uh empathy. So, humans have something that's unique or almost unique. Some high apes have some of this. It's a cortical system um that goes off as a function of what other people do. So, if you and I are sitting across the tablefrom each other and I move my head, the part of your brain that controls you moving your head will light up without
And so our research is very much along the lines of answering three questions. What do the cortical columns do? How do they do it?
Black. Pink. Orange. Red. You could have a cortical implant.
focusing on the one part if you did a coral magnification with the dog you know the nose is highly over represented if you do a cortical magnification with us it's our eyes it's our hands you know it's the the places you expect it's not our elbows and it's not our knees and this allows dogs to do these
And you're kind of reenacting or reliving the situation. From electrodes measuring underlying cortical firings.
What are they doing? It's called cortical thickening.
autonomic responses. And today we are finding out so much about this part of our brain. This is cortical brain which is something called the there's this little island there called the insula which is like a hub you know where like say hub an airport terminal like Chicago where
The interesting other finding is in, is seen in the lower right hand graph where the blue circles were compared to the red squares. Red squares are the control group. They experienced what's called cortical thinning with aging, normal cortical thinning. People lose probably by the time they're 80 about three to five percent of cortical mass.
of the human brain called the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus. And there aren't proper cortical columns there, but these cell types and the circuitries exist in a different form. It's like what nature did is just discover these neural processes that allow us to build models of the world and then just repackage them
You want your employees to get feedback, but nobody likes getting performance feedback. So it gets you the cortical surface.
So just to remind you, here are the two views, put in terms of whether attention promotes And they go to the first cortical visual areas in the back of your head.
These are big superhighways of the brain that connect Wernicke's and Broca's area. Everything shown here in gray are cortical motor areas.
So this is the human brain right here. Everything shown here in gray are cortical motor areas.
You can present people in coma visual representations of their family, and their brains and cortical areas that are lower levels than the total cortical area will light up. So what you're left with is a fundamental question that has not yet been answered.
It isn't that hard to understand in conceptual levels. What you think about is each of these cortical columns-- oh, I didn't tell you how big they are. I should do that.
But Joe and I got this big Army grant just a month ago or so. What you see here is an immunohistochemistry plot of a cortical probe that was put into a rat brain. We were able to record 350-microvolt signals after 77 days, so almost three months in that rat brain, with these PEDOT electrodes.
For example, there's the inability to produce language, which is classically known as Broca's Aphasia, or difficulty comprehending language, which is classically known as Wernicke's Aphasia. And each one of these two areas has different cortical sources but that play a larger part in the language networks of the brain. So this is Tarman here, holding his favorite dish, so this is a human brain right here.
So for example, there's the inability to produce language, which is classically known as Broca's aphasia, or difficulty comprehending language, which is classically known as Wernicke's aphashia. And each one of these two areas has different cortical sources that play a larger part in the language networks of the brain. So this is Tar Man in here holding his favorite dish.
What are they doing? have higher ratios of left to right prefrontal cortical activity.
other day, right? This is also we think part of how just how the brain is working during REM sleep especially that it's uh there's a lot of kind of excessive activation in in cortical areas of the brain where memories are stored and a lot of association between different things, connections
And it's basically a fact now. This led to the idea of what you might have heard called a common cortical algorithm, meaning that there's this common thing that's going on in the cortex everywhere.
There's about 100,000 neurons in each one of those little columns, so it's complex. All right, so what does this cortical column do? Well, the simplest way to think about it is each one is like a little miniature brain.
It's like what nature did is just discover these neural processes that allow us to build models of the world and then just repackage them consistent. The whole theory of cortical columns shows that there's a common microcircuitry and common architecture that if we implement--
animal. And so it is possible to have cortical control over the circuitry.
overlap of activations in areas involving memory. But in REM sleep, the prefrontal cortical regions that are crucial for aspects of attention and cognitive control are comparatively deactivated beyond levels of deactivation seen during waking mind wandering, and interestingly in lucid dreaming,
These are big superhighways of the brain that connect Wernicke's and Broca's area. In the neocortex. You have the cortical motor areas.
So this is the human brain right here. In the neocortex, you have the cortical motor areas.
So those are the two ways, hyper-rational cortical limbic functioning and changes in the dopamine reward circuitry.
And we probably make use of all sorts of cues and sub-cortical cues ourselves.
years of evolution to do that in a few months. So we are now through technology literally seeing the explosive growth of this part of our brain the cortical brain which has self-awareness and can actually override
In this particular study they found that people who had significant long term practice, which has probably amounted to 20 to 40 minutes most days, in the real world of-of Western practitioners, they actually had thicker cortical tissues in two key regions. One is the insula, that's number one, where they're tuning into their body and their deep emotions and self awareness in general.
what's called cortical thinning with aging, normal cortical thinning. People lose probably by the time they're 80 about three to five percent of cortical mass. But the people who routinely used those regions, those are the blue circles, did not lose cortical tissue in those regions as a function of using it and not losing it.
But if it's chronic and if you tend to be-- and we can talk about the cortical mechanisms behind it.
It's like what nature did is just discover these neural processes that allow us to build models of the world and then just repackage them There's a single sort of consistent microcircuit, like cortical column, that's not simple.
And they train so that they can control, with cortical control, these defensive behaviors.
nose that's how dogs are better than their equipment is better than ours um before you get to the brain but two and this is um you'll you'll um excuse my rendition I hope there's something called cortical magnification which is a way of thinking what would your body look like if it instead of being scaled the way it is is scaled to how it's represented in the brain and so I'm just
And I'll say more about that in a minute. And then from the neuroscience perspective, there's a large overlap in activation patterns of various cortical regions. So both activate regions involved in self-referential thought-- that is thinking about something in relationship to self and evaluating it in a certain way--
So in the last two years we've developed what we think is the world's softest, fully elastic material. It has a modulus of one kilopascal, which is about 10 times softer than most cortical tissue. We can spin this into a 20-nanometer thick layer.
We've got this power, this convoluted, cortical power built into this hormonal engine.
What are they doing? And the more you practice, the bigger, the more cortical thickening there is.
is if that kid had had an internal compass that wasn't driven by his limbic area and cortical processing of information but instead--
nothing happens. You present the name of the child, even though they don't wake up, their EEG changes. You can present people in coma visual representations of their family, and their brains and cortical areas that are lower levels than the total cortical area will light up.
time and I now I know that that a lot of people are are working on building elaborate models of the cortical columns
And it would have evolved a long time ago because it basically allows us to move around in the world. And so I would suspect any animal like a bird is going to have the same basic mechanisms even though they may not be, quote, equivalent to cortical columns, and they may not be an equivalent cortex.
There's one pathway, the one over here on you your left that's in blue, that doesn't really involve all these smart evolutionarily new cortical
Then what we did is we stained, we sectioned the rat brain and stained it for different cell types. And what you'll notice is that there's very little scarring right around the device, and we can clearly see different cortical regions, the different color stripes that are unperturbed with these devices.
are either happy, enthusiastic, energized, engaged, there's a lot of left prefrontal cortical activity in the brain, a lot of activity behind this area.
It was studied in 1931, but then 2002, 2003 two German neuroscientists got a hold of it again and did an analysis of the structure of his cortical cells.
guilt, depression. uh the lyic uh system is not working properly. Okay, this is 100 million years old. The first one is 300 million years old. And then you have this huge part, this is the cortical brain. Okay, which is only 4 million years old in evolution. So it's brand
People lose probably by the time they're 80 about three to five percent of cortical mass. But the people who routinely used those regions, those are the blue circles, did not lose cortical tissue in those regions as a function of using it and not losing it. There are other examples. Some of them are quite down to earth. I don't know if you've ever been to London. It's a spaghetti snarl of streets. Taxi cab drivers who have to memorize