isbscience.org/news/2020/10/23/david-eagleman-and-creating-new-senses-for-humans/
“When you look across the animal kingdom, you find flexibility in brains everywhere,” he said. He noted creatures that can perform impressive actions very soon after being born, such as baby zebras that can run around 45 minutes after entering the world.
Humans are not like that. But why?
“Mother Nature discovered a very special trick with humans. Instead of trying to hardwire everything at birth, the simpler and more flexible strategy was allowing neurons to modify themselves based on their experience with the world,” Eagleman said.
“When you think about the human brain, you can’t think about it as hardware or software. It’s what I call ‘liveware.’ It’s the ability of the system to reconfigure itself. It’s not static — it’s constantly plugging and replugging and learning,” he said.
Eagleman — bestselling author, TV personality, CEO of Neosensory, adjunct professor at Stanford, TED speaker, and more — was the featured guest at the ISB-Town Hall Seattle event focusing on brain health. His presentation was titled “Can We Create New Senses for Humans?”
His 30-minute presentation touched on several interesting topics.
In fact, Eagleman believes dreaming is a result of evolution. “Sensory deprivation triggers neighboring territories to take over,” he said. So how does the visual system handle the unfair advantage of darkness, both when the sun goes down (think pre-electricity) and when our eyes are closed? “Dreaming is all about slamming activity into the occipital cortex to keep it defended from takeover across its neighbors,” he said. “Dreams are the love child of brain plasticity and the rotation of the planet.”
Our eyes, nose, ears, tongue, etc., are peripheral plug-and-play devices. “If you feed your brain information in a different way, it will discover how to understand.”
“If you lose an arm in a motorcycle accident, your brain will adjust so that your map of the body no longer has an arm.”
“As an adult, if you take up juggling or take up the violin, there are physical changes in the structure of your brain. They’re so obvious that we can look at it in brain imaging and see the changes.”
“Animals don’t shut down with moderate damage. Neither should our machines.” This, he said, has implications for the biological future of machines.
Following his keynote presentation, Eagleman joined ISB President Dr. Jim Heath for an enlightening Q&A conversation — you can watch it here.
This virtual event is one of several offered this year thanks to a partnership between Town Hall Seattle and ISB. Keynote speakers of our previous 2020 events were Dr. Knatokie Ford (STEM policy and advocacy), Dr. Jennifer Reich (politics of immunization) and Dr. Eric Alm (mining sewage to track population health).
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From planning, creating and executing workshops for educators to forging new relationships to elevate students, the ISB Education team has been in high gear. Each month throughout the 2021-2022 academic year, we will highlight some of the top projects the team is working on.
We all have students and teachers in our lives that are navigating the daily challenges of learning amid a pandemic. ISB Education knows how crucial STEM education is — not just today, but every day. Our communities, schools and students need us. And we need you.
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