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.
我十八年前做過腦部手術 自從嗰次之後,腦科學就成為我嘅興趣 實際上我係一個工程師 首先,我想講嘅係 最近我加入咗 Google 嘅月球探測器小組 喺入面我管理一個部門 係 Google X 嘅顯示器部門 今日我所講關於腦科學嘅研究 係我加入Google 之前做嘅研究 係喺 Google 出面做嘅
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?
所以當你要做腦部手術 會被人標籤 會俾人質疑你係咪仍然聰明 如果唔係嘅話 你可唔可以令你自己變返聰明
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.
喺我做完神經外科手術之後 我冇咗大腦一部份 而我就要面對呢樣嘢 唔係因為灰物質 而係又黏又軟嘅「死點」 「死點」係產生主要荷爾蒙 同神經傳遞素嘅地方 我一做完手術 就要打超過一打強力化學劑 仲要決定每隻每日要食幾多 因為如果我唔服用任何藥物 我會喺幾個小時內死亡 我過去嘅十八年 每日我都要決定藥物嘅配搭 要配搭得啱先至可以生存落去 曾經有幾次我瀕臨死亡邊緣
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.
但係好彩嘅係 我天生係一個玩試驗嘅人 所以我決定我要通過試驗 去發現更多適當嘅藥物劑量配搭 因為從來冇清晰嘅指引 我開始嘗試唔同嘅配搭 而且我曾經怕只係少少劑量唔同 而令到自我意識、想法、對人嘅行為 有好大唔同 一件特別喜劇性嘅事就係 我有幾個月喺度服食緊 20 歲青年 會用嘅藥物配方 然後對於自己食咗之後 思想出現改變而驚訝 (笑聲) 我嗰時一直都發脾氣 我成日都諗住「性」 而且我覺得我係世界上最聰明嘅人 仲有… (笑聲) 當然呢幾年嚟我遇過呢類型嘅人 或者比嗰啲冇咁極端嘅人 而我係極端嘅人 但對於我嚟講 最驚訝嘅係我冇努力令自己傲慢 實際上我喺度試下 冇咗少少嘅安全感會點 從而解決一個擺喺我面前嘅問題 不過事情發展唔係好似我所諗嘅
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.
我解決唔到 我改變劑量 但係嗰次嘅經歷 我對人同佢哋經歷嘅嘢有新嘅認識 從此之後,我同男性容易相處好多
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.
我調較呢啲荷爾蒙同神經傳遞素就係想 恢復我患病前同手術前嘅智力 仲有恢復我嘅創意同思維 我係一個視覺型思考嘅人 所以影像就成為咗我依賴嘅嘢 點樣用用嚟快速定型 自己諗法嘅心理影像 去嘗試唔同嘅諗法 去模擬一下場景 呢種思維其實唔算新 哲學家,例如休謨、笛卡兒以及霍布斯 亦都有類似嘅觀點 佢哋覺得心理影像同諗法 本質上係同一樣嘢 今日會有人對呢種觀點有異議 亦都有好多辯論拗話意識點樣運作 但對我嚟講成件事好簡單啫 心理影像對於大多數我哋嚟講 都係創造力同創意思維嘅地方
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.
所以幾年後我調整咗我自己 我得到好多好好 非常生動、精美嘅心理影像 同背後嘅分析 所以我宜家正喺度研究 點樣令我腦海呢啲心理影像 更快地顯示喺電腦屏幕上 唔知道你哋有冇諗過 一個電影導演能夠 剩係用佢嘅想像力指揮成個世界? 或者一個音樂家可以 將佢腦入邊嘅歌搬出嚟 如果呢樣嘢可以俾創意嘅人 用光速分享佢哋唸嘅嘢 呢樣嘢係無限可能 事實上要完成呢個可能性所遇到嘅瓶頸 就係提升腦掃描系統嘅解像度
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.
宜家等我用最近兩個實驗話俾你聽 點解我哋就快可以跨過呢個樽頸啦 呢兩個實驗係由 兩個最頂尖嘅神經科學小組做 佢哋都用咗 fMRI 技術 即係功能性磁力共振造影技術 掃描大腦 呢張係哈佛大學嘅 Giorgio Ganis 同佢嘅同事 製成大腦掃描圖 左邊係當一個人睇圖片時嘅腦部情況 中間係同一個人諗返嗰張圖片時 腦部嘅情況 右邊係左邊幅圖減去中間幅圖得出嘅 兩者幾乎冇分別 同一個實驗無論係 用唔同人、唔同嘅相都得出同一個結果 所以睇一個影像同想像嗰一個影像 其實係沒有分別嘅
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.
我再講多一個實驗 呢個實驗係嚟自 Jack Gallant 喺加州大學柏克萊分校嘅實驗室 佢哋能夠將腦電波轉做可認知嘅影像 等我準備好先 喺實驗裏面 參加者要睇好幾百小時嘅 YouTube 影片 同時佢哋腦部會被掃描 用嚟整一個有關佢哋腦部 對影片次序嘅反應嘅大型資料庫 跟住一條新影片會播俾佢哋睇 裏面有新圖片、新人物、新動物 仲會有新嘅掃描 電腦運用腦部掃描數據 嚟解讀新嘅大腦掃描 然後電腦顯示佢認為 參加者實際睇到嘅嘢 右手邊你會睇到嚟自電腦嘅推算 左邊就係實際上放映嘅片 呢個結果真係令人呆咗 我哋嘅技術已經非常接近 我哋只需要提高解像度 而且記住當你睇到一個圖像嘅時候 同你想像同一個圖像嘅時候 你嘅大腦都會產生相同嘅掃描圖
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.
大腦掃描講緊已經係用緊 最高像素嘅大腦掃描系統 近幾年大腦掃描系統嘅解像度 提高咗一千倍 下一步就係再提升解像度一千倍 令我哋可以睇到更深入嘅嘢 我哋點樣做好? 有好多技術可以做到 其中一個方法係撬開你嘅頭顱 然後擺電極入去 但我唔贊成呢種做法 宜家已經有好多造影技術提出咗 有啲我都有份提出 但因為宜家 MRI 技術嘅成功 我哋首先要諗一個問題 呢種技術係咪已經過時呢? 傳統理論嚟講 唯一能夠提高解像度嘅方法 係採用更加大嘅磁鐵 但係更大嘅磁鐵 只係提高解像度少少 而唔能夠達到我哋需要嘅好一千倍 我諗與其用大舊磁鐵 不如改善磁鐵嘅質素 宜家納米科學有新嘅突破 新技術可以用喺新型磁鐵嘅構造上面 有咗呢啲磁鐵 我哋可以做到非常仔細 睇曬成個大腦嘅磁場造影 用呢啲工具 我哋可以整到全息樣嘅干預結構 嚟準確控制好多病情 就好似呢度見到嘅影像轉換咁 我哋可以整到更複雜 帶有少少唔同排列方式嘅結構 有啲似生產呼吸運動記錄器
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.
噉點解呢個會咁重要? 過去幾年喺 MRI 嘅努力 一直係整更大嘅磁鐵,係吧 但係至今大部份解像度嘅增加 都係嚟自MRI 系統 FM 無線電頻發射器同接收器裡面 非常勁嘅加密同解密方法 與其用均勻磁場 同埋喺 FM 無線頻率之外 不如用有結構嘅磁模板 所以我哋通過結合磁規律 同 FM 無線電頻處理嘅規律嚟 大幅度增加一個掃描 入面可以獲得嘅資訊 除此之外 因為關於大腦結構 同記憶嘅知識不斷增加 我哋可以做到 需要嘅千倍解像度增加 運用 fMRI 我哋應該可以量度 唔單止含氧血嘅流量 以至我之前所講嘅荷爾蒙同神經傳遞素 可能甚至係直接嘅神經活動 ——我哋想做到嘅一個夢想
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.
我哋將來可以直接將我哋嘅想法 轉落去數碼媒體 你可唔可以想像到 如果我哋唔需要用語言 只需要用大腦嘅思想 兩個人都可以傾到計? 我哋如果真係咁嘅話可以做到啲咩? 我哋應該點樣面對 每個人未經過濾嘅諗法? 你認為網絡係好大 但呢啲都係需要認真研究嘅問題 可能網絡真係一個好吸引嘅工具 去加強我哋思考同溝通嘅技巧 的而且確,相同嘅工具 磁力造影將會證明可以用於 阿爾海默症以及相關疾病嘅治療 我哋冇其他太多辦法,只有行呢條路
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.
唔理點樣,或者有一年 呢個治療技術會唔會 5 年或者 15 年之內發生? 如果要用更多時間就有啲失望 我哋需要一齊去實現佢
Thank you.
多謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)