full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Sergiu P. Pasca: How we're reverse engineering the human brain in the lab

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Today, most of what we know about the human brian comes from studies in amnalis, tiyclaply mice. And while we've learned a lot from these ainaml brains, the characteristics that make the human brain unique, and uniquely susceptible to disease, remain meysuotirs.

I’m a physician by training and a professor at Stanford, where my laboratory has been taking unconventional approaches to study how the hmaun brain develops, how disorders in the human brain arise and find new ways of treatment.

I think the best way to explain, though, how we do this is through the eyes of one of my ptaitnes. When I opened my lab at Stanford, Eduard, who's on the autism spectrum, sent me this drawing depicting how he thought we were studying brain disorders. Now to paraphrase him, he said, "What I think you're doing is you're climbing up a ladder, poking holes in people's brains and then use tiny telescopes to watch neural cells." Of course, that's not what we do. So I called him up, explained the peorscs, and then the next morning he sent me another drawing, which I think edend up being a quite accurate ratporeneiestn of the work that we and many others now are doing. Again, to paraphrase him, he said, "You're taking skin clels from patients that have scifipec brain disorders, then doing some mmubo jumbo to the cells to push them back in time and turn them into stem cells." And then he knew that stem cells can be coaxed to become any cell type. “So then you’re taking them and tniunrg them into brain cells that form brain crtiuics.”

Open Cloze


Today, most of what we know about the human _____ comes from studies in _______, _________ mice. And while we've learned a lot from these ______ brains, the characteristics that make the human brain unique, and uniquely susceptible to disease, remain __________.

I’m a physician by training and a professor at Stanford, where my laboratory has been taking unconventional approaches to study how the _____ brain develops, how disorders in the human brain arise and find new ways of treatment.

I think the best way to explain, though, how we do this is through the eyes of one of my ________. When I opened my lab at Stanford, Eduard, who's on the autism spectrum, sent me this drawing depicting how he thought we were studying brain disorders. Now to paraphrase him, he said, "What I think you're doing is you're climbing up a ladder, poking holes in people's brains and then use tiny telescopes to watch neural cells." Of course, that's not what we do. So I called him up, explained the _______, and then the next morning he sent me another drawing, which I think _____ up being a quite accurate ______________ of the work that we and many others now are doing. Again, to paraphrase him, he said, "You're taking skin _____ from patients that have ________ brain disorders, then doing some _____ jumbo to the cells to push them back in time and turn them into stem cells." And then he knew that stem cells can be coaxed to become any cell type. “So then you’re taking them and _______ them into brain cells that form brain ________.”

Solution


  1. typically
  2. circuits
  3. human
  4. cells
  5. specific
  6. mysterious
  7. brain
  8. animal
  9. animals
  10. process
  11. representation
  12. ended
  13. patients
  14. mumbo
  15. turning

Original Text


Today, most of what we know about the human brain comes from studies in animals, typically mice. And while we've learned a lot from these animal brains, the characteristics that make the human brain unique, and uniquely susceptible to disease, remain mysterious.

I’m a physician by training and a professor at Stanford, where my laboratory has been taking unconventional approaches to study how the human brain develops, how disorders in the human brain arise and find new ways of treatment.

I think the best way to explain, though, how we do this is through the eyes of one of my patients. When I opened my lab at Stanford, Eduard, who's on the autism spectrum, sent me this drawing depicting how he thought we were studying brain disorders. Now to paraphrase him, he said, "What I think you're doing is you're climbing up a ladder, poking holes in people's brains and then use tiny telescopes to watch neural cells." Of course, that's not what we do. So I called him up, explained the process, and then the next morning he sent me another drawing, which I think ended up being a quite accurate representation of the work that we and many others now are doing. Again, to paraphrase him, he said, "You're taking skin cells from patients that have specific brain disorders, then doing some mumbo jumbo to the cells to push them back in time and turn them into stem cells." And then he knew that stem cells can be coaxed to become any cell type. “So then you’re taking them and turning them into brain cells that form brain circuits.”

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human brain 17
cell type 6
stem cells 5
brain organoids 4
brain cells 4
skin cells 3
outer layer 2
human circuits 2
brain disorders 2
specific brain 2
build human 2
brain circuits 2
chemical soup 2
brain organoid 2
nervous system 2
brain clock 2
side started 2
jumping behavior 2
molecular mechanism 2


Important Words


  1. accurate
  2. animal
  3. animals
  4. approaches
  5. arise
  6. autism
  7. brain
  8. brains
  9. called
  10. cell
  11. cells
  12. characteristics
  13. circuits
  14. climbing
  15. coaxed
  16. depicting
  17. develops
  18. disease
  19. disorders
  20. drawing
  21. eduard
  22. ended
  23. explain
  24. explained
  25. eyes
  26. find
  27. form
  28. holes
  29. human
  30. jumbo
  31. knew
  32. lab
  33. laboratory
  34. ladder
  35. learned
  36. lot
  37. mice
  38. morning
  39. mumbo
  40. mysterious
  41. neural
  42. opened
  43. paraphrase
  44. patients
  45. physician
  46. poking
  47. process
  48. professor
  49. push
  50. remain
  51. representation
  52. skin
  53. specific
  54. spectrum
  55. stanford
  56. stem
  57. studies
  58. study
  59. studying
  60. susceptible
  61. telescopes
  62. thought
  63. time
  64. tiny
  65. today
  66. training
  67. treatment
  68. turn
  69. turning
  70. type
  71. typically
  72. unconventional
  73. unique
  74. uniquely
  75. watch
  76. ways
  77. work