as a neuroscientist it’s a huge honor to
be here in Germany birthplace of many
famous neuroscientists Hans Berger Franz
Nissel so my talk today is not going to
be covering the history of German
neuroscience although I’d love to do
that it’s about the future of German
neuroscience and so I’m going to begin
by just talking about how do we study
the brain is it’s pretty simple
you dedicate your life you spend six and
a half to seven years in your master’s
lab just to get access to tools at a
graduate school to be able to record
from the brain because you know
equipment is very expensive about forty
thousand dollars there’s only a few
places within a country that you have
access to these types of things and I
think that’s a shame because there’s one
out of five of us as twenty percent of
the entire world has a neurological
disorder and how many cures do we have
for neurological diseases any one no
zero we don’t have any cures for a
neurologic disorder yet the only way
that you can start to learn study the
brain is to dedicate your life and
become a neuroscientist and so it’s not
like that in other areas of science for
example in astronomy you don’t need to
get a PhD in astrophysics to you know
get access to tools to understand a
little bit about how the planets work
and maybe you become interested become
an astrophysicist later in life or maybe
it’s just you’re actually making
discoveries
you know the hale-bopp comet was
discovered by an amateur so by giving
access to to more people I think science
progresses further so when I was a
graduate student my lab mate Tim
Marzullo and myself set out to sort of
change the way that neuroscience
education was being taught we’re trying
to reach back earlier in the process to
get more people interested in becoming
neuroscientists and so we do various
things we had one where was a paper
mache Frankenstein which is an ice cream
brain we had one student that would
scoop out a part of the brain as
scientists we call it a lesion so
you would cut a part of the brain and we
would transfer that through a
transmodulator to another student so we
had for example if you took out the
motor cortex we would pass that lesion
over to a student through the motor
cortex controls movement so we would
have the one student sort of tie their
hands down and you’d go do it the same
thing with the visual cortex and the
amygdala and all this different areas
and so we were noticing that students
were starting to understand a little bit
how different parts of the brain do
different things which is important far
removed the cool stuff we were doing in
the in the lab like actually seeing how
the brain works and this type of stuff
so around this time we decided we want
to come up with a self-imposed
engineering challenge so we created an
abstract the Society for Neuroscience
the largest neuroscience conference in
the world and we said we’re gonna try to
record a spike for less than a hundred
dollars and you can stop by our poster
and take a look and see if it works and
so when people stopped by what they saw
as a Tim and I being much younger
versions of ourselves but showing off
kind of our inventions which is like a
bunch of wing nuts and and balsa wood
but in the end we had an invention that
allowed you to record a spike without
much technology right so unbeknownst to
us this is a bigger deal than what we
thought it would be and it got picked up
by the general nature and all of a
sudden I started getting these emails
about people wanting to have one of
these kits that records the brain at a
low cost fellow scientists to be able to
show others what they’re doing and so we
decided to create a an organization
where backyard brains we started with
the prototype we had at the poster we
kind of came up with this kit right here
which is the SpikerBox which allows you
to replace about 40,000 dollars worth of
research equipment to be able to record
from this the brain and so I used a lot
of terminology already that maybe you’re
not familiar with because I just said we
don’t teach neuroscience that well so
I’m gonna step back for a moment and
describe a bit how this brain works so
we have cells in the brain anyone know
the names the cells of the brain neurons
good neurons communicate with each other
through a long process it’s something
that goes from the center to the hours
of process using electricity and that
electricity comes in a very
think packet it’s called a spike and
it’s through this spike it’s like the
the Euro of the brain the common
currency at which all of our feelings
and emotions are coming in and basically
our motor outputs coming out are all
passed around in this in this type of
electrical currency and so what I’m
going to do now is record from a living
brain but I’m not going to record from
my brain I’m going to record from the
brains of these guys here these are
South American cockroaches la Cucaracha
so they are Latinos but they are having
brains that are very very similar to
ours if we take a look at the the Sun up
here we have about a hundred billion of
about eighty billion neurons in our
brain but the cockroaches have about a
million but the individual neuron itself
is very similar if you took a slice of
tissue you would be able to tell the
difference if it was your brain or
cockroach’s brain inside the slice and
then so what we’re going to do now is
I’m going to put the cockroach into the
ice water and I’m going to anesthetize
the cockroach okay
alright so I’m gonna put the cockroach
into the ice water and we’re gonna
anesthetize the cockroach and then
what’s happening right now is that the
neurons inside of his body have these
little ion channels to open and close
and as things get colder what happens it
slows down these things that so the ion
challenge gonna chill out we’re gonna be
able to remove one of his legs and be
able to record from a neuron inside the
leg all right so let’s just talk about
this for briefly about the experiment
and we’ll get into the ethics of this in
a second all right
so the neurons inside the legs are
sending information from the leg all the
way to the central nervous system okay
so there there’s a little neuron in each
hair and as you touch the hair it’s
going to tell the brain of the cockroach
that something is touching it so I’m
gonna take off one of his legs but I
want to make you feel good you guys you
know this is a very green process if you
remove a leg from a cockroach they’re
much cooler than us they’re likes to
regrow so here’s an experiment that my
my co-founder did published in PLoS ONE
this this year that shows after 43 days
a cockroach leg will regrow on a little
nub and if you wait for the next molt
you can’t tell the difference between
the left which was the control leg and
the right that was removed so I’m gonna
do that right now and I’m gonna take a
cockroach and I’m gonna remove its leg
and the reason why I’m gonna remove it
is so that we can warm it up and record
the neurons that are inside of it so I’m
just let me so we found out that cutting
it was actually worse and ripping it off
so cockroaches are designed to be able
to rip off their legs when in times of
trouble so so what we’re going to do now
so now the leg is warming up I’m going
to put a couple of pins into the leg and
we’re gonna be able to record the
electrical activity from those neurons
that they communicate with each other
and I’m gonna place the pins into the
leg right now and we’re gonna ease drop
in on one neuron talking to the brain
and telling it information about touch
and wind things that are kind of
important to a cockroach that’s that’s
wants to survive another day
all right so without further ado let me
find my my speaker here I’m going to
turn
is up I’m going to turn this on we’re
gonna listen to possibly for the first
time what the brain sounds like okay I’m
gonna turn this on beautiful does that
sound like anything to you guys hear
anything is that noise did it work so
what you’re hearing is that raindrops it
sounds almost like so this is actually
the spikes of the brain so what I can do
is I can show you you guys are you guys
are all neuroscientists here so we want
to make sure that we prove to you that
these are real and you’re actually
recording the spikes of a cockroach so
I’m gonna do an experiment now so we can
even do it without even we can just
listen so you’re gonna be able you’re
not gonna be able to see what I’m
touching the leg but you’re gonna be
able to hear a difference and that
difference is in the messages that are
being sent to the brain so how are you
ready so I’m have a little cockroach leg
do you hear that noise that’s going on
those are the spikes that are coming
from the brain from the leg of the
cockroach that neurons living in that
hair as I touch it it’s sending
information out to the to the brain
which is now sitting in here but the
neuron is alive it doesn’t know that
it’ll stay alive for about two to three
days which is kind of cool though this
is to summarize information this is
something that a student can do even in
the fifth and sixth grade to be able to
understand something very important it’s
a long time as neuroscience to figure
this out that information is encoded by
spikes and the rate of the of the number
of spikes per second is it encodes the
information okay so you can imagine what
kids look like when they actually see
this for the very first time many people
don’t know this is eye capping inside
their body and so we bring this around
the country and people are just amazed
by what’s going on here and so what we
do is we we come up with a number of
experiments I’m a neuroscientist and we
and we find out ways that we can sort of
address some particular thing rate
coding or you know neuro chemical
reactions and and make them into
experiments for people to work on so now
I want to just do one more experiment
that’s gonna do on the output of the
brain so we were looking at the input of
the brain looking at the recording from
neurons now I’m going to look at the
output of the brain I need some
volunteers from the audience do I have a
volunteer no this is Germany come on
don’t do this to me all right
you can come down all right and then you
was there someone here that raised her
hand yeah come on down as well all right
round of applause
what’s your name Alex you hang out here
for a second you get to keep your leg
what’s your name Sven yeah
all right so find you come over here so
actually just chill for one second
Netflix and chill this is about trust
you got to trust us all right so I’m
gonna I’m gonna have you spend yeah give
me your arm yeah so I’m gonna record now
from the output of your motor cortex
which is right here it’s gonna say
there’s a neuron in the BET cell largest
cells that neocortex is going to cross
over synapse on your spinal cord to come
out to your arm and so what we’re able
to do is do a bio hack as it hits the
arm
it causes neurons to fire in your muscle
fibers and we’re gonna be able to
amplify that and be able to listen to
what your brain sounds like as amplified
through the muscle fibers okay so you
just give me a second here and I’m gonna
plug you in and we’re gonna listen to
your brain are you ready so when your
eyes we just squeeze your hand okay
really hard it’s not beautiful okay so
this is your eyes this is yeah so now
but we are we are clever scientists we
want to move on and do something cool
with that right and we’ll get to you in
a second right so first thing we want to
do is we’re going to take our technology
and put it into an hour doing Yoda it’s
a microcontroller and so we can actually
do interesting stuff with that so we if
you squeeze your hand the first thing we
do is make a simple brain machine
interface so as you squeeze it you’re
causing a row of lights to turn on so
your brain is controlling lights whoo
all right
not that interesting but let’s make it
more interesting so this is Germany
let’s do something more more appropriate
so we’re gonna make it we’re gonna make
techno music so you’re now going to
control this 8-bit synth so when you’re
ready I want you to go ahead and give it
a pump alright that’s cool right that’s
a very very important thing here alright
that’s cool
alright so even more important than that
is maybe we could do something and make
it a brain machine interface so hold
this with your other hand and so I’m
gonna plug in a battery here and we’re
gonna have your brain control not only
your hand on your left hand but also
this robotic hand on the other side so
when you’re ready I want you to squeeze
your hand so this is now a brain machine
interface done in a very simple way that
even a student would be able to sort of
grasp the idea of so go really hard ok
and then relax it ok so that even a
student would understand how the
technology can be used and actually
start to use this in the real world all
right so now my friend Alex come on come
on over here I need you we’re going to
do one last experiment which is which is
fun and it’s about trust alright so what
we’re gonna do now is I’m gonna we know
now that we record from your brain we’re
recording from here as it’s in dances
here it comes out here arm as you move
your arm here ok so when you bring your
hand out and you yeah let’s do we can do
this one this is fine so as you move
your hand like this you have neurons
here that are synapsing on your spinal
cord and coming out here just like you
are so when your both hands are moving
both brains are kind of doing similar
things and so what would happen now is
that we know that we can record from the
output of your brain because we saw
controlling the hand what happens we
took that EMG the electro myelogram and
I injected it into your arm where it
would have come from your brain already
you would have passed your freewill over
to you and you will have your brain will
be controlling both your arm and
you’re armed and you’ve you know you’ve
lost her your agency is gone okay sorry
alright so we’ll do an experiment and
see if that works I’m gonna do another
biohack here which is I’m gonna stick
electrodes on your ulnar nerve which is
your funny bone if you ever hit your
funny bone before and what’s going to
happen is we’re gonna take a little
amplifier here and I’m gonna amplify
your electrode myelogram and have it
trigger your muscles here so in your all
nerve runs up here is really close to
the bone so it’s easy to stimulate so
I’m just gonna push an electrode here in
here and then I’m gonna hold this here
and now when I plug this to you two
together you guys will become one
cybernetic organism and there is okay so
you guys are now one I’m going to turn
up so I want you to look how to look
away so you’re gonna look at what just
relax that hand and whenever you want to
you can just slowly start you can just
give it a few pumps you want to get up
to there with that right there you go
but not too much okay just chill alright
so we’ll do it again I’m gonna trip a
little bit more so okay you start you
feel that okay alright so so okay so
you’re starting to see something here
okay this is called threshold all right
so this is a cyber trip just a little
bit more are you comfortable with that
so when you want to go ahead and alright
so now so you have lost the freewill of
this hand so go ahead and do it again so
know what happened now so your brain is
firing action potentials heading down
your spinal cord coming out to your arm
we’re picking it up and sticking in
where your brain would to come out there
so what would happen now if you just
relax your hand let it fall to the
ground like you have no yeah what would
happen now if I took my freewill away
from you could we move his hand you
think what do you think yes okay
anyone say no not good no I won thank
you so we’re gonna do an experiment now
so just you keep it relaxed I’m gonna
move my hand move her hands as much as I
want and nothing’s happened why not her
brain isn’t engaged right so go ahead
really quick make sure it still works
every experiment needs to control all
right so let’s turn that off let’s have
a round of applause for our volunteers
here especially you Alex you guys can
keep those you keep those perfect all
right and I’m just gonna just summarize
by by telling you that this is something
that that we started a number of years
ago and we’re starting to see the fruits
of that labor we already have you know
middle school kids that are winning
science fair awards and doing new
experiments that are kind of pushing the
boundaries of science and just last week
I was at the Society for Neuroscience
the largest neuroscience conference
again and a young student who is a
graduate student in a research lab is
presenting his first poster and stopped
by to let us know that it was because of
this organization in our SpikerBox that
he did in high school
that encouraged him to become a
neuroscientist so I ask you here in
Germany to tell your friends and family
and colleagues that are in the education
business that you saw something very
cool at TEDx Frankfurt and that you
should be pushing neuroscience into into
the early education as well so thank you
so much [Applause]
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