Today I want to tell you about a project being carried out by scientists all over the world to paint a neural portrait of the human mind. And the central idea of this work is that the human mind and brain is not a single, general-purpose processor, but a collection of highly specialized components, each solving a different specific problem, and yet collectively making up who we are as human beings and thinkers. To give you a feel for this idea,
Danas želim da vam govorim o projektu slikanja nervnog portreta ljudskog uma, koji izvode naučnici širom sveta. Glavna ideja ovog rada je da ljudski um i mozak nije samo procesor s opštom svrhom, već je skup usko specijalizovanih komponenti, od kojih svaka posebno rešava različit problem, a ipak one zajedno određuju ko smo mi kao ljudska bića i mislioci. Da biste stekli osećaj te ideje,
imagine the following scenario: You walk into your child's day care center. As usual, there's a dozen kids there waiting to get picked up, but this time, the children's faces look weirdly similar, and you can't figure out which child is yours. Do you need new glasses? Are you losing your mind? You run through a quick mental checklist. No, you seem to be thinking clearly, and your vision is perfectly sharp. And everything looks normal except the children's faces. You can see the faces, but they don't look distinctive, and none of them looks familiar, and it's only by spotting an orange hair ribbon that you find your daughter.
zamislite sledeći scenario: Ulazite u obdanište svog deteta. Kao i obično, tu je tuce dece koja čekaju da se po njih dođe, ali ovoga puta, sva lica dece su neobično slična i ne možete da prepoznate svoje dete. Da li su vam potrebne nove naočare? Gubite li razum? Prelećete kroz sažetu mentalnu kontrolnu listu. No, čini se da razmišljate jasno, i da vam je vid savršeno oštar. Sve izgleda normalno osim dečijih lica. Vidite lica koja se ne razlikuju, niko ne deluje poznato i tek uočavanjem narandžaste trake u kosi pronalazite svoju ćerku.
This sudden loss of the ability to recognize faces actually happens to people. It's called prosopagnosia, and it results from damage to a particular part of the brain. The striking thing about it is that only face recognition is impaired; everything else is just fine.
Ovaj iznenadni gubitak sposobnosti prepoznavanja lica zaista se događa ljudima. To se zove prosopagnozija i posledica je oštećenja određenog dela mozga. Pri tome je upadljivo da je samo prepoznavanje lica poremećeno, dok je sve ostalo sasvim u redu.
Prosopagnosia is one of many surprisingly specific mental deficits that can happen after brain damage. These syndromes collectively have suggested for a long time that the mind is divvied up into distinct components, but the effort to discover those components has jumped to warp speed with the invention of brain imaging technology, especially MRI. So MRI enables you to see internal anatomy at high resolution, so I'm going to show you in a second a set of MRI cross-sectional images through a familiar object, and we're going to fly through them and you're going to try to figure out what the object is. Here we go.
Prosopagnozija je jedan od mnogih neočekivano specifičnih mentalnih nedostataka koji mogu da nastanu posle oštećenja mozga. Ovi sindromi zajedno su već dugo vremena nagoveštavali da je um podeljen na različite komponente, a njihovo otkrivanje odskočilo je u brzinu višu od svetlosne pronalaskom tehnike snimanja mozga, naročito magnetne rezonance. Magnetna rezonanca vam omogućava da vidite unutrašnju anatomiju u visokoj rezoluciji, pa ću vam pokazati sklop MR snimaka poprečnih preseka kroz poznat predmet preletajući ih a vi ćete pokušati da shvatite o kom predmetu je reč. Krećemo.
It's not that easy. It's an artichoke.
Nije tako jednostavno. To je artičoka.
Okay, let's try another one, starting from the bottom and going through the top. Broccoli! It's a head of broccoli. Isn't it beautiful? I love that.
Ok, pokušajmo sa još jednim, polazi od dna i prolazi kroz vrh. Brokoli! Glava brokolija. Zar to nije lepo? Meni se sviđa.
Okay, here's another one. It's a brain, of course. In fact, it's my brain. We're going through slices through my head like that. That's my nose over on the right, and now we're going over here, right there.
Ok, evo još jednog. To je mozak, naravno. U stvari, to je moj mozak. Prolazimo kroz režnjeve moje glave. To je moj nos na desnoj strani, a sada idemo ovamo, baš tu.
So this picture's nice, if I do say so myself, but it shows only anatomy. The really cool advance with functional imaging happened when scientists figured out how to make pictures that show not just anatomy but activity, that is, where neurons are firing. So here's how this works. Brains are like muscles. When they get active, they need increased blood flow to supply that activity, and lucky for us, blood flow control to the brain is local, so if a bunch of neurons, say, right there get active and start firing, then blood flow increases just right there. So functional MRI picks up on that blood flow increase, producing a higher MRI response where neural activity goes up.
Ova slika je lepa, ako mene pitate, ali ona pokazuje samo anatomiju. Zaista velik napredak je nastao funkcionalnim snimanjem kada su naučnici pronašli kako se prave slike koje ne prikazuju samo anatomiju već i aktivnost, odnosno, gde se neuroni pale. Evo kako to funkcioniše. Mozgovi su kao i mišići. Kada su aktivni, potreban im je povećani protok krvi za snabdevanje te aktivnosti i na našu sreću, kontrola protoka krvi u mozgu je lokalna, pa ako se gomila neurona, recimo tamo počne aktivirati i paliti, baš tamo se i protok krvi povećava. Tako funkcionalna magnetna rezonanca detektuje ta povećanja protoka krvi, prikazujući veći MR odziv tamo gde nervna aktivnost raste.
So to give you a concrete feel for how a functional MRI experiment goes and what you can learn from it and what you can't, let me describe one of the first studies I ever did. We wanted to know if there was a special part of the brain for recognizing faces, and there was already reason to think there might be such a thing based on this phenomenon of prosopagnosia that I described a moment ago, but nobody had ever seen that part of the brain in a normal person, so we set out to look for it. So I was the first subject. I went into the scanner, I lay on my back, I held my head as still as I could while staring at pictures of faces like these and objects like these and faces and objects for hours. So as somebody who has pretty close to the world record of total number of hours spent inside an MRI scanner, I can tell you that one of the skills that's really important for MRI research is bladder control. (Laughter)
Da biste dobili konkretan osećaj kako se odvija eksperiment sa funkcionalnom magnetnom rezonancom, i šta možete iz njega da naučite, a šta ne možete, opisaću vam jedno od svojih prvih istraživanja. Hteli smo da saznamo da li postoji poseban deo mozga za prepoznavanje lica i kako je već postojao razlog za takvo mišljenje na osnovu fenomena prosopagnozije koji sam ranije opisala, a kako niko nikada nije video taj deo mozga kod normalne osobe, latili smo se traženja. Prvi predmet posmatranja sam bila ja. Ležala sam na leđima u skeneru, glavu sam držala mirno koliko sam mogla dok sam posmatrala slike ovakvih lica i ovakvih stvari satima. Kao neko ko ima ukupan broj sati unutar MR skenera prilično blizu svetskom rekordu, reći ću vam da je kontrola bešike jedna od jako važnih veština za MR istraživanja. (Smeh)
When I got out of the scanner, I did a quick analysis of the data, looking for any parts of my brain that produced a higher response when I was looking at faces than when I was looking at objects, and here's what I saw. Now this image looks just awful by today's standards, but at the time I thought it was beautiful. What it shows is that region right there, that little blob, it's about the size of an olive and it's on the bottom surface of my brain about an inch straight in from right there. And what that part of my brain is doing is producing a higher MRI response, that is, higher neural activity, when I was looking at faces than when I was looking at objects. So that's pretty cool, but how do we know this isn't a fluke? Well, the easiest way is to just do the experiment again. So I got back in the scanner, I looked at more faces and I looked at more objects and I got a similar blob, and then I did it again and I did it again and again and again, and around about then I decided to believe it was for real. But still, maybe this is something weird about my brain and no one else has one of these things in there, so to find out, we scanned a bunch of other people and found that pretty much everyone has that little face-processing region in a similar neighborhood of the brain.
Kada sam izašla iz skenera, napravila sam brzu analizu podataka, u potrazi za delovima mozga koji su izazvali veću reakciju kada sam gledala lica nego kada sam gledala stvari i evo šta sam videla. Ova slika izgleda strašno po današnjim standardima, ali u to vreme sam mislila da je lepa. Ona pokazuje taj deo tamo, tu mrljicu, otprilike veličine masline, na dnu površine mog mozga oko 2,5 cm pravo unutra odavde. Taj deo mog mozga je proizveo veću fMR reakciju, odnosno, veću nervnu aktivnost, dok sam gledala lica nego dok sam gledala stvari. To je prilično dobro, ali kako ćemo znati da to nije slučajnost? Pa, najlakši način je da ponovimo eksperiment. Tako sam se vratila u skener, gledajući još više lica i stvari i dobila sam sličnu mrljicu, a onda sam to ponovila i ponavljala nebrojeno puta posle čega sam odlučila da poverujem da je to stvarno tako. No, možda je to nešto čudno u mom mozgu što niko drugi nema, pa kako bismo to saznali, skenirali smo gomilu drugih ljudi i utvrdili da skoro svi imaju to malo područje za obradu lica u sličnom delu mozga.
So the next question was, what does this thing really do? Is it really specialized just for face recognition? Well, maybe not, right? Maybe it responds not only to faces but to any body part. Maybe it responds to anything human or anything alive or anything round. The only way to be really sure that that region is specialized for face recognition is to rule out all of those hypotheses. So we spent much of the next couple of years scanning subjects while they looked at lots of different kinds of images, and we showed that that part of the brain responds strongly when you look at any images that are faces of any kind, and it responds much less strongly to any image you show that isn't a face, like some of these.
Sledeće pitanje je bilo, šta to područje stvarno radi? Da li je stvarno specijalizovano samo za prepoznavanje lica? Pa, možda i nije, zar ne? Možda reaguje ne samo na lica već na bilo koji deo tela. Možda reaguje na bilo šta ljudsko ili živo ili okruglo. Jedini način da se stvarno uverimo da je to područje specijalizovano za prepoznavanje lica jeste da isključimo sve te hipoteze. Tako smo proveli većinu sledećih nekoliko godina skenirajući osobe dok su gledale mnoštvo različitih slika i pokazali smo da taj deo mozga snažno reaguje kada posmatrate slike lica bilo koje vrste, a da reaguje mnogo slabije na bilo koju sliku koja nije lice, kao što su neke od ovih.
So have we finally nailed the case that this region is necessary for face recognition? No, we haven't. Brain imaging can never tell you if a region is necessary for anything. All you can do with brain imaging is watch regions turn on and off as people think different thoughts. To tell if a part of the brain is necessary for a mental function, you need to mess with it and see what happens, and normally we don't get to do that. But an amazing opportunity came about very recently when a couple of colleagues of mine tested this man who has epilepsy and who is shown here in his hospital bed where he's just had electrodes placed on the surface of his brain to identify the source of his seizures. So it turned out by total chance that two of the electrodes happened to be right on top of his face area. So with the patient's consent, the doctors asked him what happened when they electrically stimulated that part of his brain. Now, the patient doesn't know where those electrodes are, and he's never heard of the face area. So let's watch what happens. It's going to start with a control condition that will say "Sham" nearly invisibly in red in the lower left, when no current is delivered, and you'll hear the neurologist speaking to the patient first. So let's watch.
Da li smo time konačno utvrdili da je taj deo potreban za prepoznavanje lica? Ne, nismo. Snimanje mozga vam nikada ne može pokazati da je neki deo potreban za bilo šta. Možete jedino da posmatrate područja koja se uključuju i isključuju dok ljudi imaju različite misli. Za tvrdnju da je deo mozga nužan za mentalnu funkciju, potrebno je posmatranje šta će se desiti u zbrci, na koju normalno ne nailazimo. Ali ukazala se neverovatna prilika nedavno, kada je nekoliko kolega testiralo ovog čoveka koji ima epilepsiju i koji je ovde prikazan u bolničkom krevetu sa upravo stavljenim elektrodama na površinu mozga da bi se identifikovao izvor njegovih napada. Tako je sasvim slučajno ispalo da su dve od elektroda tačno na vrhu područja za lica. Uz pacijentov pristanak, lekari su ga pitali šta se dogodilo kada su strujom stimulisali taj deo njegovog mozga. Pacijent ne zna gde su elektrode i nikada nije čuo za područje lica. Pogledajmo šta se dešava. Počeće sa kontrolom stanja sa "stimulant" skoro nevidljivim crvene boje dole levo, dok još nije struja puštena i prvo ćete čuti neurologa koji govori pacijentu. Pogledajmo.
(Video) Neurologist: Okay, just look at my face and tell me what happens when I do this. All right?
(Video) Neurolog: Ok, samo posmatrajte moje lice i recite mi šta se dešava kada uradim ovo. U redu?
Patient: Okay.
Pacijent: Ok.
Neurologist: One, two, three.
Neurolog: Jedan, dva, tri.
Patient: Nothing. Neurologist: Nothing? Okay. I'm going to do it one more time. Look at my face. One, two, three.
Pacijent: Ništa. Neurolog: Ništa? Ok. Ponoviću. Pogledajte moje lice. Jedan, dva, tri.
Patient: You just turned into somebody else. Your face metamorphosed. Your nose got saggy, it went to the left. You almost looked like somebody I'd seen before, but somebody different. That was a trip. (Laughter)
Pacijent: Upravo ste se pretvorili u nekog drugog. Vaše lice se preobrazilo. Vaš nos se spljoštio i iskrivio u levo Izgledali ste skoro kao neko koga sam ranije video ali neko drugačiji. To je bio "izlet". (Smeh)
Nancy Kanwisher: So this experiment — (Applause) — this experiment finally nails the case that this region of the brain is not only selectively responsive to faces but causally involved in face perception. So I went through all of these details about the face region to show you what it takes to really establish that a part of the brain is selectively involved in a specific mental process. Next, I'll go through much more quickly some of the other specialized regions of the brain that we and others have found. So to do this, I've spent a lot of time in the scanner over the last month so I can show you these things in my brain.
Nensi Kenvišer: Ovaj eksperiment - (Aplauz) - ovaj eksperiment konačno potvrđuje da se to područje mozga ne samo selektivno odaziva na lica, već da je uzročno uključeno u percepciju lica. Prošla sam kroz sve te detalje o području za lica da bi vam pokazala šta je sve potrebno za stvarno utvrđivanje da je deo mozga selektivno uključen u određenom mentalnom procesu. U nastavku ću proći mnogo brže kroz neke druge specijalizovane delove mozga koje smo mi i drugi otkrili. Da bih to uradila, provela sam dosta vremena u skeneru u poslednjih mesec dana pa to mogu i da vam pokažem u svom mozgu.
So let's get started. Here's my right hemisphere. So we're oriented like that. You're looking at my head this way. Imagine taking the skull off and looking at the surface of the brain like that. Okay, now as you can see, the surface of the brain is all folded up. So that's not good. Stuff could be hidden in there. We want to see the whole thing, so let's inflate it so we can see the whole thing. Next, let's find that face area I've been talking about that responds to images like these. To see that, let's turn the brain around and look on the inside surface on the bottom, and there it is, that's my face area. Just to the right of that is another region that is shown in purple that responds when you process color information, and near those regions are other regions that are involved in perceiving places, like right now, I'm seeing this layout of space around me and these regions in green right there are really active. There's another one out on the outside surface again where there's a couple more face regions as well. Also in this vicinity is a region that's selectively involved in processing visual motion, like these moving dots here, and that's in yellow at the bottom of the brain, and near that is a region that responds when you look at images of bodies and body parts like these, and that region is shown in lime green at the bottom of the brain.
Počnimo. Ovo je moja desna hemisfera. Tako smo orijentisani. Na taj način gledate moju glavu. Zamislite skinutu lobanju i takav pogled na površinu mozga. Ok, sad kao što vidite, površina mozga je sva ispresavijana. To ne valja. Svašta bi se tu moglo kriti. Želimo da vidimo celu stvar, pa ćemo je napumpati. Zatim, nađimo to područje za lica o kom sam govorila, koje se odaziva na slike nalik ovim. Da biste to videli, obrnućemo mozak i gledaćete unutrašnju površinu na dnu i evo ga, to je moje područje za lica. Desno od njega je još jedno područje koje je prikazano ljubičasto i odaziva se dok obrađujete informacije o boji, a blizu tih područja su druga područja koja su uključena u percepciju mesta, kao i sada dok gledam ovaj raspored prostora oko mene, ova područja prikazana zelenim su stvarno aktivna. Tamo je još jedno na spoljašnjoj površini gde takođe postoje još nekoliko područja za lica. Takođe je u blizini područje koje se selektivno uključuje u obradu vizuelnog kretanja, kao kod ovih pokretnih tačaka i prikazano je žutim na dnu mozga, a blizu njega je područje koje se odaziva kada gledate slike tela i delove tela nalik ovim i to područje je prikazano žutozelenim na dnu mozga.
Now all these regions I've shown you so far are involved in specific aspects of visual perception. Do we also have specialized brain regions for other senses, like hearing? Yes, we do. So if we turn the brain around a little bit, here's a region in dark blue that we reported just a couple of months ago, and this region responds strongly when you hear sounds with pitch, like these. (Sirens) (Cello music) (Doorbell) In contrast, that same region does not respond strongly when you hear perfectly familiar sounds that don't have a clear pitch, like these. (Chomping) (Drum roll) (Toilet flushing)
Sva ova područja koja sam vam do sada pokazala uključena su u posebne aspekte vizuelne percepcije. Da li imamo i specijalizovana područja mozga za druga čula, recimo za sluh? Da, imamo. Ako malo obrnemo mozak, evo ga, područje prikazano tamno plavim, o čemu smo izveštavali pre par meseci i to područje se snažno odaziva kada slušate visoke tonove, kao što je ovaj. (Sirene) (Zvuk violončela) (Zvonce na vratima) S druge strane, to isto područje se slabije odaziva kada slušate savršeno poznate zvuke koji nemaju jasnoću visine tona, kao ovi. (Glasno žvakanje) (Bubnjanje) (Puštanje vode na WC šolji)
Okay. Next to the pitch region is another set of regions that are selectively responsive when you hear the sounds of speech.
OK. Pored područja za visoke tonove je još jedan skup područja koja se selektivno odazivaju kada čujete zvuke govora.
Okay, now let's look at these same regions. In my left hemisphere, there's a similar arrangement — not identical, but similar — and most of the same regions are in here, albeit sometimes different in size.
Ok, pogledajmo sada ta ista područja. U mojoj levoj hemisferi je sličan razmeštaj - nije identičan, već sličan - i većina istih područja su tu unutra, iako su ponekad različite veličine.
Now, everything I've shown you so far are regions that are involved in different aspects of perception, vision and hearing. Do we also have specialized brain regions for really fancy, complicated mental processes? Yes, we do. So here in pink are my language regions. So it's been known for a very long time that that general vicinity of the brain is involved in processing language, but we showed very recently that these pink regions respond extremely selectively. They respond when you understand the meaning of a sentence, but not when you do other complex mental things, like mental arithmetic or holding information in memory or appreciating the complex structure in a piece of music.
Sva područja koja sam vam do sada pokazala su uključena u različite aspekte percepcije vida i sluha. Imamo li i specijalizovana područja mozga za zahtevne, složene mentalne procese? Da, imamo. U rozoj boji su moja jezička područja. Već dugo vremena je poznato da otrpike taj region u mozgu učestvuje u obradi jezika, ali nedavno smo pokazali da se ova ružičasta područja odazivaju krajnje selektivno. Odazivaju se kada shvatite značenje rečenice ali ne i kada obavljate druge složene mentalne radnje, kao što je mentalna aritmetika, zadržavanje podatka u memoriji ili uvažavanje složene strukture u muzičkom komadu.
The most amazing region that's been found yet is this one right here in turquoise. This region responds when you think about what another person is thinking. So that may seem crazy, but actually, we humans do this all the time. You're doing this when you realize that your partner is going to be worried if you don't call home to say you're running late. I'm doing this with that region of my brain right now when I realize that you guys are probably now wondering about all that gray, uncharted territory in the brain, and what's up with that?
Najneverovatnije pronađeno područje do sada je ovo ovde tirkizno. To područje se odaziva kada razmišljamo šta druga osoba misli. Možda izgleda čudno, ali mi, ljudi, to stalno radimo. To radimo kad shvatimo da će se naš partner zabrinuti ako se ne javimo da ćemo zakasniti. Upravo to radim sa tim područjem mozga shvatajući da se verovatno sada pitate o svoj onoj sivoj, neistraženoj teritoriji u mozgu i šta je s njom?
Well, I'm wondering about that too, and we're running a bunch of experiments in my lab right now to try to find a number of other possible specializations in the brain for other very specific mental functions. But importantly, I don't think we have specializations in the brain for every important mental function, even mental functions that may be critical for survival. In fact, a few years ago, there was a scientist in my lab who became quite convinced that he'd found a brain region for detecting food, and it responded really strongly in the scanner when people looked at images like this. And further, he found a similar response in more or less the same location in 10 out of 12 subjects. So he was pretty stoked, and he was running around the lab telling everyone that he was going to go on "Oprah" with his big discovery. But then he devised the critical test: He showed subjects images of food like this and compared them to images with very similar color and shape, but that weren't food, like these. And his region responded the same to both sets of images. So it wasn't a food area, it was just a region that liked colors and shapes. So much for "Oprah."
Sama se takođe o tome pitam i sada se odvija gomila eksperimenata u mojoj laboratoriji radi pronalaska niza drugih mogućih specijalizacija u mozgu za druge vrlo specifične mentalne funkcije. No, važno je, da ne mislim da imamo specijalizacije u mozgu za svaku važnu mentalnu funkciju, čak ni za mentalne funkcije koje mogu biti presudne za opstanak. Naime, pre nekoliko godina je naučnik u mojoj laboratoriji bio prilično ubeđen da je pronašao područje mozga za otkrivanje hrane, koje se snažno odazivalo na skeneru kada su ljudi gledali slike kao što je ova. Zatim je pronašao sličan odziv na više ili manje istom mestu kod 10 od 12 osoba. Bio je prilično zagrejan i svima je u laboratoriji govorio da će ići kod Opre Vinfri sa svojim velikim otkrićem. No, tada je smislio kritični test: Prikazao je slike hrane kao što je ova i uporedio ih sa vrlo sličnim slikama po boji i obliku, koje nisu bile hrana, kao ove. I njegovo područje se odazivalo jednako na obe grupe slika. To nije bilo područje za hranu, već samo područje kojem su se sviđale boje i oblici. Ništa od Opre Vinfri.
But then the question, of course, is, how do we process all this other stuff that we don't have specialized brain regions for? Well, I think the answer is that in addition to these highly specialized components that I've been describing, we also have a lot of very general- purpose machinery in our heads that enables us to tackle whatever problem comes along. In fact, we've shown recently that these regions here in white respond whenever you do any difficult mental task at all — well, of the seven that we've tested. So each of the brain regions that I've described to you today is present in approximately the same location in every normal subject. I could take any of you, pop you in the scanner, and find each of those regions in your brain, and it would look a lot like my brain, although the regions would be slightly different in their exact location and in their size.
Naravno, ostaje pitanje kako obrađujemo sve drugo za šta nemamo specijalizovana područja mozga? Mislim da je odgovor u tome da pored ovih visoko specijalizovanih komponenata koje sam opisala, imamo takođe mnogo mašinerije za opšte svrhe u našim glavama koja nam omogućava da se pozabavimo bilo kojim problemom koji se pojavi. U stvari, nedavno smo pokazali da se ova područja ovde, bele boje, odazivaju pri svakom teškom mentalnom zadatku uopšte - pa, bar pri sedam koje smo testirali. Dakle, svako područje mozga koje sam vam danas opisala prisutno je na približno istom mestu u svakoj normalnoj osobi. Mogla sam uzeti bilo koga od vas, ubaciti u skener i pronaći svaki od tih delova u vašem mozgu, koji bi izgledao veoma nalik mom mozgu, iako bi područja bila malo drugačija što se tiče tačne lokacije i veličine.
What's important to me about this work is not the particular locations of these brain regions, but the simple fact that we have selective, specific components of mind and brain in the first place. I mean, it could have been otherwise. The brain could have been a single, general-purpose processor, more like a kitchen knife than a Swiss Army knife. Instead, what brain imaging has delivered is this rich and interesting picture of the human mind. So we have this picture of very general-purpose machinery in our heads in addition to this surprising array of very specialized components.
Ono što je meni važno u ovom poslu nisu posebne lokacije tih područja mozga, već pre svega jednostavna činjenica da imamo selektivne, posebne komponente uma i mozga. Hoću reći, moglo je biti i drugačije. Mozak je mogao biti jedinstven procesor za opštu svrhu, više nalik na kuhinjski nož nego na švajcarski vojni nož. Umesto toga, oslikavanje mozga je pružilo ovu raskošnu i zanimljivu sliku ljudskog uma. Tako imamo ovu sliku mašinerije opšte svrhe u našim glavama uz ovaj iznenađujući niz specijalizovanih komponenti.
It's early days in this enterprise. We've painted only the first brushstrokes in our neural portrait of the human mind. The most fundamental questions remain unanswered. So for example, what does each of these regions do exactly? Why do we need three face areas and three place areas, and what's the division of labor between them? Second, how are all these things connected in the brain? With diffusion imaging, you can trace bundles of neurons that connect to different parts of the brain, and with this method shown here, you can trace the connections of individual neurons in the brain, potentially someday giving us a wiring diagram of the entire human brain. Third, how does all of this very systematic structure get built, both over development in childhood and over the evolution of our species? To address questions like that, scientists are now scanning other species of animals, and they're also scanning human infants.
To su tek počeci. Naslikali smo tek prve poteze našeg nervnog portreta ljudskog uma. Najosnovnija pitanja ostaju bez odgovora. Tako, na primer, šta svako od tih područja tačno radi? Zašto su nam potrebna tri područja za lica i tri područja za mesta i kakva je podela rada među njima? Drugo, kako su sve te stvari povezane u mozgu? Sa difuznim snimanjem možete pratiti skupove neurona koji povezuju različite delove mozga, a sa metodom prikazanom ovde, možete da pratite veze pojedinih neurona u mozgu, što može jednoga dana da nam pruži dijagram celokupnog ljudskog mozga. Treće, kako se sva ta vrlo sistematična struktura gradi razvojem u detinjstvu i evolucijom naše vrste? Da obratimo pažnju takvim pitanjima naučnici sada skeniraju druge vrste životinja i decu takođe.
Many people justify the high cost of neuroscience research by pointing out that it may help us someday to treat brain disorders like Alzheimer's and autism. That's a hugely important goal, and I'd be thrilled if any of my work contributed to it, but fixing things that are broken in the world is not the only thing that's worth doing. The effort to understand the human mind and brain is worthwhile even if it never led to the treatment of a single disease. What could be more thrilling than to understand the fundamental mechanisms that underlie human experience, to understand, in essence, who we are? This is, I think, the greatest scientific quest of all time.
Mnogi ljudi opravdavaju visoke troškove neuroloških istraživanja ističući da će nam to možda jednom pomoći u lečenju poremećaja mozga kao što je Alchajmerova bolest i autizam. To je izuzetno važan cilj i bila bih počastvovana kad bi bilo koji od mojih radova tome doprineo, ali popravljanje onog što je u svetu pokvareno nije jedina stvar vredna bavljenja njome. Trud na razumevanju ljudskog uma i mozga je vredan čak i ako nikada ne dovede do lečenja i jedne bolesti. Šta može biti uzbudljivije od razumevanja osnovnih mehanizama na kojima se zasniva ljudsko iskustvo, od suštinskog razumevanja, ko smo mi? To je po mom mišljenju najveće naučno traganje svih vremena.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)