stick the electrodes on to his muscle
right here and I’m not gonna stick
Zach’s foot in fire instead you might be
familiar with the patellar
flex when you went to the doctor’s
office so this is another reflex arc
that has a very similar circuitry and
I’m going to be able to measure that
very very carefully today so I’m gonna
plug you in this is our our SpikerBox
here so Zak when you’re ready I want you
to go ahead and kick your leg out in
case you guys can see this you can hear
it this is the output of his motor
cortex sending a command down to his leg
and so now what we’re gonna do is when I
start doing some experiments the first
experiment I’m gonna do is you might be
familiar with this from your doctor’s
office is a little reflex hammer but
we’ve glued an accelerometer in there so
you can actually see right here when I
move the hammer so we’re going to be
able to see the exact moment at which I
hit his knee and we’re gonna measure how
long it takes for the brain to respond
back to bring this that when I hit his
leg
it’s a Zak if you will just I want you
to kind of close your eyes and just
relax I’m gonna give you a whack I’m not
really seeing anything right now so I
mean hit it one more time
alright now we’ve got something so now I
want to do is I wanted to zoom in we’re
gonna capture that activity click here
let me hit it one more time to make sure
I have it oh we’ve got it beautiful
alright so I’m gonna zoom in now and so
that’s where his leg reacted so I’m
gonna measure this time right here and
it’s about 30 milliseconds between when
I hit his knee and when his leg reacted
so now in theory what I’m gonna do is
hit your other knee and so if if the
distance to the brain is the same
between both knees it should be the same
right so we’re gonna trust that out so
Zak close your eyes and when you feel me
hitting your leg now I want you to kick
that leg out okay okay so let’s figure
out where his ah so this is a much much
longer delay between his right leg and
his left leg and the question is why is
that and so if we can go to the slide
for a second I’ll show you there’s
actually some circuitry involved and so
he was correct Rene Descartes was
correct there is a circuit a reflex arc
inside our bodies he’s didn’t know where
it was I
didn’t have quite the the tools for this
and so it turns out that the reflex
arches in his spinal cord so we’re
seeing is it’s a quick round trip
between the leg and back instead of
going back up to the brain and so here
we can see some neuroanatomy being
discovered just by recording from that
from the leg so I’m gonna give a round
of applause for Zack I’m gonna have one
more person to come out and so Valerie
if you will so you have one more
volunteer and what we’re gonna do now is
I mentioned before we’re gonna met we’re
going to measure the internal workings
of the brain using this technique
context this techniques alright so
Valerie I want you to roll you can have
come over here I want you’ll roll up
your sleeve for science and now I’m
it does yes okay so now we’re gonna go
back to this idea of mental chronometry
and we’re gonna measure how long it
takes you to do a very very simple task
until your task is gonna be when you see
a light come on I want you to give me a
response and I’m gonna set it up first
yeah you have a seat I like this bar
stool on the stage idea all right
so hook you up here and here and here
okay so let me reset this guy now get it
off this mode okay so when you’re ready
I want you to go ahead and give me a
squeeze like this like okay that’s
perfect so that’s the output of her
motor cortex right now we should we’ve
established that so far so I just
relaxed oh that’s gonna be your answer
okay the question it is is gonna be when
you see this light come on right here I
want you to move your move your hand as
soon as you see the light okay I’m not
gonna tell you what I’m gonna do it and
when and when the light comes on we’re
gonna see a marker on the screen so just
you relax and just when you see that
light come on okay so you guys so that’s
one second that time bar right there is
one second long when you make a little
bit bigger and so we can measure the
amount of time it’s gonna take her to do
this okay whew there’s a misfire okay
okay as a control the subject was not
look okay all right so all right so here
alright that’s this is about typical it
takes about 150 milliseconds for your
brain to recognize that the light comes
on and we do a responses reaction time
so now the task to be 100% the same when
the red light comes on you are going to
move your arm but now I’m gonna put a
distractor there’s give me a different
color light right and so now what should
happen with a reaction timer should give
you bigger why because we’re doing some
mental processing she’s determining if
it’s a red or green light and then what
we can do now so I’m going to do this a
few times okay yes if we actually do
this and measure it you’re gonna see
there’s a shift in the reaction time for
about 20 to 30 milliseconds and so if
you take the reaction time from the
first task which is just looking for the
light to come on and you subtract it
from the second reaction time which is
waiting between the two lights we can
now determine how long does it take to
recognize a color and then we can divide
that 3 about that how long it takes for
a neuron to fire we can start to piece
apart how does the mental processes
inside the brain works at a neuron level
which is kind of fascinating so with
that I’m gonna end it I’m going to tell
you that we will be set up in the TEDx
labs in the in the ballroom and we’d
like for you guys come down and check it
out and we’re gonna be doing some more
scientific experiments there so thank
you so much for your time and help us
bring on the neural Revolution
[Applause] [Music]
hello I am a neuroscientist or more
specifically I’m a DIY neuroscientist
and what that means is a neuroscientist
obviously studies the brain if you know
any neural scientists they went to
graduate school for five to eight years
toiling away in their PI’s lab just to
get access to the tools to be able to
study the brain now that’s a bit of a
shame because 20% of the entire world
that’s one out of five people have a
neurological disorder and how many
curious do we have zero so it seems a
bit odd the only way that you could
study the brain is to dedicate your life
to that field right it’s not like that
in other fields for example in astronomy
you don’t have to get a PhD in
astrophysics to get access to a
telescope you can buy cheap one at
Walmart and set it up and maybe start to
learn about the heaven to become
interesting become a scientist or make
discoveries the hale-bopp comet was
discovered by an amateur but there was
nothing like that in biology in general
and specifically in neuroscience and so
we started an organization called
backyard brains and what we’re trying to
do is take graduate level research
equipment that allows you to record the
brain and make it available for kids
from kind of fifth grade on up in order
to sort of change Howard
handling neuroscience and for the future
to go to create neuroscientist for the
next generation so I’m gonna do some
experiments today showing this kind of
DIY technology we’ve created and I’m
gonna be introducing a concept you might
not be familiar with called mental
Koenig rafi so from the name mental from
the brain and Kronig Rafi meaning you
know the time we’re gonna be able to
clock the inner workings of the brain to
be able to understand how mental
processes are working and to do this I’m
gonna introduce this person to you guys
yes may be familiar with him he is Rene
de cartes in early 17th century
philosopher but I’m not gonna be talking
about that decart I’m gonna be talking
about a different one and we’re gonna
start with a young boy so decart in
france when he was young he went to the
Royal French gardens and the French King
was a bit of a prankster and he would
put these kind of lifelike mannequins
hidden in the bushes and when people
would walk
they would sort of pop up and score
scare them and then so this happened to
Rene and he was wondering how does this
work and he looked it was a hydraulic
system there was these water pipes that
were going underneath it when you
stepped on it would cause almost
lifelike action in these mannequins
right and so that that stuck with him we
think and that went on throughout his
life and so if you followed his work you
know that he’s also very keen about I
understand how the brain works he was
the father of vivisection so he was
trying to take apart animals and
understand how does these things that
are inside of our body give rise to
behaviors and so if you if you read
about it you’ll see a whole bunch of
discussions about you know how does the
nervous system possibly work and when he
starts thinking about you know this this
experience he had as a child he gets
this idea of stimulus responses from a
figure that he has in 1641 publication
for some reason a baby is sticking his
hand into a flyer but what he’s asking
is is how does this baby like how does
it bring his hand back right and so he
has a couple of hypotheses and one of
them is that there could be like a
thread that’s coming from our body up to
our brain where it interacts with
consciousness you couldn’t escape that
and then it would come back down and
sort of complete the circuit and allow
that muscle to to retract and so we are
gonna test that hypothesis today using
our DIY gear and so I’m gonna ask Zach
to come on on stage so I’ve pre-selected
a few volunteers just because we have a
I’ll set it up over here we’re on a bit
of a time constraint now so I’m gonna go
ahead and whoopsies all right nothing is
destroyed okay I’m gonna go ahead and
hook up some electrodes to Zach it’s
what I want to do is I want to be able
to measure the output from Zach’s brain
out down to his body sort of this thread
that we’re seeing in the in the figure
behind me and so to do that I’m gonna
put some electrodes and these have a
little bit of salt water on them that
allow the electricity to flow from his
body into the electrodes and I’m gonna
stick the electrodes on to his muscle
right here and I’m not gonna stick
Zach’s foot in fire instead you might be
familiar with the patellar
flex when you went to the doctor’s
office so this is another reflex arc
that has a very similar circuitry and
I’m going to be able to measure that
very very carefully today so I’m gonna
plug you in this is our our SpikerBox
here so Zak when you’re ready I want you
to go ahead and kick your leg out in
case you guys can see this you can hear
it this is the output of his motor
cortex sending a command down to his leg
and so now what we’re gonna do is when I
start doing some experiments the first
experiment I’m gonna do is you might be
familiar with this from your doctor’s
office is a little reflex hammer but
we’ve glued an accelerometer in there so
you can actually see right here when I
move the hammer so we’re going to be
able to see the exact moment at which I
hit his knee and we’re gonna measure how
long it takes for the brain to respond
back to bring this that when I hit his
leg
it’s a Zak if you will just I want you
to kind of close your eyes and just
relax I’m gonna give you a whack I’m not
really seeing anything right now so I
mean hit it one more time
alright now we’ve got something so now I
want to do is I wanted to zoom in we’re
gonna capture that activity click here
let me hit it one more time to make sure
I have it oh we’ve got it beautiful
alright so I’m gonna zoom in now and so
that’s where his leg reacted so I’m
gonna measure this time right here and
it’s about 30 milliseconds between when
I hit his knee and when his leg reacted
so now in theory what I’m gonna do is
hit your other knee and so if if the
distance to the brain is the same
between both knees it should be the same
right so we’re gonna trust that out so
Zak close your eyes and when you feel me
hitting your leg now I want you to kick
that leg out okay okay so let’s figure
out where his ah so this is a much much
longer delay between his right leg and
his left leg and the question is why is
that and so if we can go to the slide
for a second I’ll show you there’s
actually some circuitry involved and so
he was correct Rene Descartes was
correct there is a circuit a reflex arc
inside our bodies he’s didn’t know where
it was I
didn’t have quite the the tools for this
and so it turns out that the reflex
arches in his spinal cord so we’re
seeing is it’s a quick round trip
between the leg and back instead of
going back up to the brain and so here
we can see some neuroanatomy being
discovered just by recording from that
from the leg so I’m gonna give a round
of applause for Zack I’m gonna have one
more person to come out and so Valerie
if you will so you have one more
volunteer and what we’re gonna do now is
I mentioned before we’re gonna met we’re
going to measure the internal workings
of the brain using this technique
context this techniques alright so
Valerie I want you to roll you can have
come over here I want you’ll roll up
your sleeve for science and now I’m
it does yes okay so now we’re gonna go
back to this idea of mental chronometry
and we’re gonna measure how long it
takes you to do a very very simple task
until your task is gonna be when you see
a light come on I want you to give me a
response and I’m gonna set it up first
yeah you have a seat I like this bar
stool on the stage idea all right
so hook you up here and here and here
okay so let me reset this guy now get it
off this mode okay so when you’re ready
I want you to go ahead and give me a
squeeze like this like okay that’s
perfect so that’s the output of her
motor cortex right now we should we’ve
established that so far so I just
relaxed oh that’s gonna be your answer
okay the question it is is gonna be when
you see this light come on right here I
want you to move your move your hand as
soon as you see the light okay I’m not
gonna tell you what I’m gonna do it and
when and when the light comes on we’re
gonna see a marker on the screen so just
you relax and just when you see that
light come on okay so you guys so that’s
one second that time bar right there is
one second long when you make a little
bit bigger and so we can measure the
amount of time it’s gonna take her to do
this okay whew there’s a misfire okay
okay as a control the subject was not
look okay all right so all right so here
alright that’s this is about typical it
takes about 150 milliseconds for your
brain to recognize that the light comes
on and we do a responses reaction time
so now the task to be 100% the same when
the red light comes on you are going to
move your arm but now I’m gonna put a
distractor there’s give me a different
color light right and so now what should
happen with a reaction timer should give
you bigger why because we’re doing some
mental processing she’s determining if
it’s a red or green light and then what
we can do now so I’m going to do this a
few times okay yes if we actually do
this and measure it you’re gonna see
there’s a shift in the reaction time for
about 20 to 30 milliseconds and so if
you take the reaction time from the
first task which is just looking for the
light to come on and you subtract it
from the second reaction time which is
waiting between the two lights we can
now determine how long does it take to
recognize a color and then we can divide
that 3 about that how long it takes for
a neuron to fire we can start to piece
apart how does the mental processes
inside the brain works at a neuron level
which is kind of fascinating so with
that I’m gonna end it I’m going to tell
you that we will be set up in the TEDx
labs in the in the ballroom and we’d
like for you guys come down and check it
out and we’re gonna be doing some more
scientific experiments there so thank
you so much for your time and help us
bring on the neural Revolution
[Applause] [Music]
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