- 6/26/2025
The human brain uses the default mode network when we are sub-consciously performing tasks.
The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) buzzes with activity when an individual feels that they are about to make an error.
Honest signaling operates at the sub-conscious level.
Monks in Tibet practice a form of meditation called "tummo".
Morgan Freeman reviews transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
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#cosmosspacescience
#throughthewormhole
#season3
#episode8
#cosmology
#astronomy
#spacetime
#spacescience
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The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) buzzes with activity when an individual feels that they are about to make an error.
Honest signaling operates at the sub-conscious level.
Monks in Tibet practice a form of meditation called "tummo".
Morgan Freeman reviews transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
Thanks for watching. Follow for more vidoes.
#cosmosspacescience
#throughthewormhole
#season3
#episode8
#cosmology
#astronomy
#spacetime
#spacescience
#space
#nasa
#spacedocumentary
#morganfreeman
#subconscious
#mysteriesofthesubconscious
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Inside your head is an unexplored world.
00:07It holds all that you know, everything you feel, and thoughts you aren't even aware of.
00:17Now, science is searching the hidden reaches of our minds,
00:21decoding its inner language to discover our true mental power
00:27and to understand the mysteries of the subconscious.
00:37Space, time, life itself.
00:44The secrets of the cosmos lie through the wormhole.
00:57The subconscious.
01:04It's the source of our primal fears and desires.
01:09The wellspring of our dreams.
01:12The place where our alter egos lurk.
01:16But as modern neuroscience explores the frontiers of our minds,
01:21we're discovering the subconscious controls our every waking moment.
01:26If we can truly understand our unthinking minds,
01:31we could all become smarter, healthier, and more creative than we ever dreamed possible.
01:38I was eight years old when I got on stage for the first time.
01:48I had to reenact Little Boy Blue.
01:51Even though the poem was only twelve lines long,
01:55I was certain I was going to mess it up.
01:59But the moment I began to speak, some hidden part of me seemed to take over.
02:10The lines flowed out of me without a hitch.
02:14And I felt like I wasn't even there.
02:19How is it we are able to do something so complex without even thinking?
02:25How is it we are able to do something so complex?
02:31Marcus Rakel is a neuroscientist at Washington University School of Medicine
02:36in St. Louis, Missouri.
02:39He is constantly amazed at what our brains can do.
02:44We have memories that have to do with how I move my hands and legs
02:47and all this kind of thing for which we have no conscious sense
02:51of how this is all implemented.
02:54We kind of forget how complicated these things are.
03:00As an amateur musician, Marcus likes to compare our brains separate functions
03:06like vision, hearing, memory, and muscle control
03:09to the individual players in a musical ensemble.
03:14And for him, the miracle of the brain is how it gets these complex systems
03:19to perform in perfect harmony.
03:22Rather than like this.
03:23Rather than like this.
03:36After years spent imaging brains, Marcus eventually discovered an entire mental network
03:54that coordinates our movements with our senses.
03:57And it turns on the moment you stop thinking.
04:02Nobody was even looking for this.
04:04It was almost by accident.
04:06It came to our attention that if you just were laying in a scanner
04:10and we were looking at your brain and then we asked you to do something,
04:13not only did things go up, but certain things went down.
04:16Certain parts of the brain seem to turn off whenever we begin a task.
04:23Those same regions become highly active whenever we are quiet and relaxed.
04:30Marcus calls these linked sections of the brain the default mode network.
04:38Because the brain defaults to this activity whenever we are not doing anything else.
04:44In fact, the brain is just as active in this default mode as when we are consciously doing something.
04:51After careful analysis, Marcus thinks he understands why.
04:57The default mode is deeply important in creating an ability to predict what's going to happen next.
05:03I think it's really critical.
05:06In the same way that an ensemble's musical director organizes the group's music,
05:11the default mode network organizes all the functions of the brain
05:16so that mind and body are always on the same page.
05:21But is our subconscious always the servant of our conscious mind?
05:26Or can it also take charge?
05:29The first one is the second time.
05:30The second time is the first time.
05:31The second time is the first time of all the bones.
05:34Henrik Ersen , a neuroscientist in Stockholm, Sweden is obsessed with his body.
05:42In fact, he thinks about bodies nonstop because he wants to know exactly how our minds control our bodies.
05:52Well, here I stand like a sculpture of skin and bone and joints.
05:57but I feel alive I feel my conscious experience in my entire body my body
06:03feels like part of me and what I'm interested in is to understand how can
06:09that be how can we have this experience our own body as part of ourselves
06:13distinct from the rest of the world
06:17welcome to the dollhouse these limbs cameras and knives are actually part of a scientific
06:28experiment designed by Henrik to play with our subconscious mind sense of who and where we are
06:36well we know there's lots of processes in the brain that we're not aware of that happens at
06:41the subconscious level what we try to understand is what makes those signals become part of our
06:46conscious experience
06:58a blindfolded subject is led into a room with two beds
07:02one for himself and the other for a small doll
07:06it's important that you try not to move during the experiment okay
07:09we use head-mounted displays that we connect to cameras
07:13so it's two screen in front of the participant's eyes and each screen is connected to one video camera
07:20which we can mount on the head of a mannequin or a doll so when you look down you don't see your own body
07:27anymore you see the doll from the natural first-person perspective
07:34the subject feels the stroking on his leg but sees the stroking on the doll's leg
07:40so his brain is fooled into thinking that the doll's legs are actually his own
07:48what happens then is the brain yes fuses what you see and what you feel and boom you feel like the doll of the mannequin
07:55well we think the brain creates like an internal model of your own body and we think the brain does that
08:04by integrating all available information from all the senses and be part of making that decision that this is me or this is not me
08:11having tricked the brain into a false reality
08:16Henrik can now tweak that reality and reveal how powerful the subconscious actually is
08:25the researcher threatens the doll with a knife
08:28the subject flinches with horror
08:32his brain can't help but expect excruciating pain
08:36even after the subject realizes it was a trick
08:40he continues to have the same reaction when the illusion is repeated
08:45his conscious experience cannot override his subconscious reaction
08:51you can't think it away you know it's just you know an experiment
08:55but you can't help that bodily feeling of
08:58because you feel that this doll is you
09:01so your brain just reacts in a very basic way
09:04and that signal this reaction is what we're measuring to really prove that the illusion is real
09:13one of Henrik's goals in performing these unnerving visual illusions
09:18is to locate the precise part of the subconscious brain
09:22that keeps track of where your body is
09:25brain scans he's performed during a body swap point
09:29to increase the activity in the ventral premotor cortex
09:33the sensory neurons involved in the visual guidance of movement
09:38well the ventral premotor cortex is one of those key nodes in the brain
09:42that integrate what you feel and what you see
09:44for controlling the body for defending the body
09:46because if you're in a fight you need to know
09:50where is your body and where is your opponent and you need to be able to act
09:54so those circuits of the brain are built to defend the body from threats
10:00for interacting with objects in the world
10:02and always keep track of the boundary between you and the world
10:06knowing the difference between what is us
10:11and not us is so vital
10:15that our subconscious reactions will overrule our conscious thoughts
10:20and sometimes
10:22that can mean the difference between life and death
10:30Have you ever had a hunch
10:32a feeling that something was wrong?
10:36Most of us have
10:39but where does that feeling come from?
10:42It could be a message from your subconscious mind
10:47telling you it knows something that you don't
10:57Joshua Brown is always on the go
11:01and always anticipating the unexpected
11:06When I go out cycling there are dangers potentially everywhere
11:11Is that pedestrian going to jump in front of me?
11:14Is that car door going to open in front of me?
11:16Is that car going to cut me off?
11:18And I'm constantly evaluating
11:20Is there some danger that I need to look out for
11:23that I need to be careful to avoid?
11:25But Joshua's research at Indiana University in Bloomington
11:29has shown him that this conscious evaluation
11:32is only the first layer of our brain's danger sensing mechanism
11:36What really keeps us out of harm's way
11:39is our subconscious
11:45Joshua has found a way of studying how our subconscious mind
11:51triggers a gut feeling when something is about to go wrong
11:55And it's a lot safer than riding your bike through rush hour traffic
11:59Basically on each trial there's going to be an arrow that appears in the middle of the screen
12:04And the arrow points left or right
12:06And it's really simple
12:08Press the left button if the arrow points left
12:10And press the right button if the arrow points right
12:12But there is a catch
12:15Sometimes within a half-second an opposing arrow appears
12:20And he must press that arrow's direction instead
12:26Each trial only lasts one second
12:29So if he decides too quickly
12:32He might miss the second arrow
12:35Too slowly
12:36And he could run out of time
12:39And so the longer we wait
12:42The more likely it is it's too late
12:44And they've already pressed the wrong button
12:47Joshua has programmed a pattern into the test
12:52But it's too subtle for the subject to pick up consciously
12:56Instead he must rely on his gut feelings
13:01What we really want to do is to isolate mechanisms in the brain
13:05That might be able to signal when you think you're more likely to make a mistake
13:11Joshua now conducts the same experiment while the subject is in an MRI machine
13:16He sees that one brain area in particular buzzes with activity
13:21When the subject feels like he might be about to make an error
13:25It's the anterior cingulate cortex
13:28And so here you can see in red
13:33The anterior cingulate cortex is showing a strong effect of error likelihood
13:38That is even when subjects don't actually make a mistake
13:41They're still showing effects in this region that seem to anticipate the greater likelihood of making a mistake
13:48Joshua believes this activity in the anterior cingulate cortex
13:53Is the source of our gut feelings
13:56But it's not just protecting us as we bike down busy streets
14:00Sometimes it can be responsible for the fate of hundreds of lives
14:04In 1991, in the opening days of the Persian Gulf War
14:13A fleet of British battleships is stationed 20 miles off the shores of Kuwait
14:19A lone naval officer is manning the radar station of one of the ships looking for incoming threats
14:25All is quiet until a blip suddenly appears on the radar screen
14:32That radar blip could have been one of two things
14:35It could have been a friendly aircraft returning from a bombing run
14:39Or it could have been a silkworm missile fired by the Iraqis
14:43The radar officer had a decision to make
14:46He could order the firing of countermeasures
14:49But if he did that and it was a friendly aircraft
14:52He would down a friendly aircraft
14:54Now if that incoming object was an enemy missile
14:59Several hundred people along with the ship could lose their lives
15:02And he had less than a minute to decide
15:04Time is running out
15:06But all the officer has to go on is a gut feeling
15:10So he orders the launch of countermeasures
15:14He sees the still unidentified object fall off the radar screen
15:26The countermeasures destroy the target less than half a mile from the fleet of ships
15:33He went back to his room and was just tormented over what had happened
15:39His torment is short lived
15:42Radio calls confirmed that the target was indeed a silkworm missile
15:47Not a friendly aircraft
15:49In the final review of the incident
15:53Investigators discovered that a friendly aircraft would have appeared on the radar screen during the first sweep
15:59Whereas the silkworm missile would initially be masked by ground interference
16:05So it would only appear on the screen during the third radar sweep
16:09As it got closer to the ships
16:11The officer's brain had somehow picked up on this different pattern
16:16Even though it was not written in any manual
16:19And he was not consciously aware of the difference
16:23The anterior cingulate cortex registered the danger
16:27Based on the experience of cumulative encounters
16:31What looks like a friendly aircraft and what doesn't
16:34And so by his action in a matter of seconds he saved the ship and hundreds of lives
16:41The brain is constantly processing these kinds of signals
16:46People may think that they've just now become aware or they've just now decided
16:51But in reality most likely their brain was processing that information well before
16:56Our subconscious mind is always two steps ahead of us
17:02Signaling what to do before we were even aware of it
17:06Could other people's brains pick up these signals too?
17:10Body language
17:16It's the native tongue of the subconscious
17:20The way we move
17:22The tone of our voice
17:24We are constantly giving off these subtle signals
17:28And they can have a profound effect on those around us
17:32What if you could decode this language?
17:36What are we really saying to one another?
17:40Humans are always communicating
17:46Chatting, talking on the phone, sending emails, tweeting and texting
17:52Sandy Pentland of MIT's Human Dynamics Lab
17:56Tries to rise above all this hubbub
18:00He prefers a different perspective on how we connect
18:03For him, words are not important
18:07He cares about a more primal form of communication
18:11He calls it honest signaling
18:15Groups before we had much language
18:17Had to still pool language and make decisions
18:20You see this in apes today
18:22And people have the same sort of behaviors and signals
18:26It's our social sense of each other
18:28Things like dominance, attraction, interest, excitement, fear
18:33Those can be examples of honest signals
18:36They're not very conscious to us
18:38But yet they have big impacts on how we behave with each other
18:42Sandy wanted to study how involuntary signals are transmitted within groups of people
18:49So he developed a special tool
18:52They are called sociometric badges
18:55So the sociometric badges that we have
18:58They measure your tone of voice
19:00So how you say it, not what you say it
19:02They also measure a certain amount of body language using an accelerometer
19:05Today, Sandy has asked eight MIT graduate students to perform a group task
19:12So this is a team building exercise
19:15To look at how you guys actually work together to do this task
19:19And the task is take pages from a comic book
19:23And put them in the right order but without showing them to each other
19:26So you have to talk to each other
19:28You have to figure out ways to describe it in order to get it in the right order
19:33And what we're also going to do is while you do that
19:36We're going to have these badges that we put on you
19:38There is a weird like spaceship in mine
19:44I have the explosion
19:46And I can tell you that the flamethrowers did not work
19:49Whoever had that other section
19:52While the students try to solve the task
19:55The smart badges are busily recording intimate details of their subconscious behavior
20:01So a lot of these patterns are indeed unconscious
20:04They're things you can focus on consciously but normally you don't
20:08It turns out they have enormous impact on the productivity of a group
20:12Robots and monsters, there's two different things
20:14Oh, I'm robots
20:15I'm robots
20:16Maybe we should clear that out
20:17Does anyone actually have a monster or are we all robots here?
20:21And though the task has a clear goal
20:23It's not the outcome that primarily interests Sandy
20:28In watching things we always get distracted by the ideas
20:32But what seems to really count in terms of performance
20:35Is the flow of information
20:37I'm not sure whether that is the first page or whether it's after
20:41Like I could see either yours is background story
20:44And then we have here is your current adventure
20:47This is showing who's talking to who
20:49And you see that everybody's talking pretty much to everybody
20:51Except for maybe this one person who isn't that involved
20:55These little yellow balls
20:57This is how much in the loop people are
20:59So are they part of a loop of conversation?
21:03And that's important because it has to do with whether people are on the same page or not
21:09I think it's possible that the plea resulted from someone else's bomb
21:13And then down here this is maybe the most interesting thing
21:16So this is looking at dominance
21:18So this is how much people are pushing the conversation and driving it
21:22And the size of the yellow ball there shows their dominance score
21:26And you can see that everybody's about the same
21:29Their yellow circles are about the same size
21:31Which is what you want for this sort of brainstorming task
21:34You don't want anybody to be really dominant
21:37You want everybody contributing
21:39You want everybody holding the floor about the same time
21:42And that seems to be what we got
21:44I think I'm actually here
21:46Good
21:47Okay
21:48Because they haven't
21:49Oh, now we're going to move into the end
21:51Sandy has also found a connection between a person's tone of voice
21:56And how effective they are in a group
21:59Do you have a blonde person and a dark-haired person?
22:02Is that the scientist?
22:03Or are they different type of scientists?
22:05Sandy's studies show that people who speak in a direct and consistently strong tone of voice
22:12Are perceived as having expertise
22:16There's a sort of practical type of charisma
22:18Which is being able to get your point across convincingly
22:22Then you want a lot of energy
22:24People putting in lots of contributions
22:26So the balance of contributions and having lots of contributions
22:30Are two characteristics of really good teams in this type of situation
22:34Everyone's going to tell their story real short
22:37Lay down their piece
22:39And then at the end
22:40We'll turn them over
22:41And see what happened
22:42Okay?
22:43The moment has arrived
22:51Does their assembled comic strip match the correct one lying face down on the floor?
22:58Okay
22:59Okay
23:00Let's do it
23:01Here
23:02First ones
23:03There we go
23:16A hundred percent right
23:17Hey!
23:21Sandy claims the device has up to 90 percent accuracy identifying productive workers and problem cases
23:27Individuals want to come across in a way that's effective
23:31You want to have people trust you
23:34You want to have your ideas heard
23:36You don't want to be doing things that put people off
23:39The science that we've been able to do with this says that it's not sort of how smart you are
23:45It's how smart you are about other people
23:47I think of it as improving social intelligence
23:50The subconscious is constantly at work behind the scenes
23:57Without it, we'd never make it through the day
24:00But could that hidden brain power do even more?
24:04Some scientists believe we can tap into our subconscious
24:09To heal our bodies and expand our minds
24:13Stress
24:20It's all around us
24:23Traffic
24:24Deadlines
24:25Financial pressures
24:27And over time it can take a toll on our bodies
24:31Leading to sickness
24:33And sometimes death
24:35But what if there was a way to reverse the effects of stress
24:40Without the need for any drugs?
24:44What if our minds could heal us?
24:50Dr. Herbert Benson of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine in Boston
24:56Is a scientist of a different mindset
25:00He's on a crusade to show that sickness is as much mental as it is physical
25:07Well, it's not all in your mind, but a lot is in your mind and that we can tap into
25:13In the 1980s, Herbert trekked to the Himalayas to observe how Tibetan monks chill out
25:22At an altitude of 15,000 feet, in a monastery as cold as a refrigerator
25:29The monks wrapped themselves in frozen sheets
25:33To practice an extraordinary form of meditation called tummo
25:38Through meditation, Herbert observed that the monks were able to raise the temperature of their skin
25:44By 17 degrees Fahrenheit while keeping their core body temperature normal
25:51Tummo is a form of meditation
25:54They practice to do away with negative thoughts
25:59And as a byproduct of that
26:02The body is able to generate enough heat
26:06To dry, icy, wet sheets on their naked bodies
26:12And get them steaming
26:14It's still unknown exactly how the monks achieved this inner fire
26:23But scientists suspect that meditation directly taps into the part of the nervous system
26:29That regulates body temperature
26:32We were fascinated on how far such a mind-body effect could go
26:38If meditation could control our body's thermostat
26:46Herbert wondered if the brain also had the capacity to cure our modern-day epidemic of stress
26:53Herbert believes that stress stems from our instinctive fight-or-flight response
27:00Which begins when the brain's limbic system releases a flood of hormones
27:06A secondary effect of these stress hormones is to cause inflammation in cells
27:15If cells become inflamed for prolonged periods
27:18They can trigger a host of ailments like heart disease, arthritis, and Crohn's disease
27:25So, Herbert developed an eight-week therapy designed to combat stress involving 15 minutes of meditation every day
27:40He calls it the relaxation response
27:44To bring that relaxation response about
27:47There has to be a repetition of a word
27:51Close your eyes
27:54And you're going to find all sorts of other thoughts coming to mind
27:58They're normal
28:00And they're natural
28:01And they should be expected
28:03But when they occur, don't be upset
28:06But simply say, oh well
28:08Peace
28:10There's a quietude in the brain
28:23That occurs when you evoke the relaxation response
28:27Less static, less noise on brain imaging measure
28:31And the very activity of brain cells themselves
28:35Katie, slowly, slowly open your eyes
28:39Did you notice any changes in your body while you were doing
28:47Repeating the word peace and disregarding other thoughts?
28:51I did, I just felt like a lightness
28:54I just don't feel like anything's bothering me
28:57I don't have anything on my mind
28:58Welcome back
29:00Before and after the eight weeks of relaxation therapy
29:07Herbert drew blood samples from his patients
29:10And looked for any changes in the activity of genes
29:14That control inflammation
29:16Say a certain gene is being turned on
29:20That gene will be red
29:22These are the genes that control
29:26The inflammatory immune processes of the body
29:31Then you'll see, looking at it afterwards
29:35That gene will be turned off
29:37Red on, green off
29:39So red to green
29:40You'll see that change
29:42Evoking the relaxation response
29:45Can actually change your gene's activity
29:49Herbert's study proves
29:51We can harness the power of the subconscious brain
29:54To produce concrete medical benefits
29:58We now have a scientifically proven approach
30:03Right down to the genomic level
30:06This will be more incorporated
30:08Because not so much of the science
30:11But also it's cheaper
30:13This is cheaper than drugs
30:15It's obviously cheaper than surgeries
30:18If our inner mind can be our medicine
30:23In what other ways could we use it
30:25To improve our lives?
30:27One scientist has found out
30:29Thanks to an electrifying discovery
30:32Have you ever tried to solve
30:39What seems like a simple problem
30:42Only to find yourself hopelessly stuck?
30:46You know the answer is somewhere inside your mind
30:51But you can't find it
30:53Perhaps all you need
30:55Is a jolt of inspiration
30:58Alan Snyder
31:01Is the director of the Center for the Mind
31:03At the University of Sydney in Australia
31:08And he always has his thinking cap on
31:13I was about to get on the train
31:15And this girl gave me her cap
31:17And she said
31:18Hey you look so good in that
31:19Keep it
31:20And that's why I've worn it
31:21In fact I've worn it ever since
31:23Part comedian
31:25Part wizard
31:26Alan spends much of his time
31:28Thinking about the limits
31:29Of our problem solving abilities
31:32Imagine if you were asked
31:34To count the number of marbles in this jar
31:37Could you do it?
31:40Our minds categorize things
31:43Into concepts
31:45And we're not so good at detail
31:47We see the whole
31:48And not the part
31:49We see the forest
31:50Not the individual trees
31:52But what would happen if you weren't like that?
31:55Suppose you did have access to all the literal details in the world
32:02Alan thinks we can access this cognitive power
32:06Because some people already do
32:10Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder
32:13That affects social and communication skills
32:16But 10% of autistics are savants
32:19They exhibit exceptional skills involving math, memory, music, and art
32:28An autistic savant is someone who has the ability to see the parts and not the whole
32:36They have privileged access to unconscious details, unconscious processes that all of us have
32:44But they're beyond our conscious awareness
32:47Maybe genius requires a dash of autism
32:50Alan has discovered that autistic savant's brains share a pattern of unusual activity
32:57Impairment of the left temporal lobe
33:01A region he believes is associated with pre-existing concepts
33:05And an overcompensation in the right temporal lobe
33:09Which Alan suggests deals with new ideas
33:12Alan wanted to find the inner savant in all of us
33:16So he came up with the idea of a creativity cap
33:21A device that would mimic a savant's patterns of brain activity
33:26Imagine a device that allows us to do perhaps problems that other people have had great difficulty
33:33We're going to show you a number of equations made from matchsticks
33:39Roman numeral type of matchstick equations
33:42And something's wrong with the equation
33:45And you're supposed to move one matchstick to make the equation correct
33:49One plus three equals four, yeah, that's it, that's the solution
34:08Oh, let's do another
34:10Carl sees a pattern
34:13By changing a roman numeral x, or 10, to a b, or 5
34:19He can correct the equation
34:22Applying the same pattern, he solves several more puzzles
34:27But when presented with a different type of equation
34:30One that is not corrected by changing a 10 to a 5
34:34Carl is stumped
34:37I'm doing it
34:48Okay
34:50Now Alan prepares to give him a jolt of inspiration
34:55This cap sends a small positive electric current to the right side of the brain
35:01While a negative current runs to the left hemisphere
35:05The technique is called transcranial direct current stimulation, or TDCS
35:12And it's designed to mimic the pattern of brain activity found in salons
35:18Okay, how do you feel now?
35:21Uh, it's a little bit of tingling
35:24After stimulating with TDCS, Carl tries the matchstick problem again
35:32Very good, congratulations
35:42This is a case of mental fixation
35:45We can't help but look at the world through the frames of what we already know
35:50We see a filtered view of the world, not all the details
35:54But Carl, after transcranial direct current stimulation, was able to see the solution
36:00Alan's creativity cap temporarily changed the way Carl's brain worked
36:06It appeared to give him somewhat like abilities
36:11I can imagine a day where we have creativity caps
36:15That can allow us to look at the world anew free of our mindsets
36:22But Alan's research is only scratching the surface of the mind's true potential
36:28This man believes the hidden power of the subconscious can take us all to new heights
36:36The subconscious mind is more than just a storehouse for primal thoughts and emotions
36:46It's vital to our daily function and survival
36:49We know that we can harness it to reveal temporary genius
36:54But could we permanently modify our brains?
36:58Customs stimulate them to be smarter and more powerful?
37:03Michael Weisen is a neuroscientist at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, New Mexico
37:15He's been drafted by the U.S. Air Force to improve its most powerful image processes
37:22Human brains
37:24Military technicians, not computers, analyze the images from unmanned aerial drones
37:31Looking for enemy targets suitable for aerial bombardment
37:35It's a high-stakes task
37:38Where one mistake could mean destroying an Allied aid vehicle
37:43Instead of an enemy artillery truck
37:46Only humans interpret the data that comes off of the drones
37:50So there's a need for a greater number of image analysts to look at that data
37:56And we wanted to enhance the ability of the brain to experience and record information from the environment
38:09Computers are not yet smart enough to pick out enemy targets on the grainy imagery from the drones
38:15Only humans have enough skill in recognizing their distinctive shapes when distorted by sunlight and grainy pixels
38:22It typically takes many months of training to become proficient at this task
38:28The trouble is we cannot create enough experts quickly enough to deal with the demand from the remotely piloted aircraft or the drones
38:39But Michael had an idea
38:42He would locate the region of the brain that is most active while the experts were looking for targets
38:47Then he would use transcranial direct current stimulation to amplify the activity in that region of the trainees' brains
38:55And see whether it made them faster learners
38:58One of the things that's quite obvious in the scans is that when you are a novice
39:04There's low-level activation in the medial temporal lobes
39:09But in experts, there's very high-level activation
39:13And so we targeted TDCS at these areas that increase activity in order to accelerate training
39:21Once the TDCS headgear is in place but not yet turned on
39:26The novice goes through a half-hour training session studying aerial photos
39:32In the center is a red circle that he needs to click and drag to any object that looks threatening
39:40In this case, an enemy rocket launcher
39:53This is definitely a pattern recognition type of experiment
39:58Here, where there are yellow circles, those show the real targets in the image
40:04Where there are red circles with no yellow, those are incorrect choices
40:10And so in this case, there was one correct choice and two incorrect choices
40:17Next, Michael applies TDCS to the novice's brain
40:23After 30 minutes of electrical stimulation, he tries again
40:32He now quickly identifies five enemy targets in one image without making a single mistake
40:40In the people who got brain stimulation, every individual was performing at expert level after an hour of training
40:49On average, novices who've had TDCS identify twice as many targets compared with those who haven't
40:58When he put subjects back in the scanner, Michael discovered that the patterns of activity in their brains are permanently changed
41:06Their newly acquired skills stay with them even after the stimulation wears off
41:13It's not hard to imagine where this technology could end up
41:18College kids could use it for calculus
41:21Tiger mums for pitch-perfect piano recitals
41:25Just isolate the part of the brain you need to learn a skill
41:28And a TDCS cap could make you a master in minutes
41:33I've stimulated my brain with TDCS many, many times
41:39I've noticed this intense focus and the ability to concentrate very carefully on material that I'm looking at
41:48And I think it would be a great benefit to be able to use the tools of neuroscience
41:52To benefit people to make sure that they could perform at a high level
41:59As we learn more and more about which structures in the brain are being activated
42:09We can show it's part of you going on whether you're thinking about it or not
42:15Much of what we do is unconscious, our preferences, our prejudices
42:19Someone back there is guiding the show
42:21Who's in charge?
42:23And I think it's the unconscious that's in charge
42:26Science has proven that we really do have two minds
42:35One drives our conscious thoughts
42:38The other is a shadow brain that never stops working
42:43It protects us from harm, heals our bodies, allows us to think faster and more creatively
42:51We've unlocked some secrets of the subconscious
42:56When we finally tap into its hidden powers
43:00Who knows what we will achieve?
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