full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Li-Huei Tsai: Could we treat Alzheimer's with light and sound?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So this menas that probably most of us in this room have known and loved someone with Alzheimer's. I am no exception. One day when I was four, I went out with my grandmother. And when I looked up to her to say, "Let's go home," She said, "Home. Where is home?"

So to see if we could treat Alzheimer's disease by changing brainwaves, we tried out different approaches. By wkiorng with my colleagues, ermey Brown and Ed Boyden at MIT, we figured out that we could entrain or stimulate increased gamma waves by splimy swinhog mice lights blinking at that frequency. This really works. Showing mice 40-hertz flickering light -- and we demonstrated later, placing of 40-hertz buzzing sonud -- creates a 40-hertz disco that ieaesnrcs the power and synchrony of these waves across the brain. The ecfeft reahces key parts of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, where we do planning and reasoning and the hippocampus where we create memories.

Open Cloze


So this _____ that probably most of us in this room have known and loved someone with Alzheimer's. I am no exception. One day when I was four, I went out with my grandmother. And when I looked up to her to say, "Let's go home," She said, "Home. Where is home?"

So to see if we could treat Alzheimer's disease by changing brainwaves, we tried out different approaches. By _______ with my colleagues, _____ Brown and Ed Boyden at MIT, we figured out that we could entrain or stimulate increased gamma waves by ______ _______ mice lights blinking at that frequency. This really works. Showing mice 40-hertz flickering light -- and we demonstrated later, placing of 40-hertz buzzing _____ -- creates a 40-hertz disco that _________ the power and synchrony of these waves across the brain. The ______ _______ key parts of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, where we do planning and reasoning and the hippocampus where we create memories.

Solution


  1. simply
  2. sound
  3. working
  4. emery
  5. means
  6. reaches
  7. effect
  8. showing
  9. increases

Original Text


So this means that probably most of us in this room have known and loved someone with Alzheimer's. I am no exception. One day when I was four, I went out with my grandmother. And when I looked up to her to say, "Let's go home," She said, "Home. Where is home?"

So to see if we could treat Alzheimer's disease by changing brainwaves, we tried out different approaches. By working with my colleagues, Emery Brown and Ed Boyden at MIT, we figured out that we could entrain or stimulate increased gamma waves by simply showing mice lights blinking at that frequency. This really works. Showing mice 40-hertz flickering light -- and we demonstrated later, placing of 40-hertz buzzing sound -- creates a 40-hertz disco that increases the power and synchrony of these waves across the brain. The effect reaches key parts of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, where we do planning and reasoning and the hippocampus where we create memories.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
gamma waves 9
sound stimulation 6
gamma light 4
mice exposed 3
gamma wave 3
wave stimulation 3
nerve cells 2
showing mice 2
stimulation approach 2
approach appears 2
start early 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
gamma wave stimulation 3
sound stimulation approach 2

Important Words


  1. approaches
  2. blinking
  3. boyden
  4. brain
  5. brainwaves
  6. brown
  7. buzzing
  8. changing
  9. colleagues
  10. cortex
  11. create
  12. creates
  13. day
  14. demonstrated
  15. disco
  16. disease
  17. ed
  18. effect
  19. emery
  20. entrain
  21. exception
  22. figured
  23. flickering
  24. frequency
  25. gamma
  26. grandmother
  27. hippocampus
  28. home
  29. increased
  30. increases
  31. key
  32. light
  33. lights
  34. looked
  35. loved
  36. means
  37. memories
  38. mice
  39. mit
  40. parts
  41. placing
  42. planning
  43. power
  44. prefrontal
  45. reaches
  46. reasoning
  47. room
  48. showing
  49. simply
  50. sound
  51. stimulate
  52. synchrony
  53. treat
  54. waves
  55. working
  56. works