I had brain surgery 18 years ago, and since that time, brain science has become a personal passion of mine. I'm actually an engineer. And first let me say, I recently joined Google's Moonshot group, where I had a division, the display division in Google X, and the brain science work I'm speaking about today is work I did before I joined Google and on the side outside of Google.
Bila sam na operaciji mozga prije 18 godina, i otada je neuroznanost postala moja strast. Ja sam zapravo inženjer. Molim vas prvo mi dopustite da kažem da sam se nedavno pridružila Googleovoj Moonshot grupi gdje sam imala odjel, odjel za prikazivanje u Google X-u a neuroznanstvenim radom o kojem ću govoriti danas sam se bavila prije nego sam se pridružila Googleu i dok sam radila za Google to mi je bio projekt sa strane.
So that said, there's a stigma when you have brain surgery. Are you still smart or not? And if not, can you make yourself smart again?
Rekavši ovo, postoji stigma za osobe koje su imale operaciju na mozgu. Jeste li još pametni ili ne? A ako niste, možete li ponovno postati pametni?
After my neurosurgery, part of my brain was missing, and I had to deal with that. It wasn't the grey matter, but it was the gooey part dead center that makes key hormones and neurotransmitters. Immediately after my surgery, I had to decide what amounts of each of over a dozen powerful chemicals to take each day, because if I just took nothing, I would die within hours. Every day now for 18 years -- every single day -- I've had to try to decide the combinations and mixtures of chemicals, and try to get them, to stay alive. There have been several close calls.
Nakon operacije na mozgu, nedostajao mi je jedan dio mozga, i ja sam se jednostavno morala suočiti s tim. Nije to bila siva tvar, već je to bio ljigavi dio na sredini koji proizvodi ključne hormone i neurotransmitere. Odmah nakon operacije morala sam odlučiti o dozama svakog od desetak jakih lijekova koje ću uzimati svaki dan jer da ne uzimam ništa, umrla bih unutar nekoliko sati. Svaki dan već 18 godina -- svaki, baš svaki dan -- morala sam pokušati odlučiti o kombinaciji i mješavini lijekova, te ih nabaviti kako bih preživjela. Nekoliko puta sam izbjegla smrt za dlaku.
But luckily, I'm an experimentalist at heart, so I decided I would experiment to try to find more optimal dosages because there really isn't a clear road map on this that's detailed. I began to try different mixtures, and I was blown away by how tiny changes in dosages dramatically changed my sense of self, my sense of who I was, my thinking, my behavior towards people. One particularly dramatic case: for a couple months I actually tried dosages and chemicals typical of a man in his early 20s, and I was blown away by how my thoughts changed. (Laughter) I was angry all the time, I thought about sex constantly, and I thought I was the smartest person in the entire world, and —(Laughter)— of course over the years I'd met guys kind of like that, or maybe kind of toned-down versions of that. I was kind of extreme. But to me, the surprise was, I wasn't trying to be arrogant. I was actually trying, with a little bit of insecurity, to actually fix a problem in front of me, and it just didn't come out that way.
Ali na sreću, ja sam eksperimentator u srcu, pa sam odlučila eksperimentirati kako bih pokušala naći optimalnu dozu zato što ne postoje jasne upute za ovakve slučajeve koje su detaljno opisane Počela sam isprobavati različite mješavine, i šokiralo me kako male promjene u doziranju dramatično mijenjaju moje poimanje same sebe, poimanje tko sam ja, moje razmišljanje, moje ponašanje prema ljudima. Jedan posebno dramatičan slučaj: nekoliko mjeseci sam koristila dozu i lijekove karakteristične za muškarca u ranim 20-ima, i potpuno me šokiralo kako su se moje misli promijenile. (Smijeh) Bila sam ljuta cijelo vrijeme, stalno sam mislila o seksu, i mislila sam da sam najpametnija osoba na cijelom svijetu, i --(Smijeh)-- naravno tijekom godina sam upoznala dečke koji su na neki način takvi, ili koji su možda malo blaža verzija toga. Bila sam pomalo ekstremna. Ali za mene je bilo iznenađujuće to što ja nisam pokušavala biti arogantna. Zapravo sam pokušavala, pomalo nesigurna, zapravo riješiti problem koji se našao preda mnom ali to jednostavno nije tako ispalo..
So I couldn't handle it. I changed my dosages. But that experience, I think, gave me a new appreciation for men and what they might walk through, and I've gotten along with men a lot better since then.
Tako da to nisam mogla riješiti. Promijenila sam dozu. Ali, mislim, da mi je to iskustvo donijelo novopronađeno poštovanje za muškarce i za ono što bi oni mogli proživljavati, i mnogo se bolje slažem s muškarcima otada.
What I was trying to do with tuning these hormones and neurotransmitters and so forth was to try to get my intelligence back after my illness and surgery, my creative thought, my idea flow. And I think mostly in images, and so for me that became a key metric -- how to get these mental images that I use as a way of rapid prototyping, if you will, my ideas, trying on different new ideas for size, playing out scenarios. This kind of thinking isn't new. Philiosophers like Hume and Descartes and Hobbes saw things similarly. They thought that mental images and ideas were actually the same thing. There are those today that dispute that, and lots of debates about how the mind works, but for me it's simple: Mental images, for most of us, are central in inventive and creative thinking.
Ono što sam pokušavala napraviti regulirajući ove hormone i neurotransmitere i slično jest vratiti natrag inteligenciju nakon bolesti i operacije, moje kreativne ideje, moj tijek ideja. Ja razmišljam uglavnom u slikama i zbog toga je to za mene postalo ključna mjera -- kako upotrijebiti ove mentalne slike koje koristim kao vrstu brzog stvaranja prototipa, jednostavno rečeno, moje ideje, isprobavajući različite nove ideje, odigravajući različite scenarije. Ova vrsta razmišljanja nije ništa novo. Filozofi poput Humea i Descartesa i Hobbesa su slično gledali na stvari. Oni su smatrali da su mentalne slike i ideje zapravo isto. Danas postoje oni koji to pobijaju, i vodi se mnogo rasprava o tome kako mozak radi, ali za mene je to vrlo jednostavno: Mentalne slike, za većinu nas, su ključne za inventivno i kreativno razmišljanje.
So after several years, I tuned myself up and I have lots of great, really vivid mental images with a lot of sophistication and the analytical backbone behind them. And so now I'm working on, how can I get these mental images in my mind out to my computer screen faster? Can you imagine, if you will, a movie director being able to use her imagination alone to direct the world in front of her? Or a musician to get the music out of his head? There are incredible possibilities with this as a way for creative people to share at light speed. And the truth is, the remaining bottleneck in being able to do this is just upping the resolution of brain scan systems.
Tako nakon nekoliko godina, podesila sam sve sustave i imam mnogo divnih, vrlo živih, vrlo sofisticiranih mentalnih slika koje imaju analitičku kičmu kao temelj. I sada radim na tome da vidim na koji način mogu mentalne slike iz mozga brže prenijeti na zaslon računala? Možete li zamisliti, molim vas, filmsku redateljicu koja je sposobna koristiti samo svoju maštu kako bi režirala svijet koji se nalazi ispred nje? Ili glazbenika kako bi prenio glazbu iz svoje glave? Postoje nevjerovatne stvari koje možemo raditi s ovim kako bi kreativni ljudi mogli dijeliti svoje zamisli brzinom svjetlosti. A istina je da je jedina preostala prepreka koja nas sprečava da ovo učinimo zapravo samo poboljšanje rezolucije sustava za skeniranje mozga.
So let me show you why I think we're pretty close to getting there by sharing with you two recent experiments from two top neuroscience groups. Both used fMRI technology -- functional magnetic resonance imaging technology -- to image the brain, and here is a brain scan set from Giorgio Ganis and his colleagues at Harvard. And the left-hand column shows a brain scan of a person looking at an image. The middle column shows the brainscan of that same individual imagining, seeing that same image. And the right column was created by subtracting the middle column from the left column, showing the difference to be nearly zero. This was repeated on lots of different individuals with lots of different images, always with a similar result. The difference between seeing an image and imagining seeing that same image is next to nothing.
I dopustite da vam pokažem zašto mislim da smo blizu postizanja tog cilja i s vama podijelim dva eksperimenta koja su nedavno provele dvije vrhunske neuroznanstvene grupe. Obje grupe su koristile fMRI -- tehnologiju funkcionalne magnentske rezonancija -- kako bi snimili mozak i ovdje imamo set slika Giorgia Ganisa i njegovih kolega sa Harvarda. A lijeva stupac pokazuje sliku mozga osobe koja gleda nekakvu sliku. u srednjem stupcu se nalazi slika mozga istog pojedinca dok zamišlja kako gleda istu sliku. A desni stupac je nastao oduzimanjem srednjeg stupca od lijevog stupca te pokazuje da je razlika skoro ravna nuli Ovaj eksperiment je ponovljen na velikom broju različitih osoba i koristeći veliki broj različitih slika, a rezultat je uvijek bio sličan. Razlika između gledanja slike i zamišljanja gledanja te iste slike je skoro nikakva.
Next let me share with you one other experiment, this from Jack Gallant's lab at Cal Berkeley. They've been able to decode brainwaves into recognizable visual fields. So let me set this up for you. In this experiment, individuals were shown hundreds of hours of YouTube videos while scans were made of their brains to create a large library of their brain reacting to video sequences. Then a new movie was shown with new images, new people, new animals in it, and a new scan set was recorded. The computer, using brain scan data alone, decoded that new brain scan to show what it thought the individual was actually seeing. On the right-hand side, you see the computer's guess, and on the left-hand side, the presented clip. This is the jaw-dropper. We are so close to being able to do this. We just need to up the resolution. And now remember that when you see an image versus when you imagine that same image, it creates the same brain scan.
Sad mi dopustite da s vama podijelim još jedan eksperiment, koji je proveo laboratorij Jacka Gallanta na Sveučilištu Berkley, Kalifornija. Oni su uspjeli dekodirati moždane valove u prepoznatljiva vizualna polja. Da vam malo pojasnim ovo. U ovom eksperimentu, pojedincima su prikazivane stotine sati Youtube videa a istovremeno su im rađeni snimci mozga kako bi se stvorila velika arhiva načina na koji njihov mozak reagira na video isječke. Tada im je prikazan novi film s novim slikama, novim ljudima, novim životinjama, i snimljen je novi set snimaka. Računalo, koristeći samo podatke snimaka mozga, je dekodiralo da taj novi snimak mozga pokazuje ono što misli da pojedinac zapravo vidi. Na desnoj strani, možete vidjeti pretpostavku računala, a na lijevoj strani, isječak koji je prikazan. Ovo je toliko zapanjujuće da će vam se zavrtiti glava. Toliko smo blizu da ostvarimo ovo. samo trebamo poboljšati rezoluciju. I zapamtite da kad vidite sliku naspram kad tu istu sliku zamislite, nastaje jednak snimak mozga.
So this was done with the highest-resolution brain scan systems available today, and their resolution has increased really about a thousandfold in the last several years. Next we need to increase the resolution another thousandfold to get a deeper glimpse. How do we do that? There's a lot of techniques in this approach. One way is to crack open your skull and put in electrodes. I'm not for that. There's a lot of new imaging techniques being proposed, some even by me, but given the recent success of MRI, first we need to ask the question, is it the end of the road with this technology? Conventional wisdom says the only way to get higher resolution is with bigger magnets, but at this point bigger magnets only offer incremental resolution improvements, not the thousandfold we need. I'm putting forward an idea: instead of bigger magnets, let's make better magnets. There's some new technology breakthroughs in nanoscience when applied to magnetic structures that have created a whole new class of magnets, and with these magnets, we can lay down very fine detailed magnetic field patterns throughout the brain, and using those, we can actually create holographic-like interference structures to get precision control over many patterns, as is shown here by shifting things. We can create much more complicated structures with slightly different arrangements, kind of like making Spirograph.
Ovo je napravljeno sa najvećom rezolucijom koja je dostupna kod snimanja mozga danas, a njihova rezolucija se poboljšala negdje za tisuću puta u posljednijh nekoliko godina. Sada moramo poboljšati rezoluciju za još tisuću puta kako bi dobili bolji pogled. Kako to možemo učiniti? Postoji mnogo tehnika kod ovakvog pristupa. Jedan način je da rastvorimo lubanju i ubacimo elektrode. Ja osobno nisam za to. Mnogo novih tehnika snimanja predlaže se danas, a neke sam predložila i ja ali s obzirom na nedavni uspjeh snimanja magnetskom rezonancom prvo moramo postaviti pitanje, je li je to kraj za ovu tehnologiju? Konvecionalna mudrost kaže da je jedini način da se dobije viša rezolucija korištenje većih magneta, ali u ovom trenutku veći magneti bi pridonijeli samo malom poboljšanju rezolucije ali ne i tisuću puta koliko mi trebamo. Ja predlažem da: umjesto većih magneta, napravimo bolje magnete. Veliki napreci su postignuti u novoj tehnologiji poput nanoznanosti i njenoj primjeni u magnetskim strukturama koji su stvorili skroz novu kategoriju magneta, i s ovakvim magnetima, možemo postaviti vrlo sitno detaljizirane uzorke magnetskih polja kroz mozak i koristeći ih možemo zapravo stvoriti holografske interferencijske strukture kako bi dobili preciznu kontrolu nad mnogim uzorcima, kako je pokazano ovdje samo drugačijim pristupom. Možemo stvoriti mnogo kompliciranije strukture a koristeći tek malo promijenjen poredak kao da radimo Spirograf.
So why does that matter? A lot of effort in MRI over the years has gone into making really big, really huge magnets, right? But yet most of the recent advances in resolution have actually come from ingeniously clever encoding and decoding solutions in the F.M. radio frequency transmitters and receivers in the MRI systems. Let's also, instead of a uniform magnetic field, put down structured magnetic patterns in addition to the F.M. radio frequencies. So by combining the magnetics patterns with the patterns in the F.M. radio frequencies processing which can massively increase the information that we can extract in a single scan. And on top of that, we can then layer our ever-growing knowledge of brain structure and memory to create a thousandfold increase that we need. And using fMRI, we should be able to measure not just oxygenated blood flow, but the hormones and neurotransmitters I've talked about and maybe even the direct neural activity, which is the dream.
I zašto je to bitno? Mnogo truda u MRI-ju kroz godine je uloženo u proizvodnju zaista velikih, ogromnih magneta, zar ne? Ali većina novijih otkrića na području rezolucije je rezultat genijalnih i inteligentnih rješenja kodiranja i dekodiranja na odašiljačima i prijamnicima F.M. radio frekvencija u MRI sustavima. Također, umjesto uniformnih magnetskih polja sastavimo strukturirane magnetske uzorke zajedno s F.M. radio frekvencijama. Tako koristeći ovakve magnetske uzorke s uzorcima u obradi F.M. radio frekvencija možemo uvelike povećati količinu informacija koju možemo izvući u jednom snimku. I povrh svega toga, tada možemo još pridodati svoje rastuće znanje strukture mozga i sjećanja kako bismo stvorili tisuću puta veću jačinu koju trebamo. a koristeći fMRI, trebali bismo moći izmjeriti ne samo protok krvi obogaćene kisikom već i razinu hormona i neurotransmitera koje sam spomenula a možda čak i izravnu neuro aktvnost poput snova.
We're going to be able to dump our ideas directly to digital media. Could you imagine if we could leapfrog language and communicate directly with human thought? What would we be capable of then? And how will we learn to deal with the truths of unfiltered human thought? You think the Internet was big. These are huge questions. It might be irresistible as a tool to amplify our thinking and communication skills. And indeed, this very same tool may prove to lead to the cure for Alzheimer's and similar diseases.
Moći ćemo staviti svoje ideje ravno na digitalne medije. Možete li zamisliti kad bismo mogli zaobići jezik i sporazumijevati se direktno ljudskom misli? Za što bismo sve bili sposobni? I kako bismo naučili nositi se s istinama nefiltrirane ljudske misli? Mislite da je Internet velik. Postoji mnogo velikih pitanja. Ovo bi moglo biti neodoljivo kao alat za poboljšanje sposobnosti razmišljanja i sporazumijevanja. I zaista, ovaj isti alat bi se mogao pokazati kao put do lijeka za Alzeheimerovu bolesti i druge slične bolesti.
We have little option but to open this door. Regardless, pick a year -- will it happen in five years or 15 years? It's hard to imagine it taking much longer. We need to learn how to take this step together.
Nemamo izbora nego otvoriti vrata ove prilike. Bez obzira, izaberite godinu -- hoće li se to dogoditi za 5 ili 15 godina? Teško mogu zamisliti da bi to trebalo trajati duže. Moramo naučiti kako napraviti ovaj korak zajednički.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)