full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Michael Dickinson: How a fly flies


Unscramble the Blue Letters


But let's think about this. How can you make a small number of neurons do a lot? And I think, from an eenreinigng ppvsrtieece, you think of multiplexing. You can take a hardware and have that hardware do different things at different times, or have different parts of the hardware doing different things. And these are the two cpoetcns I'd like to explore. And they're not concepts that I've come up with, but concepts that have been porpesod by others in the past.

And one idea comes from lessons from chewing crabs. And I don't mean chewing the crabs. I grew up in Baltimore, and I chew crabs very, very well. But I'm talking about the cbars actually doing the chewing. Crab chewing is actually really fascinating. Crabs have this complicated structure under their carapace called the gastric mill that grinds their food in a variety of different ways. And here's an endoscopic movie of this sutcurtre. The amazing thing about this is that it's controlled by a really tiny set of neurons, about two dozen neurons that can produce a vast vartiey of different motor patterns, and the reason it can do this is that this little tiny gangolin in the crab is actually inundated by many, many neuromodulators. You heard about neuromodulators earlier. There are more nmaeorodoutlurs that alter, that innervate this structure than actually neurons in the structure, and they're able to generate a cepmtcailod set of patretns. And this is the work by Eve meradr and her many cluolegeas who've been studying this fascinating sytesm that show how a smaellr cluster of neurons can do many, many, many things because of neuromodulation that can take place on a moment-by-moment basis. So this is basically multiplexing in time. Imagine a network of neurons with one neuromodulator. You select one set of clels to perform one sort of behavior, another nduooloeuamrtr, another set of cells, a different pattern, and you can imagine you could extrapolate to a very, very complicated system.

Open Cloze


But let's think about this. How can you make a small number of neurons do a lot? And I think, from an ___________ ___________, you think of multiplexing. You can take a hardware and have that hardware do different things at different times, or have different parts of the hardware doing different things. And these are the two ________ I'd like to explore. And they're not concepts that I've come up with, but concepts that have been ________ by others in the past.

And one idea comes from lessons from chewing crabs. And I don't mean chewing the crabs. I grew up in Baltimore, and I chew crabs very, very well. But I'm talking about the _____ actually doing the chewing. Crab chewing is actually really fascinating. Crabs have this complicated structure under their carapace called the gastric mill that grinds their food in a variety of different ways. And here's an endoscopic movie of this _________. The amazing thing about this is that it's controlled by a really tiny set of neurons, about two dozen neurons that can produce a vast _______ of different motor patterns, and the reason it can do this is that this little tiny ________ in the crab is actually inundated by many, many neuromodulators. You heard about neuromodulators earlier. There are more _______________ that alter, that innervate this structure than actually neurons in the structure, and they're able to generate a ___________ set of ________. And this is the work by Eve ______ and her many __________ who've been studying this fascinating ______ that show how a _______ cluster of neurons can do many, many, many things because of neuromodulation that can take place on a moment-by-moment basis. So this is basically multiplexing in time. Imagine a network of neurons with one neuromodulator. You select one set of _____ to perform one sort of behavior, another ______________, another set of cells, a different pattern, and you can imagine you could extrapolate to a very, very complicated system.

Solution


  1. complicated
  2. system
  3. smaller
  4. patterns
  5. engineering
  6. structure
  7. cells
  8. marder
  9. neuromodulator
  10. proposed
  11. colleagues
  12. variety
  13. crabs
  14. ganglion
  15. perspective
  16. neuromodulators
  17. concepts

Original Text


But let's think about this. How can you make a small number of neurons do a lot? And I think, from an engineering perspective, you think of multiplexing. You can take a hardware and have that hardware do different things at different times, or have different parts of the hardware doing different things. And these are the two concepts I'd like to explore. And they're not concepts that I've come up with, but concepts that have been proposed by others in the past.

And one idea comes from lessons from chewing crabs. And I don't mean chewing the crabs. I grew up in Baltimore, and I chew crabs very, very well. But I'm talking about the crabs actually doing the chewing. Crab chewing is actually really fascinating. Crabs have this complicated structure under their carapace called the gastric mill that grinds their food in a variety of different ways. And here's an endoscopic movie of this structure. The amazing thing about this is that it's controlled by a really tiny set of neurons, about two dozen neurons that can produce a vast variety of different motor patterns, and the reason it can do this is that this little tiny ganglion in the crab is actually inundated by many, many neuromodulators. You heard about neuromodulators earlier. There are more neuromodulators that alter, that innervate this structure than actually neurons in the structure, and they're able to generate a complicated set of patterns. And this is the work by Eve Marder and her many colleagues who've been studying this fascinating system that show how a smaller cluster of neurons can do many, many, many things because of neuromodulation that can take place on a moment-by-moment basis. So this is basically multiplexing in time. Imagine a network of neurons with one neuromodulator. You select one set of cells to perform one sort of behavior, another neuromodulator, another set of cells, a different pattern, and you can imagine you could extrapolate to a very, very complicated system.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
fruit flies 4
star trek 3
fruit fly 3
aerodynamic forces 3
trump number 3
visual interneuron 3
insect flight 2
flies excel 2
power required 2
insect wings 2
leading edge 2
structure called 2
nervous system 2
simple model 2
great model 2
behavioral repertoire 2
tiny neurons 2
tiny ganglion 2
malcolm burrows 2
action potentials 2



Important Words


  1. alter
  2. amazing
  3. baltimore
  4. basically
  5. basis
  6. behavior
  7. called
  8. carapace
  9. cells
  10. chew
  11. chewing
  12. cluster
  13. colleagues
  14. complicated
  15. concepts
  16. controlled
  17. crab
  18. crabs
  19. dozen
  20. earlier
  21. endoscopic
  22. engineering
  23. eve
  24. explore
  25. extrapolate
  26. fascinating
  27. food
  28. ganglion
  29. gastric
  30. generate
  31. grew
  32. grinds
  33. hardware
  34. heard
  35. idea
  36. imagine
  37. innervate
  38. inundated
  39. lessons
  40. lot
  41. marder
  42. mill
  43. motor
  44. movie
  45. multiplexing
  46. network
  47. neuromodulation
  48. neuromodulator
  49. neuromodulators
  50. neurons
  51. number
  52. parts
  53. pattern
  54. patterns
  55. perform
  56. perspective
  57. place
  58. produce
  59. proposed
  60. reason
  61. select
  62. set
  63. show
  64. small
  65. smaller
  66. sort
  67. structure
  68. studying
  69. system
  70. talking
  71. time
  72. times
  73. tiny
  74. variety
  75. vast
  76. ways
  77. work