[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
hi everyone it’s great pleasure to be
here so today I want to tell you about a
short story that is going on in my
laboratory related to brain science with
the title brain on a chip how do we
start let’s start with a simple thing
let’s start with the brain we all know
brain is important brain is the organ
that defines us as an individual another
thing that we know is that brain is
complex brain is composed of hundred
billions of neurons each of which making
connections thousands of connections
with each other hundred billion neurons
making hundred trillion connections that
is complex now understanding the brain
function is without doubt one of the
greatest challenges of the 21st century
science and many people are working very
hard at it and also many people believe
the starting point might be to build the
map of the brain like this well this is
a map of Seoul but let’s say that this
map will rain what do I mean by a map of
the brain what I mean by that is to know
the location of each and every cell of
in the brain doing what kind it is
because there are lots of different
kinds of brain cells in the brain and in
doing each and every connections between
them that is a daunting task that
requires a lot of technological advances
but we are making a lot of progress for
example if you’re talking about brain of
a small animal like a fruit fly we now
have a complete map we know the location
of each and every neuron inside that
brain
we know what type they are we know what
kind of connections that they are making
even for the bigger brain like human
brain we have rough yet extremely useful
math for example we know what different
regions are doing and what kind of
connections that they are making so we
are making progress toward building a
map of the brain does that mean that we
understand the brain function the answer
is simple no right so think about this
particular map and let’s say that
somebody give you this map and then ask
you okay I have now given you a map
would you please tell me what was going
on in their city then you’ll be like
what the heck and then actually move on
so map itself is not enough you actually
have to add a context you have to add
people you have to add cards you have to
do a lot of different things in order to
use that map to understand the function
how do you do it
well one clue comes from the fact that
neurons communicate with each other
through electrochemical means their
signal is electrical and there are many
many many neurons many many electrical
do those word remind you of something it
might because it’s similar to computer
chips computer chips use electrical
signals and there are lots of elements
billions and trillions if you think
about it those are the words that you
actually have used quite often when you
describe computer chips gigabits per
second terabytes those are words that we
use quite often so in addition to that
computer chips you know that are
properly designed can be used to sense
electrochemical signals as well so you
might think then okay computer chips
which
many many elements and which can detect
electrochemical signals if people took
brains on top then we are done right
the answer is of course not again why
because brain is living computer cell
computer chip is not it’s dead brain is
soft computer chip is hard brain is
three-dimensional computer chip is now
so making an efficient interface between
a computer chip and brain is a difficult
task a lot of people are making
beautiful progress toward it but it is
still a very challenging task so most of
the tools that are available now based
upon computer chips turns out to be low
fidelity what do I mean by that let’s
say you come to visit Boston where I
live and you hear that Boston Red Sox is
red-hot
they are baseball team and they are
really good at the moment and so you
decide to go to the Fenway Park and then
get in there and see how they are
playing and you find out that oh hold on
a second the tickets are all sold out
what do you do you sit outside the
Fenway Park listen to the crowds and
then whenever there is a roar then that
means that all something interesting is
happening that’s one way to watch the
baseball game and that’s actually what
computer chips so called micro electrode
arrays are doing when you are talking
about when you are trying to connect
with the brain but of course if you want
to learn deeply about what brain cells
are doing you want to get into the park
and then watch it yourself right and
that what we are trying to do we have
been working on there for the past seven
or eight years how do we do it by
leveraging nanotechnology basically what
we are doing is to connect the brain and
a computer chip through the nano scale
electrode so that we can build an
efficient interface
between them in a sense what we are
building can be considered as a special
type of camera chip this is image of the
chips that we are generating with new
runs on top what do I mean by Tamara
chip you guys all have a camera chip in
your cell phone right they have many
many different pixels and each pixel
records light signal and as a
consequence using that camera chip you
can take a picture or a movie our chip
do not detect my signal it still has a
lot of pixels but each pixel response to
the neuronal chatter instead of
detecting my signal when during shout
those pixels generate a big signal when
neurons whisper they generate smaller
signal so using our computer chip with
nanoscale electrodes that can interface
with neurons you can actually record new
movies about how the neurons are talking
to each other like this so this
particular movie that I will show is the
movie generated by placing brain cells
from a schizophrenia patient what we did
was to actually get the skin cells from
the schizophrenia patients convert them
into the induced pluripotent stem cells
and then derive them into the neurons
and then put them onto our computer chip
and record their activities using our
computer chip whenever you see those
white dots that means that neurons on
top of that pixel is talking if it’s
bright white that means it’s shining
with its dim light white that means it’s
whispering and by recording these types
of movies for a long time and by
analyzing in detail you can actually
build a detailed pictures about the
connections between the neurons as well
as their function and that what we are
now trying to do so that sounds all good
except the fact that it’s not clear
exactly how can I use it at the moment
so we have a new tool tool is the two of
you
tool until you use it and to do useful
things right so what do we do with it
that’s a question so one of the first
things that we are now trying to do with
those types of computer chips ticket
talk to the brain cells is to use them
as a drug screening tool so it turns out
that there are lots of different brain
disease neurological disorders they have
one thing in common there is no
effective cure for any of them one of
the reason why is quite clear we don’t
know how the brain works that well at
the moment as a consequence developing a
cure is difficult another somewhat more
minor but still important reason is
because there is no effective way of
screening drug candidate for particular
types of neurological disorder so shown
here is one of the machines that people
are now using in order to screen for a
different kind of drugs basically what
they do is to put isolated neuron like
cells into this machine give them lots
of different drugs see how those neuron
likes cells are responding and then find
the promising candidate and move on to
the second stage but there are some
things that is vacuum first they test
with isolate itself and they do not even
work with the brain cells but brain cell
like cells some cells that are not brain
cells but behave similarly so there are
lots of deficiencies in these types of
testing and we believe that computer
chip that we are generating can help
improve those types of situations after
all we can talk to thousands of neurons
at the same time and those neurons can
be patient derived meaning that we can
actually get them from patient and we
can actually test different types of
drugs on them and see which actually
works better so together with Mass
General Hospital Heart Medical School
and the Broad Institute we are working
very hard to test variety on drugs for
different types of neural
disorder so that’s one thing that we do
what other things would we do well the
other thing that we do second thing that
we try to do is to inform on neural
network and neuromorphic chips now
neural network in neuromorphic chips you
might have heard about them because they
are the workhorse of so-called
artificial intelligence which is
transforming our lives at the moment as
we speak so neural network and
neuromorphic computing chips as their
name suggests are inspired by biological
brain the problem is that over the past
thirty years because brain science was
sort of stagnating these areas in
computational science actually developed
independently so by now computational
neural network and biological neural
network although they share different
types of syntaxes or language they are
quite distinct I believe that the
computer chips that we’re generating
might be able to help to remedy this
situation by bridging the gap so what we
are trying to do is the following
use our computer chips to learn about
the architectures of the connections in
a biological tissue say retina use that
information to build a better
neuromorphic chips and then see whether
we can actually improve their function
for example Pidgeon processor would it
work
remains to be seen but at least we are
trying quite hard the third area that we
are excited about is brain machine
interface and this area the work in this
area at least in my group was inspired
by this particular video recorded by
John Donahoe scoop at the Brown
University he’s a good friend of mine he
is a word expert in brain machine
interfaces so in this video you will see
this particular patient with a
quadruplet quadriplegia she cannot move
her hand or leg neck down
so she volunteered to do the experiment
so
actually implanted this brain machine
interfaces to her head and she actually
you know and bickered what she is trying
to think and then use that information
and analyze them using a computer’s over
there and then move the robotic arms
over here so you will see that in this
particular movie that she is trying to
move that bottle and then drink
something from it now this movie is
remarkably in a lot of different sense
but the thing is that what moves me most
is at the end she can now move the
robotic arms and can drink the content I
don’t know what it was in there but what
most amazing is how happy she is
afterwards having said that there are
lots of different problems well do you
want to have this on your head which is
connected by wire to the computer and
although it’s not seeing in her head in
her brain there is this surgically
implanted not necessarily good thing so
what we are trying to do is to improve
upon the situation by making smaller
better and hopefully wireless interface
can be done or not remains to be seen
but at least I believe it’s worthwhile
trying
of course we are not the only people who
are trying to work in that area there
are lots of different people who are
making beautiful progress in that area
there are lots of companies who are
trying to leverage those advances and
then make advances now that’s a great
thing because it can change people’s
lives but at the same time it’s a
dangerous thing as well because it can
be problematic what happens if somebody
hacks into the computer chips in your
brain or if the brain chip actually
malfunctions you do something whose
fault is it how do we deal with it
either
no but the thing is that whenever just
like any other cases whenever there is a
breakthrough technological advances
there are implications societal
implications that comes with it not only
we actually have to work on the advances
in technology but we actually have to be
ready that their societal societal
impact and there are lots of different
examples of that this is one simple
examples of that so let me end by giving
a proper credit to the people who
deserve all the credit so these are the
people who actually worked in the in my
lab to make that happen
Geoffrey Abbott and Chen yang Yi do that
too there are two people who actually
made those computer chips possible and
last and not the least is my close
friend and dear collaborator Tony hem
with the electrical engineering
professor at Harvard University without
him all those computer chips would not
have been possible and thank you very much for your attention
[Applause]
[Music]
hi everyone it’s great pleasure to be
here so today I want to tell you about a
short story that is going on in my
laboratory related to brain science with
the title brain on a chip how do we
start let’s start with a simple thing
let’s start with the brain we all know
brain is important brain is the organ
that defines us as an individual another
thing that we know is that brain is
complex brain is composed of hundred
billions of neurons each of which making
connections thousands of connections
with each other hundred billion neurons
making hundred trillion connections that
is complex now understanding the brain
function is without doubt one of the
greatest challenges of the 21st century
science and many people are working very
hard at it and also many people believe
the starting point might be to build the
map of the brain like this well this is
a map of Seoul but let’s say that this
map will rain what do I mean by a map of
the brain what I mean by that is to know
the location of each and every cell of
in the brain doing what kind it is
because there are lots of different
kinds of brain cells in the brain and in
doing each and every connections between
them that is a daunting task that
requires a lot of technological advances
but we are making a lot of progress for
example if you’re talking about brain of
a small animal like a fruit fly we now
have a complete map we know the location
of each and every neuron inside that
brain
we know what type they are we know what
kind of connections that they are making
even for the bigger brain like human
brain we have rough yet extremely useful
math for example we know what different
regions are doing and what kind of
connections that they are making so we
are making progress toward building a
map of the brain does that mean that we
understand the brain function the answer
is simple no right so think about this
particular map and let’s say that
somebody give you this map and then ask
you okay I have now given you a map
would you please tell me what was going
on in their city then you’ll be like
what the heck and then actually move on
so map itself is not enough you actually
have to add a context you have to add
people you have to add cards you have to
do a lot of different things in order to
use that map to understand the function
how do you do it
well one clue comes from the fact that
neurons communicate with each other
through electrochemical means their
signal is electrical and there are many
many many neurons many many electrical
do those word remind you of something it
might because it’s similar to computer
chips computer chips use electrical
signals and there are lots of elements
billions and trillions if you think
about it those are the words that you
actually have used quite often when you
describe computer chips gigabits per
second terabytes those are words that we
use quite often so in addition to that
computer chips you know that are
properly designed can be used to sense
electrochemical signals as well so you
might think then okay computer chips
which
many many elements and which can detect
electrochemical signals if people took
brains on top then we are done right
the answer is of course not again why
because brain is living computer cell
computer chip is not it’s dead brain is
soft computer chip is hard brain is
three-dimensional computer chip is now
so making an efficient interface between
a computer chip and brain is a difficult
task a lot of people are making
beautiful progress toward it but it is
still a very challenging task so most of
the tools that are available now based
upon computer chips turns out to be low
fidelity what do I mean by that let’s
say you come to visit Boston where I
live and you hear that Boston Red Sox is
red-hot
they are baseball team and they are
really good at the moment and so you
decide to go to the Fenway Park and then
get in there and see how they are
playing and you find out that oh hold on
a second the tickets are all sold out
what do you do you sit outside the
Fenway Park listen to the crowds and
then whenever there is a roar then that
means that all something interesting is
happening that’s one way to watch the
baseball game and that’s actually what
computer chips so called micro electrode
arrays are doing when you are talking
about when you are trying to connect
with the brain but of course if you want
to learn deeply about what brain cells
are doing you want to get into the park
and then watch it yourself right and
that what we are trying to do we have
been working on there for the past seven
or eight years how do we do it by
leveraging nanotechnology basically what
we are doing is to connect the brain and
a computer chip through the nano scale
electrode so that we can build an
efficient interface
between them in a sense what we are
building can be considered as a special
type of camera chip this is image of the
chips that we are generating with new
runs on top what do I mean by Tamara
chip you guys all have a camera chip in
your cell phone right they have many
many different pixels and each pixel
records light signal and as a
consequence using that camera chip you
can take a picture or a movie our chip
do not detect my signal it still has a
lot of pixels but each pixel response to
the neuronal chatter instead of
detecting my signal when during shout
those pixels generate a big signal when
neurons whisper they generate smaller
signal so using our computer chip with
nanoscale electrodes that can interface
with neurons you can actually record new
movies about how the neurons are talking
to each other like this so this
particular movie that I will show is the
movie generated by placing brain cells
from a schizophrenia patient what we did
was to actually get the skin cells from
the schizophrenia patients convert them
into the induced pluripotent stem cells
and then derive them into the neurons
and then put them onto our computer chip
and record their activities using our
computer chip whenever you see those
white dots that means that neurons on
top of that pixel is talking if it’s
bright white that means it’s shining
with its dim light white that means it’s
whispering and by recording these types
of movies for a long time and by
analyzing in detail you can actually
build a detailed pictures about the
connections between the neurons as well
as their function and that what we are
now trying to do so that sounds all good
except the fact that it’s not clear
exactly how can I use it at the moment
so we have a new tool tool is the two of
you
tool until you use it and to do useful
things right so what do we do with it
that’s a question so one of the first
things that we are now trying to do with
those types of computer chips ticket
talk to the brain cells is to use them
as a drug screening tool so it turns out
that there are lots of different brain
disease neurological disorders they have
one thing in common there is no
effective cure for any of them one of
the reason why is quite clear we don’t
know how the brain works that well at
the moment as a consequence developing a
cure is difficult another somewhat more
minor but still important reason is
because there is no effective way of
screening drug candidate for particular
types of neurological disorder so shown
here is one of the machines that people
are now using in order to screen for a
different kind of drugs basically what
they do is to put isolated neuron like
cells into this machine give them lots
of different drugs see how those neuron
likes cells are responding and then find
the promising candidate and move on to
the second stage but there are some
things that is vacuum first they test
with isolate itself and they do not even
work with the brain cells but brain cell
like cells some cells that are not brain
cells but behave similarly so there are
lots of deficiencies in these types of
testing and we believe that computer
chip that we are generating can help
improve those types of situations after
all we can talk to thousands of neurons
at the same time and those neurons can
be patient derived meaning that we can
actually get them from patient and we
can actually test different types of
drugs on them and see which actually
works better so together with Mass
General Hospital Heart Medical School
and the Broad Institute we are working
very hard to test variety on drugs for
different types of neural
disorder so that’s one thing that we do
what other things would we do well the
other thing that we do second thing that
we try to do is to inform on neural
network and neuromorphic chips now
neural network in neuromorphic chips you
might have heard about them because they
are the workhorse of so-called
artificial intelligence which is
transforming our lives at the moment as
we speak so neural network and
neuromorphic computing chips as their
name suggests are inspired by biological
brain the problem is that over the past
thirty years because brain science was
sort of stagnating these areas in
computational science actually developed
independently so by now computational
neural network and biological neural
network although they share different
types of syntaxes or language they are
quite distinct I believe that the
computer chips that we’re generating
might be able to help to remedy this
situation by bridging the gap so what we
are trying to do is the following
use our computer chips to learn about
the architectures of the connections in
a biological tissue say retina use that
information to build a better
neuromorphic chips and then see whether
we can actually improve their function
for example Pidgeon processor would it
work
remains to be seen but at least we are
trying quite hard the third area that we
are excited about is brain machine
interface and this area the work in this
area at least in my group was inspired
by this particular video recorded by
John Donahoe scoop at the Brown
University he’s a good friend of mine he
is a word expert in brain machine
interfaces so in this video you will see
this particular patient with a
quadruplet quadriplegia she cannot move
her hand or leg neck down
so she volunteered to do the experiment
so
actually implanted this brain machine
interfaces to her head and she actually
you know and bickered what she is trying
to think and then use that information
and analyze them using a computer’s over
there and then move the robotic arms
over here so you will see that in this
particular movie that she is trying to
move that bottle and then drink
something from it now this movie is
remarkably in a lot of different sense
but the thing is that what moves me most
is at the end she can now move the
robotic arms and can drink the content I
don’t know what it was in there but what
most amazing is how happy she is
afterwards having said that there are
lots of different problems well do you
want to have this on your head which is
connected by wire to the computer and
although it’s not seeing in her head in
her brain there is this surgically
implanted not necessarily good thing so
what we are trying to do is to improve
upon the situation by making smaller
better and hopefully wireless interface
can be done or not remains to be seen
but at least I believe it’s worthwhile
trying
of course we are not the only people who
are trying to work in that area there
are lots of different people who are
making beautiful progress in that area
there are lots of companies who are
trying to leverage those advances and
then make advances now that’s a great
thing because it can change people’s
lives but at the same time it’s a
dangerous thing as well because it can
be problematic what happens if somebody
hacks into the computer chips in your
brain or if the brain chip actually
malfunctions you do something whose
fault is it how do we deal with it
either
no but the thing is that whenever just
like any other cases whenever there is a
breakthrough technological advances
there are implications societal
implications that comes with it not only
we actually have to work on the advances
in technology but we actually have to be
ready that their societal societal
impact and there are lots of different
examples of that this is one simple
examples of that so let me end by giving
a proper credit to the people who
deserve all the credit so these are the
people who actually worked in the in my
lab to make that happen
Geoffrey Abbott and Chen yang Yi do that
too there are two people who actually
made those computer chips possible and
last and not the least is my close
friend and dear collaborator Tony hem
with the electrical engineering
professor at Harvard University without
him all those computer chips would not
have been possible and thank you very much for your attention
Please follow and like us: