This is a thousand-year-old drawing of the brain. It's a diagram of the visual system. And some things look very familiar today. Two eyes at the bottom, optic nerve flowing out from the back. There's a very large nose that doesn't seem to be connected to anything in particular.
Ovo je skica mozga stara hiljadu godina. To je šema vizuelnog sistema. Neke stvari danas izgledaju poznato. Dva oka pri dnu, optički živac koji se proteže od nazad. Tu je i veoma velik nos koji naizgled nije ni sa čim posebno povezan.
And if we compare this to more recent representations of the visual system, you'll see that things have gotten substantially more complicated over the intervening thousand years. And that's because today we can see what's inside of the brain, rather than just looking at its overall shape.
Ako uporedimo ovo sa novijim prikazima vizuelnog sistema, videćete da su se stvari suštinski zakomplikovale tokom pomenutih hiljadu godina. To je zbog toga što danas možemo videti ono što je unutar mozga, umesto da samo gledamo njegov oblik.
Imagine you wanted to understand how a computer works and all you could see was a keyboard, a mouse, a screen. You really would be kind of out of luck. You want to be able to open it up, crack it open, look at the wiring inside. And up until a little more than a century ago, nobody was able to do that with the brain. Nobody had had a glimpse of the brain's wiring.
Zamislite da želite da razumete kako računar radi i sve što možete da vidite jesu tastatura, miš i ekran. Ne biste imali sreće. Želite da ga otvorite, rasklopite, pogledate žice koje su unutra. Sve do pre manje od jednog veka, niko nije mogao to da uradi sa mozgom. NIko nije bacio pogled na veze u mozgu.
And that's because if you take a brain out of the skull and you cut a thin slice of it, put it under even a very powerful microscope, there's nothing there. It's gray, formless. There's no structure. It won't tell you anything.
To je zbog toga što, ako izvadite mozak iz lobanje, i ako isečete tanko parče, stavite ga pod i najmoćniji mikroskop, ništa nećete videti. Sivo je, bez oblika. Ne postoji struktura. Ništa vam neće otkriti.
And this all changed in the late 19th century. Suddenly, new chemical stains for brain tissue were developed and they gave us our first glimpses at brain wiring. The computer was cracked open.
Ovo se sve promenilo krajem 19-og veka. Iznenada, razvijene su nove hemijske boje za moždano tkivo i one su nam dale prve uvide u veze unutar mozga. Računar je bio rasklopljen.
So what really launched modern neuroscience was a stain called the Golgi stain. And it works in a very particular way. Instead of staining all of the cells inside of a tissue, it somehow only stains about one percent of them. It clears the forest, reveals the trees inside. If everything had been labeled, nothing would have been visible. So somehow it shows what's there.
Ono što je zaista pokrenulo modenu neuronauku jeste boja, takozvana Goldžijeva boja. Ona funkcioniše na veoma specifičan način. Umesto da oboji sve ćelije unutar tkiva, ona nekako boji otprilike jedan procenat ćelija. Krči šumu, otkriva drveće. Da je sve bilo obeleženo, ništa ne bi bilo vidljivo. Stoga, nekako, pokazuje šta je tamo.
Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who's widely considered the father of modern neuroscience, applied this Golgi stain, which yields data which looks like this, and really gave us the modern notion of the nerve cell, the neuron. And if you're thinking of the brain as a computer, this is the transistor. And very quickly Cajal realized that neurons don't operate alone, but rather make connections with others that form circuits just like in a computer. Today, a century later, when researchers want to visualize neurons, they light them up from the inside rather than darkening them. And there's several ways of doing this. But one of the most popular ones involves green fluorescent protein. Now green fluorescent protein, which oddly enough comes from a bioluminescent jellyfish, is very useful. Because if you can get the gene for green fluorescent protein and deliver it to a cell, that cell will glow green -- or any of the many variants now of green fluorescent protein, you get a cell to glow many different colors.
Španski stručnjak za neuroanatomiju Santjago Ramon i Kahal, koji se smatra ocem moderne neuronauke, primenio je Goldžijev metod i dobio podatke koji izgledaju ovako, i zaista nam dao moderno viđenje moždane ćelije, neurona. Ako zamišljate mozak kao računar, ovo je tranzistor. Kahal je ubrzo shvatio da neuroni ne funkcionišu sami, već se povezuju sa ostalima i formiraju kolo kao i u računaru. Danas, jedan vek kasnije, kada istraživači žele da prikažu neurone, oni ih osvetle iznutra umesto da ih zatamnjuju. Postoji nekoliko načina da se ovo uradi. Jedan od najpopularnijih uključuje zeleni fluorescentni protein. Zeleni fluorescentni protein, koji potiče od bioluminiscentne meduze, od svih stvari, veoma je koristan. Ako možete iz zelenog fluorescentnog proteina da dobijete gen i sprovedete ga u ćeliju, ta ćelija će svetleti zeleno - ili u nekoj od mnogih varijanata zelenog fluorescentnog proteina, ćelija može da svetli u raznim bojama.
And so coming back to the brain, this is from a genetically engineered mouse called "Brainbow." And it's so called, of course, because all of these neurons are glowing different colors.
Vraćamo se na mozak, ovo je sa genetski modifikovanog miša koji se zove Mozduga. Naravno, tako se zove zato što svi ovi neuroni svetle različitim bojama.
Now sometimes neuroscientists need to identify individual molecular components of neurons, molecules, rather than the entire cell. And there's several ways of doing this, but one of the most popular ones involves using antibodies. And you're familiar, of course, with antibodies as the henchmen of the immune system. But it turns out that they're so useful to the immune system because they can recognize specific molecules, like, for example, the coat protein of a virus that's invading the body. And researchers have used this fact in order to recognize specific molecules inside of the brain, recognize specific substructures of the cell and identify them individually.
Ponekad neuroistraživači moraju da identifikuju pojedinačne molekularne komponente neurona, molekule, umesto celih ćelija. Postoji nekoliko načina da se ovo uradi, ali jedan od najpopularnijih uključuje antitela. Naravno, poznata su vam antitela kao telohranitelji imunog sistema. Ispostavlja se da su tako korisna imunom sistemu zato što mogu da prepoznaju određene molekule, na primer, kodni protein virusa koji napada telo. Istraživači su koristili ovu činjenicu kako bi prepoznali pojedinačne molekule unutar mozga, pojedinačne supstrukture ćelije i identifikovali ih pojedinačno.
And a lot of the images I've been showing you here are very beautiful, but they're also very powerful. They have great explanatory power. This, for example, is an antibody staining against serotonin transporters in a slice of mouse brain.
Dosta slika koje vam pokazujem su prelepe, ali su i veoma moćne. Imaju veliku moć objašnjavanja. Ovo je na primer, bojenje antitelima nasuprot prenosioca serotonina u delu mozga miša.
And you've heard of serotonin, of course, in the context of diseases like depression and anxiety. You've heard of SSRIs, which are drugs that are used to treat these diseases. And in order to understand how serotonin works, it's critical to understand where the serontonin machinery is. And antibody stainings like this one can be used to understand that sort of question.
Naravno, čuli ste za serotonin u kontekstu bolesti poput depresije ili anskioznosti. Čuli ste za selektivne inhibitore preuzimanja serotonina, što su lekovi koji se koriste protiv ovih bolesti. Kako bismo razumeli kako funkcioniše serotonin, ključno je da razumemo gde se nalazi ono što ga pokreće. Bojenje antitelima nalik na ovo može se koristiti da bi se razumela pitanja poput ovog.
I'd like to leave you with the following thought: Green fluorescent protein and antibodies are both totally natural products at the get-go. They were evolved by nature in order to get a jellyfish to glow green for whatever reason, or in order to detect the coat protein of an invading virus, for example. And only much later did scientists come onto the scene and say, "Hey, these are tools, these are functions that we could use in our own research tool palette." And instead of applying feeble human minds to designing these tools from scratch, there were these ready-made solutions right out there in nature developed and refined steadily for millions of years by the greatest engineer of all. Thank you. (Applause)
Želeo bih da vas ostavim sa ovom idejom: zeleni fluorescentni protein i antitela su potpuno prirodni proizvodi u osnovi. Razvila ih je priroda kako bi meduza bila zelena iz kog god razloga, ili da bi se otkrio kodni protein virusa koji napada, na primer. Tek kasnije su stupili naučnici i rekli: "Hej, ovo su alati, ovo su funkcije koje bismo mogli koristiti u našoj paleti alata za istraživanje." Umesto da primene svoje slabašne ljudske umove da izmisle ove alate iz osnova, ovo su gotova rešenja iz prirode, koja je milionima godina razvijao i usavršavao najbolji inženjer na svetu. Hvala vam. (Aplauz)