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Building the physiology of thought
Rebecca Saxe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015 · 11:38 a.m. · 31m 39s
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Well thank you so much for having me
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this is it's and honour and supplies at
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to be invited to speak at nicely. Um
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and that if you have a lot to me like
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this talk is gonna be something
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completely different but I'm told that
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this audience is used to that and
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indeed totally up for it. So although
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my research has nothing to do as far as
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I can tell with nutrition or taste the
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best I do here is I'll give you a
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flavour of my research the time that I
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work on the sometimes called the social
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brain ad. And this is what I wanted to
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that is when we think about human
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intelligence sometimes we have a
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tendency to think about natural
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language or problem solving abilities.
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And I wanna when you do what I think
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human brains are bass that maybe most
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of all for I would just thinking about
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each other we have minds and brains
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specifically. Tunes too insensitive for
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solving problems about interpersonal
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interactions we use are you to think
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about other people in everything we do
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from teaching in coordinating and
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flirting and to competing in
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undermining one another. We are so
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sensitive to choose about other
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people's intentions that we perceive
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them even in the most of simple shapes
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is this famous demo a fit tighter in
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the forties shows. And this capacity is
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incredibly early developing so this is
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the movie where every dot is the point
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of gaze of a riverboat infant with
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their infants age to take nine months
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and you can see that while watching a
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movie all of the previous naturally and
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spontaneously look at people's faces
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and sometimes their hands it also
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incredibly sophisticated. So this is an
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apocryphal quote from and Ginsburg who
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I am apparently said that certain I
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forgetting name now at previous yeah
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yeah not component yeah problem right
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okay the think that that I know you
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think you understand what you thought I
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said but I'm not sure you realise that
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what you heard was not what I meant a
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widget maybe actually more poetry then
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it is economics I know that something's
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done this more high level or abstract
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capacity sometimes called theory of
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mind the ability to think about what
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other people think want and feel to me
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this is the topic that is and studied
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in developmental psychology society
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children's averaging capacity to think
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about other people because the
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undergrowth dramatic and we four saying
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there's in childhood the most famous
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tested this is called a false belief
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task and so again if you sounds about
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this research is about all that you
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want to children's first a five year
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old part of do all week. And this is
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what that Looks like this is the first
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time I think it I don't know how it's
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really like what I really like cheese
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sandwiches she I he's yeah I wouldn't
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change them introduces yeah yeah yeah
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yeah yeah I really like you can with I
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put a sandwich over here on top of the
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party test and I says I think as well.
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I mean goes together well I think is
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the way. We can't push the living
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standards down on the grass. Now here
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comes another. This our product you
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also that cheese and she's just like
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the cheese there he said yeah yeah yeah
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yeah yeah I use sandwiches. G buttons
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cheese sandwich over here on top of the
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part of me that's right me then yeah
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that's exactly right now you like which
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is nice now that's what was that again
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straight one nineteen max. So which one
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do you think I'm gonna take yeah you
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know I think that alrighty I don't
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really know right okay five girls and
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that's what's called I think the file
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really fast and what we typically
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measures the production at the end
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which one to see say take but you see
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this child is ready Inigo Dos me to
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tell me what problem is about a car is
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anticipated what's gonna happen in the
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story. Okay this is now my three year
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old who's paid equally rapt attention
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to the entire movie in fact a few days
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later he said with mother you really
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like cheese sandwiches and here's the
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end of the story but I I won't make you
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so much what's to gonna annotate
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existing now let's see what it is it's
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when you appear comes I mean said he
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takes in this way oh I can take that
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one oh okay and that's called failing a
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falsely task and that what's critical
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here is both first of all no lack of
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confidence in fact if you teach three
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year olds to back they will that all
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their counters but if you want is
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cheese sandwich he'll take his cheese
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damage and then when you see what
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actually happened but you took the
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other parts used average instead of
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going to the kind of exclamation the
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five year old remote don't goes to what
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we find out what is is you made a
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mistake three all invent explanations
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for why am I no longer want his at
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least that much like had fallen on the
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ground. But a lot of interest in the
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development of this capacity for
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recognising in predicting what other
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people think I want and feel in tasks
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like the one that I just showed you and
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this is interesting partly because it
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seems to capture something uniquely
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human in our cognitive abilities and
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partly because it has strong
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implications for our children in their
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education including early social kind
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early school adjustment and writing
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affected by social cognition and and
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often especially maybe because of its
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public health implications because of
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the writing problems of developmental
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disorders like autism spectrum
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disorders that include deficit of
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social cognition lots of research is
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focused on children. But I just wanna
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know that social cognition interior
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minded particular fundamental to to
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cognition as well. Um and to do this
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I'm gonna get you also participate in
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the experiment that we do with adults.
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So in that store they are they you're
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about to do I'm gonna ask you to make a
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moral judgement you're gonna judge how
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much more blame the character in the
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story deserves and you're gonna do so
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with your hands to hire you raise your
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hand them or moral claims she deserves
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to if your hands here she deserves a
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little blame if it all the way she
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deserves a lot of playing this is to
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make sure that you all are awake and
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listening to the first I ready your
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hand indicate moral like the stories
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about grace. She's on a tour of the
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chemical factory there's a break in the
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two air and you guys making a cup of
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coffee another girl on the two or asks
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for a cup of coffee with stronger that
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and next to the coffee machine is the
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jar white powder labelled so I great
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this journal been contaminated with the
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dangers toxic poison from the chemical
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factory and seven deadly congested
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great with the pattern the other girls
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car yeah when the gold rings the coffee
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she guys how much more all blame
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disgraced is there for putting the the
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sugar in the coffee okay so mostly
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which one oh white powders labelled
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sugar still grace thinks the parish
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okay okay now I change just one feature
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of this story what is the dry white
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powder is labelled quite an so grace
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things the powders ways and now I don't
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think there's is desire for putting the
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pattern the car okay almost everyone
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except maybe time is is awake. And a
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what we call this more documents the
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ones you just made another one made by
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the participants because typical human
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at all the MIT undergraduates in our
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lab. I'm saying I think there in human
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at all moral judgement is what you
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think you're doing what you know about
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consequences so here we very whether
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the girl dies or not. And whether they
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think it's Princeton or things
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justifiably that it stronger and what
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you can see is that much more than
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whether she caused the death of humans
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jack that more blame depends on what
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you think you're doing if those police
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are justified okay so said encapsulates
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the fundamental importance to our
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judgements of one another of our
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attribution to that of what they think
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they're doing okay. So we that that
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that sounds may be interesting but
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maybe like philosophy and add thirty
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even twenty years ago this is the topic
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for philosophers not for our
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scientists. And then where my research
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has tremendous the question quite there
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be an RSI and at the human capacity for
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thinking about and I'm gonna show you
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two pieces of the research that we've
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done obviously in such a short track I
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can only show you a little bit of it.
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Um and so I'm gonna show you first the
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arguments we made these are more these
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are all the arguments that you can do
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another science of theory of mind. And
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and then I'm gonna initially where some
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of where we're going now some of the
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newer techniques we're using that I
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thought maybe out applications outside
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of my research and maybe for their own
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research using machine learning
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techniques just any information and
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then the directions were heading in
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study adamant development okay but of
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first the very first question can you
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study theory of mind with her
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scientific techniques almost fifteen
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years ago the infrastructure was with a
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healthy human out all in line in and my
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machine. So buying inside a dark tubes
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in the basement of MIT to engage in
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high level social cognition how do you
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do that what we thought the most
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natural way that we engage in social
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cognition about one another is actually
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done by telling each other stories
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about each other. And we have people
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inside to to listen to stories about
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other people. And stories we have
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people having fall leaves like the
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power in the story that I just showed
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you I'm so these were a relatively
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Monday I'll leave like and I think that
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the blue dish contains tiny all the
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really contains spaghetti compared to
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stories that had new people in them oh
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yeah to where in the brain with their
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greater metabolism when the stories
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about people and their beliefs compared
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to when the story about the physical
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world. And found as many other that
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found that their remote brain regions
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were metabolism was higher on average
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when people Reading stories about other
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people's beliefs the most remarkable
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thing about that is how robust signal.
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So you can find these regions in each
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individual participants becomes in the
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lab. And this response is also very
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selective. So the response and is
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showing a black situation increasing as
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a function of time people read stories
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about police in the red or stories
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about the physical world in the blue ad
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from this one particular religion sure
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you're the right number I don't
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junction. And again what we found there
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is that it's main region was by very
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rubber like this like this response is
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comparable to early visual cortex
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responding to visual grading is there
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are a lot of thirdly robust and
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reliable responding individuals when
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the stories are about other people's
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beliefs I know that we've been doing
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this for fifteen years one of the
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things about this task is that we have
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not just the average response but we
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can look at the distribution. And that
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this is four hundred and fifty people
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the histogram of the size of the
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response in there right EPJ while I'm
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Reading stories like this. And why
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that's important is because once you
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have a distribution and not just an
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average activity you can start to use
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this as a reference point for comparing
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even single individual patients to try
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to find out whether they're at a
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technical activation patterns an
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individual for example we've recently
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published a paper studying extremely
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rare patients with and damage
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selectively to the image the lab and
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looking at how they compared to the
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typical distribution on this task the
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intended to this. But there are many
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disadvantages to this task as a way of
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identifying brain regions involved in
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theory of mine and I think they've been
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working on this for fifteen years. But
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I'm just gonna show you one other task
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one that has meant very different
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characteristics than the we yeah people
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to read stories that we had written and
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designed to capture specific aspects of
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their cognition in another task we have
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people to just watch a movie this is a
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movie may right they didn't know that
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they were making demurely for as they
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were just making an entertaining film
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about a store that delivers babies and
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this is the class makes the baby. This
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particular stark has the clout with the
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tendency to make very dangerous
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previous leading this start to feel
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somewhat envious of another darkness
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cloud make you and if I can find more
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physical damage okay this movie made by
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excel which anchored you want to six
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minutes long and about incredibly rich
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senses of the characters mental lives
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and physical sensations and that we
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talked to movie and colour that for the
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moments when people were thinking about
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characters minds versus their body is
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where is the greater activation for
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example when the story about the
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characters minds. And what we found was
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a group of brain regions more active
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when thinking about the characters
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minds. That's looks a lot like the
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picture I just showed you before the
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brain regions involved when people are
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Reading stories about beliefs. But I
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particularly not fond of arguments like
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that that this looks like this. I think
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it's very easy in remedying data to go
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wrong by making sort of qualitative
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judgements about whether one brain
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extra looks similar to another or not.
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And then so much but I think you did
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for a different approach where instead
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of just arguing the two images look
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similar we identified specific
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functional brain regions in each
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individual part is the right one
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signature that here we find the brain
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regions in each individual the on the
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difference between these two kinds of
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stories and then we have probably this
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specific brain regions in that
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individual response for example one
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watching a movie that allowed to show
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that for example in this individual
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these individuals right comparable
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don't and there's no response to
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control part of the movie involving
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general social interactions or
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depictions of physical and bodily pain
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of the character what happens a lot
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there's very dangerous maybe but there
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is a strong response when the movie
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about consideration of other people's
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of the character Stockton feelings have
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which is also true in the other part of
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this network the second thing about
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this movie is that of course and that
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evokes thinking about characters mind
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and the physical bodies weaken our
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brain regions related when you're
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considering somebody else's mental
00:15:15
states versus their physical bodies
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their hunger their physical pain. And
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what we found in this movie and in
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trouble stories is that are ready the
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fight other people there are brains are
00:15:26
almost more do a list and then the
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world as theirs do as as as a day card
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they divide other people expected
00:15:33
physical and mental back. And so either
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Reading about or watching movies
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depicting people's mental state of the
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completely different set of brain
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regions then I'm thinking about their
00:15:44
physical or bodily harm pain. We've
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done this now and children as well in
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quite the theme activations and this is
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children ages seven to twelve years.
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And the matlab right now we're using
00:15:54
the same movie in children as young as
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three years because that's functional
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tasks go this is the most entertaining
00:16:00
task you graphical three role to do. So
00:16:03
for ever gonna be able to get
00:16:04
functional activation and holding a
00:16:05
seriously which so far has ended and it
00:16:08
could be from having and these kind of
00:16:10
spontaneous and easily accessible and
00:16:13
films and stimuli okay so that's the
00:16:16
first section which is just a taste of
00:16:19
the argument that we can study specific
00:16:21
brain regions in order to figure out
00:16:23
how people think about other people's
00:16:25
and I do not just tell you about the
00:16:28
techniques we're using now which go
00:16:31
beyond this kind more for a then B
00:16:34
style analyses and imperative these the
00:16:36
new techniques involving machine
00:16:38
learning a multivariate analysis firm
00:16:40
about talking about and are taking over
00:16:42
the world about from orion so for any
00:16:44
of you who might need to be cognitive
00:16:46
neuroscience papers in the next five
00:16:48
years whether the reminder anything
00:16:50
else. And these are the kinds of new
00:16:52
technique your pounce to be Reading
00:16:54
about okay so what are the new
00:16:56
techniques they go in vol said I I'm so
00:16:59
excited about these techniques is I
00:17:01
think that the traditional style
00:17:03
argument that I just showed you have a
00:17:05
tendency to conclude as I just did that
00:17:07
a brain region like right temporal
00:17:09
junction is involved in a task like
00:17:12
theory of mind and after ten years in
00:17:14
that started to feel like involved in
00:17:17
was the central euphemism for cognitive
00:17:19
neuroscience covering up or inability
00:17:21
to any other questions we really wanted
00:17:23
to know about representation in
00:17:25
computation we just said involved and
00:17:29
now I think new these new techniques
00:17:32
that have get beyond involvement ask
00:17:34
what are the representations that break
00:17:36
recharge everything kitchen okay well
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here's the traditional from my works
00:17:41
like yeah for right that I did for the
00:17:42
first ten years. You are lying in a
00:17:45
scanner and you read the story. So for
00:17:47
example is a story about how you're
00:17:49
right identification nation to learn
00:17:51
that her baggage including camping gear
00:17:53
for me to fly. We need for for to night
00:17:57
out as important airline laughter like
00:17:59
it all together and wouldn't provide
00:18:00
any compensation I assume this is an
00:18:02
experience you can relate to Alaska to
00:18:05
deal. So a human emotions are gonna
00:18:09
give you two immediately to the middle
00:18:13
if you think she's furious and to that
00:18:15
top if he's embarrassed she furious or
00:18:18
embarrassed ahead okay how about this
00:18:21
story. There word remains to keep you
00:18:24
die later getting about one yeah right
00:18:27
after okay remains undefined Reading
00:18:30
half a cake and broken heard that she
00:18:32
furious or embarrassed okay I just one
00:18:36
one handed how precise enrich your
00:18:38
knowledge of this is about the
00:18:40
difference between emotions you
00:18:41
experience in this case what is swore
00:18:43
to keep or diet and then had a bite of
00:18:45
cake versus if you had to bite of take
00:18:47
and then this word protect a completely
00:18:50
different emotional tone okay so that
00:18:52
we know about other people's mental
00:18:54
states but what we are wonders mom more
00:18:57
about the magnitude of activation in
00:18:59
this brain region as you read these
00:19:01
stories and magnitude activation for
00:19:03
both of the story is high because they
00:19:05
both involve mental state and what we
00:19:07
concluded that the right TVJ is
00:19:09
involved in understanding both of these
00:19:11
stories right it's a conclusion about
00:19:13
how much activity there is how much of
00:19:15
this kind of processing. But knowledge
00:19:18
you have is not that these stories
00:19:21
include descriptions of people's mental
00:19:23
states and emotions you know which
00:19:25
emotion. And you know in incredible
00:19:28
detail. So you can make no distinction
00:19:30
between mind and body. But a believe
00:19:33
these sophisticated language
00:19:34
distinctions within the mind between
00:19:37
different mental states. So how we
00:19:39
capture that in the ad. And under
00:19:42
scientific measure especially using
00:19:44
from right. We need to use the key idea
00:19:47
that is that instead of looking at the
00:19:49
amount of activity in an entire region
00:19:52
which summarises over the entire in nor
00:19:54
population in that region we could try
00:19:56
to get that relations within that
00:19:58
region using spatial patterns at the
00:20:01
activation in that region you know my
00:20:03
no priority this should not work
00:20:06
because I'm right resolution is
00:20:08
terrible every Vauxhall we measures
00:20:10
measuring hundreds of thousands of
00:20:11
neurons and so when we started say
00:20:14
fifteen years ago there's a spatial
00:20:16
colour in the MRI looks at different
00:20:19
neural cell population most people like
00:20:21
me not that probably not but he was
00:20:25
right. And there an audible amount of
00:20:27
subtle information in the spatial
00:20:29
pattern within a reject of exactly
00:20:32
where the neural populations are more
00:20:34
or less active with this contract
00:20:36
activation inside this regions that we
00:20:39
had at historically been steadier. They
00:20:42
give you these analyses where when you
00:20:44
we got another. So you read many
00:20:46
stories like this in this experiment
00:20:48
two hundred stories describing other
00:20:50
people's experiences we take one that
00:20:52
it and so for example the first hundred
00:20:54
and we weren't spatial patterns
00:20:56
associated with the emotions in those
00:20:58
stories. And that we do is for the next
00:21:01
hundred stories we take just the
00:21:03
spatial pattern of activation in the
00:21:05
brain generate a group of religions and
00:21:08
we can you tell from just the neural
00:21:10
activation to this news story you know
00:21:13
anything about this new story. But can
00:21:15
you tell me in this news story about
00:21:18
being just looking at the pattern
00:21:20
creation is it about being furious or
00:21:23
about being embarrassed that the new
00:21:25
pattern is that story about being
00:21:27
furious or about being embarrassed go
00:21:30
that right okay so you can you
00:21:35
summarise based decoding but you can
00:21:37
use data spatial activation to inspire
00:21:40
the emotional state of the character
00:21:42
you know about Jenny being kicked out
00:21:44
of her apartment by her boyfriend who's
00:21:46
cheated on her with another girl but at
00:21:47
least you knew that she was furious and
00:21:51
that's our experiments one okay like
00:21:53
that here I feel example based on a
00:21:56
binary decoding task that was just
00:21:57
curious person better. And a long
00:22:00
experiment it was a twenty alternative
00:22:01
first right that we give people twenty
00:22:03
different emotional categories two
00:22:05
hundred narratives about experiences
00:22:07
and that is about to that you believe
00:22:09
read we'll have positive experiences
00:22:11
like feeling proud of yourself or hire
00:22:13
me and achieving a personal record a
00:22:15
marathon or relieved when a car
00:22:18
accident driving while texting did not
00:22:21
lead to harm the that these are huge
00:22:24
range of human emotional experiences
00:22:26
what we said is that human observers
00:22:29
have incredibly sophisticated and
00:22:31
detailed knowledge of these so I'm
00:22:33
extremely strong agreement about the
00:22:35
dominant emotion even another twenty
00:22:37
wail on the first try. And task. So we
00:22:40
can get very precise and highly agreed
00:22:42
upon descriptions of what is the
00:22:43
emotions depict. And then we can ask
00:22:45
where in the brain is there had an
00:22:48
information so we're not looking at
00:22:49
amount of activity we're looking at
00:22:51
information that lets you decode in
00:22:54
independent data the emotion that the
00:22:56
character was experiencing as you just
00:22:58
it okay so this is where in the brain
00:23:01
there's problem information that decode
00:23:03
which emotion about Karen is in the
00:23:05
story someone you'll know if that that
00:23:08
extremely similar to the brain regions
00:23:10
that I showed you before and I think
00:23:12
that using this individually tailored
00:23:13
approach where we take for each
00:23:15
individual the specific region in this
00:23:17
network and then ask whether contain
00:23:19
significant information but it's
00:23:21
decoding new stories the one out of
00:23:23
twenty emotion the characters
00:23:24
experiencing oh great regions do. And
00:23:27
there's a chance that that information
00:23:29
is non productive. So that there's
00:23:30
different information in different
00:23:32
brain regions because when you combine
00:23:34
across time you can do even better okay
00:23:37
so that is what the court and that's
00:23:39
what we're now doing many products
00:23:40
around recording and again I'm just
00:23:42
gonna give you one tiny taste of this
00:23:44
by looking at a specific features so
00:23:46
that that there's information. But you
00:23:48
might wanna know okay well what is
00:23:49
represented some information is
00:23:51
represented but what is that on this
00:23:53
feature that we started looking at is
00:23:55
the one that I started with the style
00:23:57
which is distinguishing between harm
00:23:59
caused knowingly and harm caused
00:24:00
unknowingly we we're interested in this
00:24:04
feature because we had previously shown
00:24:06
using TMS that if you "'cause"
00:24:10
transients destruction of activation in
00:24:12
a brain regions of this is in the right
00:24:14
CBJ I'm gonna actually just skip the
00:24:16
demo I think many of you have stadium
00:24:18
at this is transient destruction of a
00:24:20
cortical region and how human being but
00:24:23
what you can do it selectively change
00:24:25
people's moral judgements on this task
00:24:27
and the way that that happens it
00:24:29
specifically that when the then kill
00:24:32
somebody believing that the powder
00:24:34
shutters that was the first story that
00:24:36
I told you that that is charged more
00:24:38
morally wrong so if you met for
00:24:40
slightly mess that she thought it was
00:24:43
shoulder and go with what actually
00:24:45
caused mainly because dad rate you jack
00:24:48
the rental times as more morally wrong
00:24:50
and we can create that affect with TMST
00:24:52
right EPJ compared to Tia master
00:24:54
controls like okay. So in this
00:24:57
experiment now find out whether that
00:24:59
feature is represented in the pattern
00:25:01
of neural activity in the right to be J
00:25:03
we had people Reading stories about a
00:25:05
character who cause harm accidentally
00:25:07
or intentionally so this is the
00:25:08
character putting peanut in the dish
00:25:10
served to somebody who securely Alec
00:25:12
allergic to peanuts that either about
00:25:15
this experiment is we change only two
00:25:17
four words in these stories. So
00:25:19
specifically we just change whether you
00:25:21
knew where did not know that your
00:25:23
customers allergic to peanuts all these
00:25:25
are very complicated stimulate what
00:25:27
we're all regions to really is just an
00:25:29
incredibly small churches that one set
00:25:32
of words that say whether you knew or
00:25:33
did not know the consequences of your
00:25:35
action these historically the robots
00:25:38
but equivalent activity in the right
00:25:39
CPJ and what we were then able to show
00:25:42
how is that although the magnitude of
00:25:44
activation is the same for these
00:25:46
stories the patterns are slightly
00:25:48
different so we were able to decode
00:25:50
weather story was about accidental or
00:25:52
intentional harm but in this experiment
00:25:54
and three other experiments. And the
00:25:57
this is this is that directory showing
00:25:59
that haven't activity are more similar
00:26:02
when they're maxed on this one feature
00:26:04
this information with specific to the
00:26:06
right CPJ and that the particular thing
00:26:08
that I wanna show you would across
00:26:10
individuals so there's disagreement
00:26:13
about how much moral blame you deserve
00:26:16
for an accident and that was true in
00:26:17
this room right if somebody
00:26:19
accidentally put poison in a coffee
00:26:21
believing that it shows our individual
00:26:23
differ in how much blame making you is
00:26:26
there. And we can capture that
00:26:28
difference. So this I mean that if your
00:26:31
moral judgement of accidental harms and
00:26:33
on the Y axis is the pattern of
00:26:35
activity in your right to PJ while
00:26:37
you're Reading about those times and
00:26:39
where you can feel about thirty five
00:26:41
percent of the variance in individuals
00:26:43
moral judgement of these stories can be
00:26:45
captured by the difference in their
00:26:47
writing PJ what decoding feature while
00:26:51
they're Reading these stories. We're
00:26:53
interested in this for a lot of
00:26:54
reasons. But one of them is that this
00:26:56
feature is also different in high
00:26:57
functioning at odds with actors and I'm
00:27:00
still like in the TMF experiment
00:27:01
actually you high functioning out with
00:27:03
autism attribute more Liam for
00:27:06
accidental harms an education tonight
00:27:08
you control participants. And we found
00:27:11
that there was no pattern information
00:27:13
decoding this distinction in the right.
00:27:15
BJ that was slightly warrants "'cause"
00:27:18
I realised that was running out of time
00:27:20
and I wanna talk to a little bit about
00:27:22
where this is going okay what actually
00:27:24
with that we know where to look in the
00:27:26
brain number beginning to know how to
00:27:28
look as well just study the normal
00:27:30
population responses the patterns that
00:27:32
underlie computations and
00:27:34
representations about other people's
00:27:36
thoughts emotions and intentions. So
00:27:40
where research going. Well the first
00:27:43
thing that we thought to do it and you
00:27:44
don't already dan is study how these
00:27:46
distinctions are merging child that I
00:27:48
started my top right telling you that
00:27:49
your mind undergoes dramatic changes in
00:27:52
childhood and we've already done
00:27:53
experiments with children eighty five
00:27:55
to twelve uniform right looking at how
00:27:58
these kinds of distinctions emerge as
00:28:00
children's behavioural competency
00:28:02
theory of mind increases the second
00:28:05
thing that's interesting is how
00:28:07
experience this is now much more common
00:28:10
experience that you just heard about in
00:28:11
the talk before but nevertheless
00:28:13
childhood experience change children's
00:28:15
developing curious mind we study that
00:28:17
in a number of ways one is by studying
00:28:20
deaf children exposed to sign language
00:28:22
or not exposed to sign language and
00:28:23
have access to conversation with other
00:28:25
people affect the development of these
00:28:27
brain regions for theory of mind we're
00:28:29
also stating it by creating those
00:28:31
experiences by and deliberately
00:28:33
training children and understanding
00:28:35
specific kinds of mental states in
00:28:37
other people and asking whether we can
00:28:39
induce changes in the patterns in the
00:28:41
right to be J that that research
00:28:44
program but the thing that I want to
00:28:46
leave you with this something I've been
00:28:47
working on for very long time. And and
00:28:49
is just coming to fruition. And we did
00:28:52
a lot of this research most of the
00:28:54
research and functional I'm right in
00:28:55
development is on folder and that's
00:28:58
because if you use your participants
00:29:01
please lie still and watch a movie
00:29:03
earlier agent which you can do that age
00:29:06
for it turns out a universal experience
00:29:08
we can get functional data in a week
00:29:10
performing human starting from each for
00:29:12
but most of the action of development
00:29:14
that you just heard about is done by
00:29:16
age four and so if you wanna study have
00:29:18
things like my nomination orally
00:29:20
experience set early structure in the
00:29:23
brain you need to be able to do imaging
00:29:25
in kids ages zero to four and the
00:29:28
people who are doing imaging in danger
00:29:30
zero four know you can't keep a baby
00:29:32
still so they study sleeping or enough
00:29:34
babies but I'm interested in function.
00:29:37
And that we're working on for the last
00:29:39
eight years is trying to study the
00:29:41
brains of babies while they're awake
00:29:43
watching movies and listening to
00:29:45
sounds. So I've been trying to do this
00:29:46
in my eight year. And we just started
00:29:49
to be able to sixty in this research
00:29:51
program this movie is to show you how
00:29:53
hard this as a because that was the
00:29:57
first five or six years of this
00:29:58
research program trying to sell
00:30:00
technical problem to make sure that
00:30:02
scanning would be safe and comfortable
00:30:04
and fun for maybe because maybe you can
00:30:06
withdraw their consent. We need a
00:30:09
chance to get good pictures of their
00:30:11
brain. And just again to get you a an
00:30:16
intuition for why this is hard if your
00:30:18
parents think about trying to take a
00:30:20
family photo shoot. And you have a four
00:30:23
month old baby and you want to smile
00:30:25
for the perfect photo and they need to
00:30:28
for my all exactly moving I had from
00:30:32
one in a millimetre for at least eight
00:30:34
minutes okay so first results from this
00:30:40
project should be coming we hope within
00:30:42
the next month. And we just finished
00:30:45
collecting data from the first nine the
00:30:49
first swell seven seventies. And this
00:30:52
research in particular because I think
00:30:54
human infant brain development is where
00:30:57
the action is human brains are
00:30:58
reputation for plasticity potential and
00:31:02
but there are limits to that plasticity
00:31:04
and what we're already seeing in our
00:31:05
functional data is substantial
00:31:07
structure in place even in a four month
00:31:09
old. And there are even cases where we
00:31:12
see the opposite of plasticity that is
00:31:14
early vulnerability more devastating
00:31:16
effects of damage in in infants and and
00:31:18
adults and I see that as a central
00:31:20
challenge I think this is what is most
00:31:22
exciting about the current
00:31:23
opportunities in human cognitive
00:31:25
neuroscience is ask how the growth of
00:31:27
this one little biological organ
00:31:30
accomplishes the amazing unfolding of
Conference Program
Introduction to the 12th Nestlé International Nutrition Symposium
Thomas Beck, NRC Director
Oct. 22, 2015 · 8:57 a.m.
790 views
Introduction to Session I - Cognitive & Brain Development
Susan Gasser, Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland
Oct. 22, 2015 · 9:04 a.m.
161 views
The development of a healthy brain
Michael Gazzaniga, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Oct. 22, 2015 · 9:16 a.m.
398 views
Q&A - The development of a healthy brain
Michael Gazzaniga, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Oct. 22, 2015 · 9:56 a.m.
Early influences on brain development and epigenetics
Stephen G. Matthews, University of Toronto, Canada
Oct. 22, 2015 · 10:49 a.m.
154 views
Q&A - Early influences on brain development and epigenetics
Stephen G. Matthews, University of Toronto, Canada
Oct. 22, 2015 · 11:29 a.m.
Building the physiology of thought
Rebecca Saxe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
Oct. 22, 2015 · 11:38 a.m.
226 views
Q&A - Building the physiology of thought
Rebecca Saxe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
Oct. 22, 2015 · 12:10 p.m.
Introduction to Session II - Cognitive Decline
Kathinka Evers
Oct. 22, 2015 · 2:02 p.m.
Brain health & brain diseases - future perspectives
Richard Frackowiak, CHUV University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland
Oct. 22, 2015 · 2:11 p.m.
120 views
Alzheimer's disease: genome-wide clues for novel therapies
Rudolph E. Tanzi, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, USA
Oct. 22, 2015 · 3:15 p.m.
Q&A - Alzheimer's disease: genome-wide clues for novel therapies
Rudolph E. Tanzi, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, USA
Oct. 22, 2015 · 3:59 p.m.
Immunometabolic regulators of age-related inflammation
Vishwa D. Dixit, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, USA
Oct. 22, 2015 · 4:21 p.m.
160 views
Q&A - Immunometabolic regulators of age-related inflammation
Vishwa D. Dixit, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, USA
Oct. 22, 2015 · 4:59 p.m.
Introduction to Session III - Nutrition & Cognitive Development
Pierre Magistretti, KAUST, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia and EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Oct. 23, 2015 · 9 a.m.
Energy metabolism in long-term memory formation and enhancement
Cristina M. Alberini, The Center for Neural Science, New York University, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 9:16 a.m.
413 views
Q&A - Energy metabolism in long-term memory formation and enhancement
Cristina M. Alberini, The Center for Neural Science, New York University, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 9:53 a.m.
Building the costly human brain: implications for the evolution of slow childhood growth and the origins of diabetes
Christopher Kuzawa, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 10:29 a.m.
Q&A - Building the costly human brain: implications for the evolution of slow childhood growth and the origins of diabetes
Christopher Kuzawa, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 10:57 a.m.
Nutrition, growth and the developing brain
Prof. Maureen Black, University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 11:09 a.m.
152 views
Q&A - Nutrition, growth and the developing brain
Prof. Maureen Black, University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 11:49 a.m.
Introduction to Session IV - Decline & Nutritional Intervention
Tamas Bartfai, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 12:48 p.m.
179 views
On multi-domain approaches for prevention trials
Miia Kivipelto, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
Oct. 23, 2015 · 1:04 p.m.
218 views
Q&A - On multi-domain approaches for prevention trials
Miia Kivipelto, MD, PhD, Karolinska Institutet
Oct. 23, 2015 · 1:39 p.m.
Methodological challenges in Alzheimer clinical development
Lon S. Schneider, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 1:49 p.m.
124 views
Q&A - Methodological challenges in Alzheimer clinical development
Lon S. Schneider, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 2:32 p.m.
We are what we remember: memory and age related memory disorders
Eric R. Kandel, Columbia University, New York, USA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 3:03 p.m.
230 views
Concluding Remarks
Stefan Catsicas, Chief Technology Officer, Nestlé SA
Oct. 23, 2015 · 3:50 p.m.
168 views
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