Slideshow for TED-style talk on TOK Retreat

4. All your…

12. YOUR BRAIN

13. Contained in...
• 3 pounds of squidgy, whitish,
buttery gloop…
• 1500ml
• 3 times bigger than any ape or
Australopithecus

14. 86 billion neurons (fire in patterns)
Each with up to 5000 dendrites
(branches); allows thousands of
synaptic connections in 3d space
WE DO NOT HAVE A CONVINCING
OVERARCHING THEORY FOR HOW
IT WORKS (YET)…

18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAIQeTeMJ-I

19. YOUR BRAIN IN A JAR

20. Smart ape
Embodied

22. Mind on the hoof: 4Fs

23. Embedded in a specific culture SOCIAL/LANGUAGE

24. Ultraviolet

25. Psychedelic Umwelt of hyperspectral color and polarized light

26. Tactile

27. Sensory

28. Infra red

29. Olfactory

30. subsonic sound

32. Auditory – Echolocation (SS)

33. •What is it like
to be a bat?

34. Extended
phenotype
TECHNOLOGY

37. SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS:
EXTENDING OUR SENSORY RANGE

38. X-RAY CRYSTALLOGRAPHY

39. MICRO WAVE TELESCOPE IMAGE
OF A FAR GALAXY

41. JS/Q

42. Neuroscience—a golden age
Like the ocean: unchartered territory

43. Interesting bits

44. Adolescent brain

45. Big in birds!

47. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5F7snIJ-is

49. Synapse

50. Baby brain
Same the number of neurons as
adults only 20% of adult size!
Very few connections; and
more compactly spaced

51. Like a ship coming out of the fog
• Newborn
• 4 weeks
• 8 weeks
• 3 months
• 6 months

52. SYNAPTIC DENSITY PEAKS AT AGE 2
There is a rapid proliferation and
overproduction of synapses during
infancy. Two year olds have an
astonishing 50% more connections
than in adults!

54. Followed by “synaptic pruning” that
eventually brings the overall number of
connections down to their adult levels.
This process is most exuberant during the
first few years of life, AND extends well
into adolescence and young adulthood.

55. Neural pruning metaphor…

56. Neural Darwinism

57. Selection
1. More connections produced than needed
2. Competing for limited nutients and O2
3. Neurons that fire together wire together
4. Use or lose… brain constructs itself by the
logic of evolution and embryology; not
analogous to a manufactured computer

58. INFERENCE MACHINE
• What if? Living in the subjunctive tense?
• Scientific method: wet-wired… All babies are
scientists?
• Curiosity/Creativity? All Kids are artists?
• Who do we think we are?
• Living in stories…making it up as we go along
(on the fly)?

59. TAKE HOMES
1. Embodied and embedded
2. Constructed self (brain) based on experience
Neural Darwinism: connections that “fire
together ‘wet-wire’ together”
3. Neuroscience in its infancy (excited about
new discoveries– especially imaging)
4. Brain is not strictly analagous to a computer.
Do we think who we are?