TED_Topic8：How to control someone else's arm with your brain

By Greg Gage (Neuroscientist)

Greg Gage is on a mission to make brain science accessible to all. In this fun, kind of creepy(令人毛骨悚然的，恐怖的) demo, the neuroscientist and TED Senior Fellow uses a simple, inexpensive DIY kit to take away the free will of an audience member. It’s not a parlor trick; it actually works. You have to see it to believe it.

# Background about our speaker

Greg Gage helps kids investigate the neuroscience in their own backyards.

# Why you should listen

As half of Backyard Brains, neuroscientist and engineer Greg Gage builds the SpikerBox -- a small rig（设备/装备） that helps kids understand the electrical impulses（电脉冲） that control the nervous system. He's passionate about helping students understand (viscerally) how our brains and our neurons work, because, as he said onstage at TED2012, we still know very little about how the brain works -- and we need to start inspiring kids early to want to know more.

Before becoming a neuroscientist, Gage worked as an electrical engineer（电气工程师） making touchscreens. As he told the Huffington Post: "Scientific equipment in general is pretty expensive, but it's silly because before [getting my PhD in neuroscience] I was an electrical engineer, and you could see that you could make it yourself. So we started as a way to have fun, to show off to our colleagues, but we were also going into classrooms around that time and we thought, wouldn't it be cool if you could bring these gadgets（小玩意儿） with us so the stuff we were doing in advanced Ph.D. programs in neuroscience, you could also do in fifth grade?" His latest pieces of gear: the Roboroach, a cockroach（螳螂） fitted with an electric backpack（背包） that makes it turn on command, and BYB SmartScope, a smartphone-powered microscope.

# 视频地址

https://www.ted.com/speakers/greg_gage

# What others say

“I find it interesting that [his] teaching method garnered so many comments; I could almost hear older commentators thinking 'I would have done so much better in my science classes if....'” — Laura B. commenting on Greg's TED-Ed talk on TED.com。

#Subtitles and Transcript

The brain is an amazing and complex organ. And while many people are fascinated by the brain, they can't really tell you that much about the properties about how the brain works because we don't teach neuroscience in schools.

And one of the reasons why is that the equipment is so complex and so expensive that it's really only done at major universities and large institutions. And so in order to be able to access the brain, you really need to dedicate your life and spend six and a half years as a graduate student just to become a neuroscientist to get access to these tools.

And that's a shame because one out of five of us, that's 20 percent of the entire world, will have a neurological disorder（神经障碍）. And there are zero cures for these diseases. And so it seems that what we should be doing is reaching back earlier in the eduction process and teaching students about neuroscience so that in the future, they may be thinking about possibly becoming a brain scientist.

When I was a graduate student, my lab mate Tim Marzullo and myself, decided that what if we took this complex equipment that we have for studying the brain and made it simple enough and affordable enough that anyone that you know, an amateur or a high school student, could learn and actually participate in the discovery of neuroscience.

And so we did just that. A few years ago, we started a company called Backyard Brains and we make DIY neuroscience equipment and I brought some here tonight, and I want to do some demonstrations. You guys want to see some?

So I need a volunteer. So right before -- what is your name? (Applause) Sam Kelly: Sam. Greg Gage: All right, Sam, I'm going to record from your brain. Have you had this before? SK: No. GG: I need you to stick out your arm for science, roll up your sleeve a bit, So what I'm going to do, I'm putting electrodes on your arm, and you're probably wondering, I just said I'm going to record from your brain, what am I doing with your arm?

Well, you have about 80 billion（800亿） neurons inside your brain right now. They're sending electrical messages back and forth, and chemical messages. But some of your neurons right here in your motor cortex are going to send messages down when you move your arm like this. They're going to go down across your corpus callosum（脑胼胝体）, down onto your spinal cord（脊髓/脊椎） to your lower motor neuron（下运动神经元） out to your muscles here, and that electrical discharge is going to be picked up by these electrodes right here and we're going to be able to listen to exactly what your brain is going to be doing. So I'm going to turn this on for a second.

Have you ever heard what your brain sounds like? SK: No. GG: All right, let's try it out. So go ahead and squeeze your hand. (Rumbling) So what you're listening to, so this is your motor units（运动单位） happening right here. Let's take a look at it as well. So I'm going to stand over here, and I'm going to open up our app here. So now I want you to squeeze. (Rumbling)

So right here, these are the motor units that are happening from her spinal cord out to her muscle right here, and as she's doing it, you're seeing the electrical activity that's happening here. You can even click here and try to see one of them. So keep doing it really hard. So now we've paused on one motor action potential（动作电位） that's happening right now inside of your brain.

Do you guys want to see some more? (Applause) That's interesting, but let's get it better. I need one more volunteer. What is your name, sir? Miguel Goncalves: Miguel. GG: Miguel, all right. You're going to stand right here. So when you're moving your arm like this, your brain is sending a signal down to your muscles right here. I want you to move your arm as well. So your brain is going to send a signal down to your muscles. And so it turns out that there is a nerve that's right here that runs up here that innervates（使受神经支配；使神经分布于；刺激活动） these three fingers, and it's close enough to the skin that we might be able to stimulate that so that what we can do is copy your brain signals going out to your hand and inject it into your hand, so that your hand will move when your brain tells your hand to move. So in a sense, she will take away your free will and you will no longer have any control over this hand. You with me?

So I just need to hook you up. (Laughter) So I'm going to find your ulnar nerve（尺骨神经）, which is probably right around here. You don't know what you're signing up for（报名参加 ） when you come up. So now I'm going to move away and we're going to plug it in to our human-to-human interface over here.

Okay, so Sam, I want you to squeeze your hand again. Do it again. Perfect. So now I'm going to hook you up over here so that you get the -- It's going to feel a little bit weird at first, this is going to feel like a -- (Laughter) You know, when you lose your free will, and someone else becomes your agent, it does feel a bit strange.

Now I want you to relax your hand. Sam, you're with me? So you're going to squeeze. I'm not going to turn it on yet, so go ahead and give it a squeeze.

So now, are you ready, Miguel? MG: Ready as I'll ever be. GG: I've turned it on, so go ahead and turn your hand. Do you feel that a little bit? MG: Nope. GG: Okay, do it again? MG: A little bit. GG: A little bit? (Laughter) So relax. So hit it again. (Laughter) Oh, perfect, perfect. So relax, do it again.

All right, so right now, your brain is controlling your arm and it's also controlling his arm, so go ahead and just do it one more time. All right, so it's perfect. (Laughter)

So now, what would happen if I took over my control of your hand? And so, just relax your hand. What happens? Ah, nothing. Why not? Because the brain has to do it. So you do it again. All right, that's perfect.

Thank you guys for being such a good sport. This is what's happening all across the world --electrophysiology（电生理现象）! We're going to bring on the neuro-revolution.

Thank you.

# Comments I like

Interesting as it is, the title is totally misleading. TED talks used to be more scientific than this!

His arm is not controlled by her brain! As far as I understand the process is like this :

The apparatus records her input electrical muscle waves (a basic EMG), amplifies it through the software, and then sends into his muscles using electrical muscle stimulation device (ESM).
This is far different from simulating at EEG level related to voluntarily neural activities.

This is like connecting a dead frog's muscles to electrical charge and they contracts. It does not mean that you take control over his "free will".
TTBOMKAB, he could have as well connected the stimulator to the guy's foot and the foot would move instead of his arm!

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Viewed purely from an AI timeline perspective, I have the feeling that a human being or life as we know it, even matter, can be seen as nothing, but a code, an evolution of code.

Human as a phenomenon no longer feels unique. AI would sooner or later become self-aware and perhaps will form a self-conscious mind. Like the author mentioned, it's much like an atom which lied unused for thousands of years until a bright human mind discovered nuclear fission. It's a genie in a bottle.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic about Skynet-comparison eradicating humanity. Look at us, humans. We don't exterminate cats, dogs, cows, birds, etc. One could argue that, no other animal than human could ever exterminate one's own kind in such unthinkable quantities, but we still keep other animals either as pets or cattle. So, I presume that even in the worse case scenario, AI would be intelligent enough to keep human population to a reasonable amount. Say, for the sake of species.

AI on one hand is our hope for better life, but, on the other hand, it takes out the feeling of being human and shrinks it to being more like a computer or a biomachine. Especially, once you realize all of human reactions / emotions / memories / genotype and phenotype are merely a code. It somehow takes out the spark of life. What is the difference between me and other 6 billion people? None! Just different strings of code. But how then do I feel me as being me, inside my own body, and not as other 6 billion humans or any single other of them? So, code alone does not make one feeling self. This is where AI self-awareness may not come true. Even if we dump AI with all the knowledge and reactions it may still turn out to be a replica of smarter a robot without having cognition whatsoever.
Overabundance which probably will come with the rise of the AI, takes out the spark of life too. Under the impression of this presentation, Transcendence and Lucy movies added, I wonder what would it feel like to know everything and be everywhere. What is the purpose of life then? Any existentialists out there? What do priests / Buddhists and other karma believers will say about this reality shift when AI is here and DNA getting hacked? God is a top-coder?

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This is really fascinating, I was wondering if there would be any practical application for these devices, for example in people with disabilities? Could someone move another person's paralysed arm?

Another thought is that further development could lead to wireless suits with electrodes all over the body, where one person, for example a professional dancer, could 'imprint' the movements of certain dance moves into another person's muscle memory, making training a lot easier, not just in dancing but in all sports..