Brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor became her own experimental subject when a blood vessel in the left half of her brain exploded in 1996. (Photo: courtesy of Jill Bolte Taylor)When she suffered a massive brain hemorrhage in 1996, Harvard-trained neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor became her own experimental subject. The mystical experience she describes as her brain’s language center “went offline” has become the subject of a best-selling book and one of the most watched TED Talks ever.
On the Thursday webcast of Crosstalks, she joins a panel discussion about research into understanding the brain, along with KTH Professor Anders Lansner, one of the scientists involved in the EU’s ambitious project to model a human brain using supercomputers.
Taylor was studying brain disorders in 1996 when she awoke one morning to realize she was suffering a rare form of stroke. A blood vessel exploded in the left half of her brain, where our analytical functions are performed. As her left hemisphere shut down, Taylor watched as her ability to process information gradually deteriorated.
In her famous TED Talk in 2008, Taylor described how her consciousness shifted almost entirely to her right hemisphere.
“I could not walk, talk, read, write or recall any of my life. I essentially became an infant in a woman’s body.”
But the experience was a revelation that transformed her consciousness. And she sought to understand the science of what had happened.
“At first I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind,” she says. “But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of the energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful there.”
Today, Taylor says she can switch back and forth between the hemispheres of her brain—an ability she says is probably similar in effect to meditation or the practice of religion. And she’s made it a mission of hers to spread awareness about the benefits of doing so.
“The more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner-peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be.”
We spend more than enough time in our left hemisphere, she says. “We’re missing the present moment, which is where our joy is. We’re wired for both. All I’m looking for is a balanced brain model for us as humanity to get on a track where we can really consciously choose who, and how, we want to be.”
It will be interesting to see how this pure experience of the right hemisphere is modeled in the ambitious Human Brain Project. The EUR 1 billion effort involves nearly 100 institutions and will network KTH’s Lindgren supercomputer with others to simulate the cells, chemistry and connectivity of the brain. The aim is to understand the brain’s architecture, organisation, functions and development.
“The benefit is intended to be for medical science as well as ICT,” Lansner explains. “Advanced ICT tools, that is, brain simulation and data analysis, will enable building a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works. This will be very useful, for instance, to help develop new better drugs to treat brain diseases and psychiatric disorders.
Lansner says that because the brain is the only known example of a truly intelligent “machine”, learning more about how it works will enable the building of “brain-like computers, which by definition will be able to self-organize and learn and show brain-like intelligence.”
David Callahan
Understanding and Mapping the Human Brain will be webcast live at 6 p.m. CET, April 22 atCrosstalks.tv.
Crosstalks is an academic web talk show where recognized researchers from two of Sweden’s top universities, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University, discuss global topics live with viewers worldwide. Crosstalks is an international academic forum where the brightest minds share knowledge and insights on the basis of leading research.
Watch this video in which Mathias Uhlén takes us through the progress of genomics and proteomics toward an understanding of human biology.
The Human Genome Project was an extraordinary milestone for science, but there’s a lot more work to be done in order to understand how the body works.
Mathias Uhlén, professor of microbiology and leader of the Human Protein Atlas project, says it is “astonishing” how much more there is to understand about human biology.
“Genomics can tell us things but in order to actually understand what is going on, we have to move to the phenotype, the proteins and the metabolites.”
In this presentation from the GoldLab symposium in 2012, Uhlén explains how he and his colleagues at Science for Life Laboratory have picked up where work in DNA sequencing leaves off:
“Mankind has tried to systematically go through nature … and right now we are in an incredible age, where we’ll go through all the building blocks of human life — the DNA, the proteins. And, now we have tools to study that at an incredible pace. It’s called ‘omics’.
“We use that to get to the parts list of human life.”
The aim of proteomics isn’t just academic. Ninety-eight percent of all drugs target proteins, so understanding them better will lead to new, more effective drug treatments for a variety of disease, including cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurological disorders.
There are a lot of great reasons for working in Sweden, and the international researchers whom KTH is now recruiting globally will likely find even more. But here are some of my favorites.
There are 13 assistant professorships open at KTH for international researchers.Moving to Stockholm to do research at KTH offers a lot of specific benefits, especially the centre-driven research that we do in collaboration with other universities, industry and various societal bodies. KTH is a major partner in two of the three European Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC) formed by the prestigious EU organization, European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). And, several of Sweden’s national research centres are also hosted by KTH.
Young scientists here get access to several state-of-the-art laboratories and other ultramodern environments, where they can operate and develop.
But there’s more to living and working in Sweden, as any expatriate can tell you. Here’s what I like best:
“Professors’ privilege” In most countries, employers own the rights to intellectual property that employees generate when carrying out their work. In Sweden, universities are exempt from this principle—which means researchers automatically own the rights to inventions and copyrights to works they produce. They call this “the professor’s privilege.”
State education From preschool to post-doc, state education here is of a very high quality. You can tell it when you meet people, from all walks of life. It reflects on them. As for the universities here, you can look up the bona-fides at QS Ratings, but you probably already did that.
Parental benefits When you have a child in Sweden, both parents are entitled to paid family leave — 90 percent of pay for 180 days. The remaining 300 days are lower paid. But, still.
Sun All right, it’s hardly there in the winter, but in the summer the sunlight is incredible. Whether you stay in the city or go to the country, it’s hard not to be impressed with the beauty of the light that only really fades to dark for a few hours while you sleep.
Tolerance Strangeness goes largely unremarked here. So if you’re strange, you’ll feel comfortable being that here.
Childrens services If you’re a parent, this will matter. And even if you’re not, it tells you what kind of society Sweden is.
The only playlots I ever saw in multi-housing developments in my hometown, Chicago, were the ones in the notorious Chicago Housing Authority projects. That’s because the government owned the projects and made the architect put them in. Private developers, condo associations and landlords, on the other hand, are less likely to make room for such amenities.
But Swedish apartment co-ops do; and so do rental housing property owners. Prioritizing children’s needs runs throughout the Swedish society. It’s evident in the strong investment in very high quality and easily accessible daycare. You see it in the abundance of playlots you will pass if you walk two miles in any direction. And, it’s evident in the almost non-existent marketing of products toward children. I haven’t seen a single ad for a toy on TV, and I watch a lot of children’s TV. They also have a remarkably large number of songs that all the children know the words to.
From all I can tell, it’s very fun to be a kid in Sweden.
Public space The Swedes have this thing called “allemänsrätten”, every person’s right. Now, before I tell you what it is, try imagining what such a principle would mean in your home country.
In Sweden, it means that all natural space is, in a sense, public space. That is, hikers and assorted wanderers (actually the Swedish word for hiking is ‘fotvandra’— literally wandering on foot) aren’t fenced off. You’re free to roam on private property as long as you are respectful and just passing through.
(And that’s important because there is a lot of nature here to enjoy — lakes and forests are everywhere, and easily accessible from cities.)
To travel is a human right. When deprived of any mode but our own two feet, we should be able to trod the Earth as nature intended.
The Swedes understand this, and it still impresses me after all these years.
A closeup image of the SLC25A20 protein, one of the three proteins that were recently discovered as possible biomarkers for ALS. (Image: proteinatlas.org)
When the Human Protein Atlas was unveiled in November, the worldwide media focused on the news that the testicles have the most proteins in the human body. But for researchers seeking treatments for deadly diseases, the Atlas offers a whole lot more.
The extensive database offers a tool for researchers worldwide in the hunt for biomarkers of major diseases. And KTH is no exception, given that it is one of the three partner universities comprising the Human Protein Atlas project.
So what are biomarkers? They’re a little like the warning lights on your car’s dashboard. They indicate a problem, and how to fix it. Their presence in the tissues, cells or fluids are indicators of a problem, much the same way blood cholesterol indicates you might be at risk of heart disease.
Specific proteins are being linked to diseases such as breast cancer and ALS, thanks to research at KTH Science for Life Laboratory. By understanding these proteins, we can learn of how diseases start, how they progress and how they can be stopped.
Here are four ways the Human Protein Atlas is already paying off:
ALS
In what is believed to be the most extensive plasma profiling study conducted on people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), researchers have identified three possible proteins as biomarkers for the deadly disease.
Malaria can be lethal or mild, and up to now there is no accurate way to know whether a stricken child is suffering a lethal variant of the mosquito-borne parasite. But malaria experts are excited about the discovery of biomarkers that could make it possible to know early on which patients need extra care. The researchers identified specific proteins that appear in the blood plasma of children with severe malaria syndromes. Testing for these biomarkers may soon begin in Nigeria.
Duchenne muscular dystrophy results from a lack, or impaired function, of the protein dystrophin, a major component of muscles. Working with an international research team, KTH researchers have discovered how to create a variant of dystrophin that can mitigate muscle atrophy. This could in turn lead to the development of new therapies for muscular dystrophy.
Researchers found decreased levels of the protein CNDP1 in the plasma of patients suffering from prostate cancer – and the levels were distinctly different in patients with diagnosed lymph node metastasis. This refined understanding of CNDP1 may contribute to an alternative way to detect prostate cancer and lymph node status.
Paulina Modlitba Söderlund (Tekla project leader), Robyn and Sophia Hober (KTH Dean). Photo: Sara Arnald.
She’s a kick-ass performer, and great songwriter. But that’s not all. Robin Mariam Carlsson—aka Robyn—is becoming a fantastic ambassador for technology.
It would be fair to speculate that technology has for a long time been an inspiration to the Swedish pop star, if not one of her muses. Robyn has sung about it. She uses it to express herself in ways that are sometimes awe-inspiring. Plus, her interest in what students are doing at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology is well-documented.
But above all, Robyn gets technology. She gets that it’s not an end in and of itself, but a way of making things happen. It’s a creative discipline. Just like the KTH motto says: “Science and Art”. It’s one thing to be technologically competent, but it’s quite another to be technologically creative.
That’s a perspective of technology that isn’t often presented to young people, and it’s one that should be if technology schools like KTH are going to succeed in balancing the gender disparity in their enrollment. We need to start that process early on, and we need creative ambassadors to do it.
That’s where Robyn comes in.
She says that when she was awarded the KTH Great Prize in 2013, she received the mandate to hold a seminar at the university. Robyn gladly accepted the task, but instead of targeting university students, she’s aiming at girls 11 to 18.
“I thought of KTH’s motto, ‘Science and Art’, and wanted to do something to inspire girls who are curious about technology, while at the same time highlighting that too few women are applying to KTH programs,” Robyn says. “Tekla is a festival for girls, in which they get to sample different areas of future technology in what I believe will be a fun and imaginative environment.”
Tekla is about combining technology and creativity. It’s about creating a setting where girls can be inspired and discover new interests. The festival offers something for all students, whether they’re science newbies or hardcore nerds. There will be workshops with motivational speakers; and to top it off, Robyn will give a performance, along with Stockholm favorites, Zhala and DJ Lap See.
The whole thing begins at 8:30 a.m., April 18 and ends at 8 p.m. Tekla is organized by KTH and Robyn, with Spotify, Paradox Interactive, Google and Valtech as partners. Tekla is also supported by the organization Popkollo, a volunteer-based organization which runs a music camp for girls.
Check out the website and watch a video message from Robyn: www.teklafestival.se
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