The kind of neuroscience that I do and my colleagues do is almost like the weatherman. We are always chasing storms. We want to see and measure storms -- brainstorms, that is. And we all talk about brainstorms in our daily lives, but we rarely see or listen to one. So I always like to start these talks by actually introducing you to one of them.
Nevroznanost, s katero se ukvarjamo jaz in moji kolegi je skoraj kot napovedovanje vremena. Vedno se podimo za nevihtami. Želimo videti in izmeriti nevihte - tiste v možganih, pravzaprav. In v vsakdanjem življenju pogosto govorimo o možganskih nevihtah, ampak redko kdaj kakšno tudi vidimo ali ji prisluhnemo. Zato vedno rad začnem svoj govor s tem, da vas seznanim z eno od teh.
Actually, the first time we recorded more than one neuron -- a hundred brain cells simultaneously -- we could measure the electrical sparks of a hundred cells in the same animal, this is the first image we got, the first 10 seconds of this recording. So we got a little snippet of a thought, and we could see it in front of us.
Pravzaprav, prvič ko smo zabeležili več kot en nevron -- na stotine možganskih celic hkrati - smo lahko izmerili električne iskrice, ki jih je proizvajalo sto celic iste živali, to je bila prva slika, ki smo jo dobili, prvih 10 sekund tega posnetka. Tako smo dobili majhen košček misli in lahko smo ga videli pred nami.
I always tell the students that we could also call neuroscientists some sort of astronomer, because we are dealing with a system that is only comparable in terms of number of cells to the number of galaxies that we have in the universe. And here we are, out of billions of neurons, just recording, 10 years ago, a hundred. We are doing a thousand now. And we hope to understand something fundamental about our human nature. Because, if you don't know yet, everything that we use to define what human nature is comes from these storms, comes from these storms that roll over the hills and valleys of our brains and define our memories, our beliefs, our feelings, our plans for the future. Everything that we ever do, everything that every human has ever done, do or will do, requires the toil of populations of neurons producing these kinds of storms.
Študentom vedno povem, da bi lahko nevroznanstvenikom rekli tudi neke vrste astronomi, saj se ukvarjamo s sistemom, ki ga lahko zaradi števila celic primerjamo le s številom galaksij v vesolju. In tukaj smo, izmed milijarde nevronov smo jih pred 10 leti posneli le sto. Zdaj jih lahko že tisoč. In upamo, da bomo razumeli nekaj temeljnega o naši človeški naravi. Kajti, če še ne veste, vse, kar uporabljamo, da bi definirali, kaj je človeška narava, prihaja iz teh neviht, prihaja iz teh neviht, ki se premikajo čez hribčke in doline naših možganov in določajo naše spomine, naša prepričanja, naše občutke, naše načrte za prihodnost. Vse, kar kdajkoli naredimo, vse, kar je katerikoli človek kdajkoli naredil, dela ali bo naredil, zahteva trdo delo populacij nevronov, ki proizvajajo takšne nevihte.
And the sound of a brainstorm, if you've never heard one, is somewhat like this. You can put it louder if you can. My son calls this "making popcorn while listening to a badly-tuned A.M. station." This is a brain. This is what happens when you route these electrical storms to a loudspeaker and you listen to a hundred brain cells firing, your brain will sound like this -- my brain, any brain. And what we want to do as neuroscientists in this time is to actually listen to these symphonies, these brain symphonies, and try to extract from them the messages they carry.
In zvok možganske nevihte, če je še niste slišali, zveni nekako takole. Lahko date še bolj na glas, če gre. Moj sin temu pravi "pripravljanje pokovke med poslušanjem slabo uglašene A.M. postaje". To so možgani. To se zgodi, ko usmerite te električne nevihte v zvočnik in ko poslušate iskrenje stotine možganskih celic, vaši možgani bi zveneli tako -- moji, katerikoli. In kaj bi radi kot nevroznanstveniki zdaj naredili je, da bi dejansko prisluhnili tem simfonijam, tem možganskim simfonijam, in da bi iz njih izluščili sporočila, ki jih nosijo.
In particular, about 12 years ago we created a preparation that we named brain-machine interfaces. And you have a scheme here that describes how it works. The idea is, let's have some sensors that listen to these storms, this electrical firing, and see if you can, in the same time that it takes for this storm to leave the brain and reach the legs or the arms of an animal -- about half a second -- let's see if we can read these signals, extract the motor messages that are embedded in it, translate it into digital commands and send it to an artificial device that will reproduce the voluntary motor wheel of that brain in real time. And see if we can measure how well we can translate that message when we compare to the way the body does that.
Če smo bolj natančni, pred 12-imi leti smo ustvarili pripravo, ki smo ji rekli vmesnik med možgani in strojem. In tukaj je skica, ki kaže, kako ta deluje. Ideja je ta: postavimo nekaj senzorjev, ki prisluškujejo tem nevihtam, tem električnim dražljajem in poglejmo, če lahko v istem času, kot ga potrebuje ta nevihta, da zapusti možgane in doseže noge ali roke živali -- okoli pol sekunde -- poglejmo, če lahko preberemo te singale, izluščimo motorična sporočila, ki so skrita v njih, jih prevedemo v digitalne ukaze in jih pošljemo v umetno napravo, ki bo zagnala motorično kolesje v realnem času, tako kot možgani. In poskusimo izmeriti, kako dobro lahko prevedemo to sporočilo v primerjavi s tem, kako to stori telo.
And if we can actually provide feedback, sensory signals that go back from this robotic, mechanical, computational actuator that is now under the control of the brain, back to the brain, how the brain deals with that, of receiving messages from an artificial piece of machinery.
In če lahko dejansko dobimo odziv, senzorične signale, ki gredo od tega robotskega, mehanskega, računalniškega pogona, ki je zdaj pod kontrolo možganov, nazaj v možgane, kako se ti soočijo z njimi, s sporočili, ki jih pošilja umetna naprava.
And that's exactly what we did 10 years ago. We started with a superstar monkey called Aurora that became one of the superstars of this field. And Aurora liked to play video games. As you can see here, she likes to use a joystick, like any one of us, any of our kids, to play this game. And as a good primate, she even tries to cheat before she gets the right answer. So even before a target appears that she's supposed to cross with the cursor that she's controlling with this joystick, Aurora is trying to find the target, no matter where it is. And if she's doing that, because every time she crosses that target with the little cursor, she gets a drop of Brazilian orange juice. And I can tell you, any monkey will do anything for you if you get a little drop of Brazilian orange juice. Actually any primate will do that. Think about that.
In prav to smo storili pred 10-imi leti. Začeli smo z zvezdniško opico Auroro, ki je postala prava zvezda tega področja. In Aurora je uživala v video igrah. Kot vidite tukaj, pri tej igri zelo rada uporablja igralno palico, tako kot mi ali naši otroci. Kot pravi primat, skuša celo goljufati, preden ugane pravi odgovor. Torej, še preden se pojavi tarča, ki jo mora zadeti s kurzorjem, ki ga upravlja z igralno palico, skuša Aurora najti tarčo, ne glede na to, kje je. In, če to počne, zato ker vsakič, ko zadane tarčo s kurzorjem, dobi kapljico brazilskega pomarančnega soka. In lahko vam povem, vsaka opica bo naredila vse za vas, če ji ponudite malce brazilskega pomarančnega soka. Pravzaprav, vsak primat bi ravnal tako. Razmislite malce.
Well, while Aurora was playing this game, as you saw, and doing a thousand trials a day and getting 97 percent correct and 350 milliliters of orange juice, we are recording the brainstorms that are produced in her head and sending them to a robotic arm that was learning to reproduce the movements that Aurora was making. Because the idea was to actually turn on this brain-machine interface and have Aurora play the game just by thinking, without interference of her body. Her brainstorms would control an arm that would move the cursor and cross the target. And to our shock, that's exactly what Aurora did. She played the game without moving her body.
No, medtem ko je Aurora igrala to igro, kot ste videli, naredila je tisoč poskusov na dan in v 97% zadela ter zato dobila 350 mililitrov pomarančnega soka, smo posneli možganske nevihte, ki so se odvile v njeni glavi in jih poslali v robotsko roko ki se je učila, kako posnemati Aurorine gibe. Ideja je namreč bila, da vključimo ta vmesnik med možgani in strojem in da Aurora igra igro samo z mislimi, brez uporabe telesa. Njeni možgani bi nadzorovali roko, ki bi premikala kurzor, da zadene tarčo. In na naše presenečenje, je Aurora točno to storila. Igrala je igrico brez da bi se premikala.
So every trajectory that you see of the cursor now, this is the exact first moment she got that. That's the exact first moment a brain intention was liberated from the physical domains of a body of a primate and could act outside, in that outside world, just by controlling an artificial device. And Aurora kept playing the game, kept finding the little target and getting the orange juice that she wanted to get, that she craved for.
Torej, vso premikanje kurzorja, ki ga vidimo, je prav ta prvi trenutek, ko je to dojela. Prvi trenutek, ko se je volja možganov osvobodila fizičnih domen telesa tega primata in je lahko delovala zunaj, v zunanjem svetu, samo z usmerjanjem umetne naprave. Aurora je kar naprej igrala in skušala najti majhno tarčo in za to dobila pomarančni sok, ki si ga je želela.
Well, she did that because she, at that time, had acquired a new arm. The robotic arm that you see moving here 30 days later, after the first video that I showed to you, is under the control of Aurora's brain and is moving the cursor to get to the target. And Aurora now knows that she can play the game with this robotic arm, but she has not lost the ability to use her biological arms to do what she pleases. She can scratch her back, she can scratch one of us, she can play another game. By all purposes and means, Aurora's brain has incorporated that artificial device as an extension of her body. The model of the self that Aurora had in her mind has been expanded to get one more arm.
No, to je naredila, ker je v tem času, dobila novo roko. Robotska roka, ki jo vidite, da se premika, mesec dni po prvem posnetku, ki sem vam ga pokazal, je pod nadzorom Aurorinih možganov, ki premikajo kurzor, da zadene tarčo. Aurora se zaveda, da lahko igrico igra s to robotsko roko, ni pa izgubila sposobnosti, da uporablja svoji biološki roki, da počne, kar hoče. Lahko si praska hrbet, lahko praska koga od nas, lahko igra drugo igrico. V vsakem pogledu so Aurorini možgani sprejeli to umetno napravo kot podaljšek svojega telesa. Predstavo o sebi, ki jo je imela Aurora se je razširila tako, da je dobila še eno roko.
Well, we did that 10 years ago. Just fast forward 10 years. Just last year we realized that you don't even need to have a robotic device. You can just build a computational body, an avatar, a monkey avatar. And you can actually use it for our monkeys to either interact with them, or you can train them to assume in a virtual world the first-person perspective of that avatar and use her brain activity to control the movements of the avatar's arms or legs.
To smo storili pred 10-imi leti. Zdaj pa preskočimo 10 let. Lani smo odkrili, da sploh ne potrebujemo robotske naprave. Lahko enostavno zgradimo računalniško telo, avatar, opico avatar. In ga lahko dejansko uporabimo za naše opice, da denimo komuniciramo z njimi, ali pa jih usposobimo, da v virtualnem svetu prevzamejo perspektivo avatarja v prvi osebi in uporabijo svoje možganske aktivnosti, da nadzorujejo premikanje avatarjevih rok in nog.
And what we did basically was to train the animals to learn how to control these avatars and explore objects that appear in the virtual world. And these objects are visually identical, but when the avatar crosses the surface of these objects, they send an electrical message that is proportional to the microtactile texture of the object that goes back directly to the monkey's brain, informing the brain what it is the avatar is touching. And in just four weeks, the brain learns to process this new sensation and acquires a new sensory pathway -- like a new sense. And you truly liberate the brain now because you are allowing the brain to send motor commands to move this avatar. And the feedback that comes from the avatar is being processed directly by the brain without the interference of the skin.
In kar smo pravzaprav naredili je, da smo učili živali, kako naj upravljajo s temi avatarji in odkrivajo predmete, ki se pojavijo v virtualnem svetu. In ti predmeti so vizualno identični, toda, ko avatar dotakne površino teh predmetov, ti pošljejo električna sporočila, ki so sorazmerna z mikro otipljivo teksturo predmeta, neposredno nazaj v možgane opice in s tem obvesti možgane, kaj je to, česar se avatar dotika. Samo v štirih tednih se možgani naučijo obdelati te nove občutke in pridobijo novo senzorično pot -- kot nekakšen nov občutek. In s tem zares osvobodimo možgane, ker jim dovolimo, da pošljejo motorična navodila, da premikajo avatar. In odziv, ki pride od avatarja, možgani neposredno obdelajo brez informacij, ki bi prišle skozi kožo.
So what you see here is this is the design of the task. You're going to see an animal basically touching these three targets. And he has to select one because only one carries the reward, the orange juice that they want to get. And he has to select it by touch using a virtual arm, an arm that doesn't exist. And that's exactly what they do.
Torej, kar vidite je načrt opravila. Videli boste žival, ki se v bistvu dotika teh treh tarč. Izbrati mora eno, kajti le za eno se skriva nagrada: pomarančni sok, ki si ga tako želi. Izbrati jo mora z dotikom, z virtualno roko, z roko, ki ne obstaja. In prav to bo naredila.
This is a complete liberation of the brain from the physical constraints of the body and the motor in a perceptual task. The animal is controlling the avatar to touch the targets. And he's sensing the texture by receiving an electrical message directly in the brain. And the brain is deciding what is the texture associated with the reward. The legends that you see in the movie don't appear for the monkey. And by the way, they don't read English anyway, so they are here just for you to know that the correct target is shifting position. And yet, they can find them by tactile discrimination, and they can press it and select it.
To je popolna osvoboditev možganov od fizičnih preprek telesa in motorike v zaznavni nalogi. Žival upravlja z avatarjem, da bi se dotaknila tarče. In ob tem zaznava teksturo, ker prejema električna sporočila neposredno v možgane. In možgani odločajo o tem, kakšna je tekstura, ki je povezana z nagrado. Legende, ki jih vidimo v filmih, se ne pojavijo pri opici. In mimogrede, tako ali tako ne znajo brati angleško, tako da so tu samo zato, da vidite, da prava tarča premika položaj. In kljub temu, jo lahko odkrije na podlagi otipljivih razlik, jo pritisne in izbere.
So when we look at the brains of these animals, on the top panel you see the alignment of 125 cells showing what happens with the brain activity, the electrical storms, of this sample of neurons in the brain when the animal is using a joystick. And that's a picture that every neurophysiologist knows. The basic alignment shows that these cells are coding for all possible directions. The bottom picture is what happens when the body stops moving and the animal starts controlling either a robotic device or a computational avatar. As fast as we can reset our computers, the brain activity shifts to start representing this new tool, as if this too was a part of that primate's body. The brain is assimilating that too, as fast as we can measure.
In ko pogledamo možgane teh živali, na zgornjem grafu vidimo postavitev 125 celic, ki kažejo, kaj se zgodi z možgansko aktivnostjo, električne nevihte tega vzorca nevronov v možganih, ko žival uporablja igralno palico. In to je slika, ki jo pozna vsak nevrofiziolog. Osnovna postavitev kaže, da te celice pošiljajo kode za vse možne smeri. Na spodnji sliki pa vidimo, kaj se zgodi, ko se telo neha premikati in žival začne upravljati bodisi z robotsko napravo ali računalniškim avatarjem. Takoj, ko resetiramo naše računalnike, se možganska aktivnost premakne, tako da začne predstavljati to novo orodje kakor da je del živalskega telesa. Možgani to asimilirajo tako hitro, kot mi lahko izmerimo.
So that suggests to us that our sense of self does not end at the last layer of the epithelium of our bodies, but it ends at the last layer of electrons of the tools that we're commanding with our brains. Our violins, our cars, our bicycles, our soccer balls, our clothing -- they all become assimilated by this voracious, amazing, dynamic system called the brain.
To nam torej namiguje, da se naše občutenje samega sebe ne konča pri zadnjem sloju povrhnjice našega telesa ampak se konča pri zadnjem sloju elektronov orodja, ki ga upravljamo z našimi možgani. Naše violine, naših avtomobilov, naših koles, naše nogometne žoge, naše obleke -- vse se asimilira s tem neutrudnim, neverjetnim, dinamičnim sistemom, ki mu rečemo možgani.
How far can we take it? Well, in an experiment that we ran a few years ago, we took this to the limit. We had an animal running on a treadmill at Duke University on the East Coast of the United States, producing the brainstorms necessary to move. And we had a robotic device, a humanoid robot, in Kyoto, Japan at ATR Laboratories that was dreaming its entire life to be controlled by a brain, a human brain, or a primate brain.
Kako daleč lahko gremo? No, v poskusu, ki smo ga opravili pred nekaj leti, smo prišli do meje. Žival smo spravili v tek na tekočem traku na Duke Univerzi na Vzhodni obali Združenih držav, tako da smo proizvajali možganske nevihte, ki so povzročale gibanje. Imeli smo robotsko napravo, v ATR laboratorijih v Kjotu, na Japonskem, ki je vse svoje življenje sanjal o tem, da bi ga vodili možgani, človeški možgani ali možgani kakšnega primata.
What happens here is that the brain activity that generated the movements in the monkey was transmitted to Japan and made this robot walk while footage of this walking was sent back to Duke, so that the monkey could see the legs of this robot walking in front of her. So she could be rewarded, not by what her body was doing but for every correct step of the robot on the other side of the planet controlled by her brain activity.
Kaj se je zgodilo tukaj: možgansko aktivnost, ki je proizvedla premikanje opice, so prenesli na Japonsko in tako spravili robota v gibanje, medtem ko so posnetek te hoje poslali nazaj na Duke, da je lahko opica videla noge robota, kako hodijo pred njo. Tako je dobila nagrado, ne zato, ker bi naredila nekaj s svojim telesom, pač pa za vsak pravilen korak robota na drugem koncu planeta, ki ga je upravljala s svojimi možgani.
Funny thing, that round trip around the globe took 20 milliseconds less than it takes for that brainstorm to leave its head, the head of the monkey, and reach its own muscle. The monkey was moving a robot that was six times bigger, across the planet. This is one of the experiments in which that robot was able to walk autonomously. This is CB1 fulfilling its dream in Japan under the control of the brain activity of a primate.
Smešno je, da je je to potovanje okoli zemlje trajalo 20 milisekund manj kot potrebuje možganska nevihta, da zapusti glavo, torej glavo opice, in doseže njeno lastno mišico. Opica je premikala robota, ki je bil šest krat večji od nje in na drugem koncu planeta. To je eden od eksperimentov, v katerem robot lahko samostojno hodi. To je CB1, ki uresničuje svoje sanje na Japonskem, s pomočjo možganske aktivnosti opice.
So where are we taking all this? What are we going to do with all this research, besides studying the properties of this dynamic universe that we have between our ears? Well the idea is to take all this knowledge and technology and try to restore one of the most severe neurological problems that we have in the world. Millions of people have lost the ability to translate these brainstorms into action, into movement. Although their brains continue to produce those storms and code for movements, they cannot cross a barrier that was created by a lesion on the spinal cord.
Kam torej vodi vse to? Kaj bomo naredili s to raziskavo, razen seveda, da bomo preučili lastnosti tega dinamičnega vesolja, ki je med našimi ušesi? No, ideja je, da bi vzeli vso to znanje in tehnologijo in skušali odpraviti eno največjih nevroloških težav, ki jih imamo. Milijoni ljudi so izgubili zmožnost, da prevedejo te možganske nevihte v dejanje, v gibanje. Čeprav njihovi možgani še naprej proizvajajo te nevihte in kodirajo gibanje, ne morejo prečkati ovire, ki jo je ustvarila poškodba hrbtenjače.
So our idea is to create a bypass, is to use these brain-machine interfaces to read these signals, larger-scale brainstorms that contain the desire to move again, bypass the lesion using computational microengineering and send it to a new body, a whole body called an exoskeleton, a whole robotic suit that will become the new body of these patients.
Naša zamisel je torej, da bi naredili obvod, da bi uporabili te vmesnike med možgani in napravo, ki bi brali te signale, obsežnejše možganske nevihte, ki vsebujejo željo po premikanju, da bi obšli poškodbo z uporabo računalniškega mikroinženiringa in jih poslali novemu telesu, telesu, ki mu pravimo eksoskelet, celotna robotska obleka, ki bi postala novo telo teh bolnikov.
And you can see an image produced by this consortium. This is a nonprofit consortium called the Walk Again Project that is putting together scientists from Europe, from here in the United States, and in Brazil together to work to actually get this new body built -- a body that we believe, through the same plastic mechanisms that allow Aurora and other monkeys to use these tools through a brain-machine interface and that allows us to incorporate the tools that we produce and use in our daily life. This same mechanism, we hope, will allow these patients, not only to imagine again the movements that they want to make and translate them into movements of this new body, but for this body to be assimilated as the new body that the brain controls.
In tukaj vidite sliko, ki jo je ustvaril ta konzorcij. To je neprofitni konzorcij, ki se imenuje projekt "Znova shodi" in združuje znanstvenike iz Evrope, iz Združenih držav Amerike in Brazilije, ki si skupaj prizadevajo, da bi dejansko naredili to novo telo -- telo, za katerega verjamemo, da bo šlo skozi iste plastične mehanizme, ki dopuščajo, da Aurora in ostale opice, uporabljajo ta orodja preko vmesnika med možgani in napravo, kar nam omogoča, da vključimo orodja, ki jih proizvajamo in uporabljamo v vsakdanjem življenju. Ta isti mehanizem, upamo, bo omogočil tem bolnikom, ne le, da si znova zamislijo gibe, ki bi jih radi naredili in jih prevedejo v gibanje tega novega telesa, ampak, da bo to telo sprejeto kot novo telo, ki ga upravljajo možgani.
So I was told about 10 years ago that this would never happen, that this was close to impossible. And I can only tell you that as a scientist, I grew up in southern Brazil in the mid-'60s watching a few crazy guys telling [us] that they would go to the Moon. And I was five years old, and I never understood why NASA didn't hire Captain Kirk and Spock to do the job; after all, they were very proficient -- but just seeing that as a kid made me believe, as my grandmother used to tell me, that "impossible is just the possible that someone has not put in enough effort to make it come true."
Pred 10 leti so mi rekli, da se to ne bo nikoli zgodilo, da je to skoraj nemogoče. In kot znanstvenik vam lahko povem le, da sem med odraščanjem na jugu Brazilije sredi 60. let, opazoval nekaj norcev, ki so govorili, da bodo šli na Luno. Imel sem 5 let in nikoli nisem razumel, zakaj Nasa za ta podvig ni najela kapitana Kirka in Spocka; konec koncev, so to obvladali -- ampak ko sem to videl kot otrok sem začel verjeti, kar mi je nekoč babica govorila, da je "nemogoče - mogoče, za katerega se nekdo ni dovolj potrudil, da bi se uresničilo."
So they told me that it's impossible to make someone walk. I think I'm going to follow my grandmother's advice.
Tako so mi torej dejali, da je nemogoče, da nekdo znova shodi. Mislim, da bom sledil babičin nasvet.
Thank you.
Hvala za pozornost.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)