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.
Vrsta neuronauke kojom se ja i moje kolege bavimo je skoro kao meteorologija. Stalno jurimo oluje. Želimo da vidimo i izmerimo oluje - "moždane oluje" u stvari. Svi govorimo o moždanim olujama u našem svakodnevnom životu, ali retko vidimo ili čujemo neku. Tako da uvek volim da počnem ove govore tako što ću vas upoznati sa jednom od njih.
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.
U stvari, prvi put kad smo snimili više od jednog neurona - sto moždanih ćelija istovremeno - mogli smo da izmerimo električne varnice stotina ćelija kod iste životinje, ovo je prva slika koju smo dobili, prvih 10 sekundi ovog snimka. Tako smo dobili mali isečak misli i mogli smo da ga vidimo tu pred nama.
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.
Uvek kažem studentima da bismo neuronaučnike takođe mogli nazvati nekom vrstom astronoma zato što se suočavamo sa jednim sistemom koji jedino može da se uporedi, po broju ćelija, sa brojem galaksija koje imamo u svemiru. I evo nas, od milijardi neurona, samo snimanjem, pre 10 godina, na sto. Sada radimo hiljadu. I nadamo se da ćemo razumeti nešto fundamentalno o našoj ljudskoj prirodi. Zato što, ako to još uvek ne znate, sve ono što definišemo kao ljudsku prirodu, dolazi od ovih oluja, dolazi od oluja koje se kotrljaju preko brda i dolina naših mozgova i definišu naša sećanja, naša verovanja, naša osećanja, naše planove za budućnost. Sve što ikada radimo, sve što je svaki čovek ikada radio, radi ili će raditi zahteva težak rad populacija neurona koji proizvode ovakve oluje.
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.
I zvuk moždane oluje, ako niste to nikada čuli, je otprilike ovakav. Možete da pojačate ako je moguće. Moj sin naziva ovo: "Pravljenje kokica dok slušamo radio-stanicu sa lošim prijemom". Ovo je mozak. Ovo je ono što se dešava kad sprovedete ove električne oluje do zvučnika i slušate paljbu stotine moždanih ćelija, vaš mozak će zvučati ovako - moj mozak, svačiji mozak. I ono što mi želimo kao neuronaučnici sada je da u stvari slušamo ove simfonije, ove moždane simfonije, i pokušamo da izdvojimo iz njih poruke koje nose.
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.
Posebno, pre otprilike 12 godina kreirali smo preparat koji smo nazvali interfejs moždane mašine. Ovde imate šemu koja opisuje kako radi. Ideja je: hajde da napravimo neke senzore koji slušaju ove oluje, ovu električnu paljbu, i vidite ako možete, u isto vreme za koje ovoj oluji treba da napusti mozak i stigne do nogu ili ruku životinje - oko pola sekunde - hajde da vidimo da li možemo da pročitamo ove signale, izdvojimo motorne poruke koje su tu sadržane, prevedemo ih u digitalne komande i pošaljemo ih u veštački uređaj koji će da reprodukuje voljni motorni točak tog mozga u realnom vremenu. I da vidimo da li možemo da izmerimo koliko dobro možemo da prevedemo tu poruku kad je uporedimo s tim kako to radi 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.
I vidimo da li možemo da obezbedimo povratne informacije, senzorske signale koji se vraćaju iz ovog robotskog, mehaničkog, kompjuterskog pokretača koji je sada pod kontrolom mozga, nazad u mozak, šta mozak radi s tim, s primanjem poruka od veštačke mašine.
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.
I to je upravo ono što smo uradili pre 10 godina. Počeli smo sa superzvezdom, majmunom zvanim Aurora koja je postala jedna od superzvezda ove oblasti. Aurora je volela da igra video igrice. Kao što vidite ovde, ona voli da koristi džojstik, kao bilo ko od nas ili naše dece, da igra ovu igricu. I kao jedan dobar primat, ona čak pokušava da vara pre nego što dobije tačan odgovor. Tako čak i pre nego što se pojavi meta koju bi trebalo da pređe sa kursorom koji kontroliše džojstikom, Aurora pokušava da nađe metu, bez obzira gde se nalazi. I ona to radi zato što svaki put kad pređe preko mete sa malim kursorom dobija kap brazilskog soka od pomorandže. I mogu da vam kažem, svaki majmun će uraditi bilo šta za vas ako dobije malo brazilskog soka od pomorandže. U stvari bilo koji primat će uraditi to. Razmislite o tome.
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.
Dakle, dok je Aurora igrala ovu igru, kao što ste videli, radeći hiljadu pokušaja dnevno i dobijajući 97 procenata tačnih, i 350 mililitara soka od pomorandže, mi smo snimali moždane oluje koje su se stvarale u njenoj glavi i slali ih u robotsku ruku koja je učila da reprodukuje pokrete koje je Aurora pravila. Zato što je ideja u stvari bila da se uljuči ovaj interfejs moždane mašine i da Aurora igra igru samo pomoću razmišljajnja, bez mešanja njenog tela. Njene moždane oluje bi kontrolisale ruku koja bi pomerala kursor i prelazila preko mete. I na naše zaprepašćenje, to je upravo bilo ono što je Aurora uradila. Odigrala je igru bez pomeranja svog tela.
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.
Tako svaka putanja kursora koju vidite sada, ovo je tačno prvi momenat kada je ona to shvatila. To je tačno prvi momenat kada je moždana namera oslobođena fizičkog područja rada tela primata i mogla da funkcioniše spolja, u spoljnom svetu, samo kontrolišući veštački uređaj. I Aurora je nastavila da igra igru, nastavila da traži malu metu i dobija sok od pomorandže koji je htela da dobije, za kojim je žudela.
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.
Ona je to uradila zato što je, u to vreme, pribavila novu ruku. Robotska ruka koju ovde vidite da se pomera 30 dana kasnije posle prvog videa koji sam vam pokazao, je pod kontrolom Aurorinog mozga i pomera kursor da dođe do mete. I Aurora sada zna da može da igra igru sa ovom robotskom rukom, ali nije izgubila sposobnost da koristi svoje biološke ruke da bi radila šta joj je volja. Ona može da počeše leđa, može da počeše nekog od nas, može da igra drugu igru. U svim slučajevima, Aurorin mozak je uključio ovaj veštački uređaj kao produžetak njenog tela. Model sebe koji je Aurora imala na umu se proširio na to da dobije još jednu ruku.
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 uradili pre 10 godina. Samo premotajte unapred za 10 godina. Prošle godine smo shvatili da čak ne treba da imate ni robotski uređaj. Možete samo da napravite kompjutersko telo, avatara, majmuna avatara. I možete ih koristiti za naše majmune za, ili interakciju sa njima, ili ih možete obučiti da pretpostave u virtuelnom svetu perspektivu prvog lica tog avatara i koriste njegovu moždanu aktivnost da kontrolišu pokrete avatarovih ruku ili nogu.
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.
I ono što smo u osnovi uradili bilo je da smo istrenirali životinje da nauče kako da kontrolišu ove avatare i istražuju objekte koji se pojavljuju u virtuelnom svetu. I ovi objekti su vizuelno identični, ali kad avatar pređe preko površine ovih objekata, oni šalju električnu poruku koja je proporcionalna mikrotaktilnoj teksturi objekta koja se vraća direktno u majmunov mozak, obaveštavajući mozak šta je to što avatar dodiruje. I za samo četiri nedelje, mozak uči da obrađuje ovaj novi osećaj i dobija novi senzorni put - kao nov osećaj. I vi sada stvarno oslobađate mozak zato što dozvoljavate mozgu da šalje motorne komande za pomeranje ovog avatara. I povratnu reakciju koja dolazi od avatara obrađuje direktno mozak bez uplitanja kože.
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.
Ono što vidite ovde je dizajn zadatka. Videćete životinju koja u suštini dodiruje ove tri mete. I mora da izabere jednu jer samo jedna nosi nagradu, sok od pomorandže koji oni žele da dobiju. I mora da izabere dodirom koristeći virtuelnu ruku, ruku koja ne postoji. I to je upravo ono što i rade.
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.
Ovo je kompletno oslobađanje mozga od fizičkog ograničenja tela i motora opažajnog zadatka. Životinja kontroliše avatar da bi dodirnula mete. I ona oseća teksturu tako što prima električnu poruku direktno u mozak. I mozak odlučuje koja tekstura je povezana sa nagradom. Objašnjenja koja vidite na filmu ne pojavljuju se zbog majmuna. Oni ionako ne znaju da čitaju engleski, tako da su ona ovde samo zbog vas da znate tačnu metu koja menja položaj. I opet, oni mogu da ih nađu pomoću dodirnog razlikovanja, i mogu da je pritisnu i izaberu.
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.
Tako da kad pogledamo mozgove ovih životinja, na gornjem panelu vidite raspored 125 ćelija koji pokazuje šta se dešava sa moždanom aktivnošću, sa električnim olujama, ovog uzorka neurona u mozgu kada životinja koristi džojstik. I to je slika koju svaki neurofiziolog zna. Osnovni raspored pokazuje da se ove ćelije kodiraju za sve moguće pravce. Donja slika pokazuje šta se dešava kada telo prestane da se pomera i životinja počne da kontroliše bilo robotski uređaj ili kompjuterskog avatara. Koliko god brzo možemo da resetujemo naše kompjutere, moždana aktivnost se menja da bi počela da predstavlja ovaj novi alat, kao da je to takođe deo tela tog primata. Mozak to usvaja takođe, onoliko brzo koliko to možemo da 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.
Tako da nam to pokazuje da se naš osećaj sebe ne završava u poslednjem sloju epitela naših tela, nego se završava u poslednjem sloju elektrona alata kojima upravljamo pomoću naših mozgova. Naše violine, naša kola, naši bicikli, naše fudbalske lopte, naša odeća - sve to se asimiluje ovim halapljivim, neverovatnim, dinamičkim sistemom zvanim mozak.
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.
Koliko daleko možemo da odemo? U eksperimentu koji smo sproveli pre nekoliko godina, odveli smo ovo do krajnjih granica. Stavili smo životinju da trči na točku koji se okreće na Djuk univerzitetu na istočnoj obali Sjedinjenih Država, koja proizvodi moždane oluje potrebne za kretanje. I imali smo robotski uređaj, humanoidnog robota, u Kjotu, u Japanu u ATR Laboratorijama, koji je sanjao celog života da ga kontroliše mozak, ljudski mozak ili mozak 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.
Ovde se dešava da je moždana aktivnost koja generiše pokrete majmuna prenesena u Japan i pokrenula robota dok je snimak ovog hodanja poslat nazad u Djuk, da bi majmun video noge robota kako hodaju ispred njega, Tako da je mogao da bude nagrađen, ne za ono što radi njegovo telo nego za svaki tačan korak robota na drugoj strani planete koga kontroliše njegova moždana aktivnost.
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.
Zanimljiva stvar, taj povratni put oko zemljine kugle trajao je 20 milisekundi kraće nego što je trebalo toj moždanoj oluji da napusti glavu, glavu majmuna, i stigne do sopstvenog mišića. Majmun je pomerao robota koji je bio šest puta veći, preko planete. Ovo je jedan od eksperimenata u kome je robot mogao da hoda nezavisno. Ovo je CB1 kako ispunjava svoj san u Japanu pod kontrolom moždane aktivnosti primata.
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.
Dakle kuda ćemo ovo da odvedemo? Šta ćemo da uradimo sa svim ovim istraživanjem, pored proučavanja osobina ovog dinamičnog univerzuma između naših ušiju? Ideja je da se uzme sve ovo znanje i tehnologija i da se pokuša da se reši jedan od najtežih neuroloških problema na svetu. Milioni ljudi su izgubili sposobnost da prevedu ove moždane oluje u akciju, u pokret. Iako njihovi mozgovi nastavljaju da proizvode oluje i kodove za pokrete, oni ne mogu da pređu barijeru koju je napravila povreda u kičmenoj moždini.
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 ideja je da napravimo zaobilaznicu (bajpas), da iskoristimo ove sisteme moždane mašine da pročitamo ove signale, veće moždane oluje koje sadrže potrebu da se pokrenu ponovo, zaobilazeći povredu koristeći kompjuterski mikroinženjering i pošaljemo ih u novo telo, čitavo telo zvano egzoskelet, celo robotsko odelo koje će postati novo telo ovih pacijenata.
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.
I možete da vidite sliku koju je napravio ovaj konzorcijum. Ovo je neprofitni konzorcijum zvani projekat "Hodajmo ponovo" koji spaja naučnike iz Evrope, odavde iz Sjedinjenih Država i Brazila da bi radili zajedno na pravljenju ovog novog tela - tela za koje verujemo, kroz iste plastične mehanizme koji su omogućavali Aurori i drugim majmunima da koriste ove alate pomoću sistema moždane mašine i koji omogućavaju nama da objedinimo alate koje proizvodimo i koristimo u svakodnevnom životu. Ovaj mehanizam, nadamo se, omogućiće ovim pacijentima, ne samo da zamisle ponovo pokrete koje žele da naprave i prevedu ih u pokrete ovog novog tela, nego da prihvate ovo telo kao novo telo koje mozak kontroliše.
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."
Rekli su mi pre 10 godina da se ovo nikad neće desiti, da je to skoro nemoguće. A ja samo mogu da vam kažem kao naučnik, odrastao sam u južnom Brazilu sredinom šezdesetih gledajući nekoliko ludaka koji su govorili da će da odu na Mesec. I kad sam imao pet godina, i nikad nisam razumeo zašto NASA nije uzela Kapetana Kirka i Spoka za taj posao; ipak, bili su veoma iskusni - ali samo gledajući kao dete nateralo me je da poverujem, kao što mi je baka govorila, da je "nemoguće samo moguće za koje se neko nije potrudio da ga ostvari".
So they told me that it's impossible to make someone walk. I think I'm going to follow my grandmother's advice.
Govorili su mi da je nemoguće da se učini da neko prohoda. Mislim da ću slediti bakin savet.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)