 Okay, we're going to start now. Tuya will be introducing Osengar as I've said to you. Let me just say this. Okay, welcome to Inspiration Island. I'm Tuya Hayans associate director here. I'm honored to work with Osengar who, with her former partner, Bero, built this remarkable and very responsive model of the broadening areas of the brain and how they respond to different stimuli. Let me introduce Osengar. Osengar is a postdoc in an FMRI neuroscience lab. She is interested in showing what the cortex looks like from the inside, like a planetarium. Inside this big black brain, you can look up and see the human cerebral cortex from the inside. Each broadening area appears in its correct location using the tallarage coordinates. Sitting or standing on the poststand inside presents a menu of activities and visual stimuli. So, thank you for joining us today. And I encourage you to get to know Osengar. She's involved in other projects here too. And I'm sure she'd be happy to tell you about those and get you involved in that as well. So, I leave you now in the good care of our associate Osengar. And thank you all so much for coming today. Yes, a lot of people in the region. Great. I'm glad you're here, dear. Osengar says, before we go inside the brain to look at the cortex, let me point out the different subcortical structures, two of each. Amygdala is the yellow part of this little brain over that she's standing by. Hippocampus is bright red. The thalamus is blue. The basal ganglia in two parts. The codate is green and the pudiment is dark red. We'll be coming back so just get re, just get oriented right now. And thank you tagline to view something closer. Put your cursor on the target, click Alt key and left click. At the same time, you can zoom in. The subcortex is arguably more important than the cortex. Okay, now we're going into the brain. Just go up the bramp. I think Josane is right on the ramp. They'll take you up. Can you all hear me inside? Yeah, good. Voice is enabled here. Okay, you're inside. You can tell me. Good. Good. I'll stay out here. Good, good. It's now where it's really getting a good workout today. Okay, yeah, a lot of exercise. Okay. You can find her. That's good. Okay, now is now standing on the animation pad or near the animation pad. Which people can try out. It will animate your avatar and tell you what it's doing to you. And it will activate the appropriate broadband area, corresponding broadband areas of the brain for each activity. Really work. And just because my name is on the animation pad, brain poses doesn't mean it's special. I'm not sure why it's by copy. Maybe because I'm hand. Okay, is Osengar going to continue now? We'll get her. She can go ahead. Osengar comments that animation pad is a little distracting because of talking so much. This is a very, very full brain, right? Osengar is now demonstrating by using the animation pad. Is it working for you? Shall I restart the animation? I'm just going to read some of the notes Osengar made that she gave me while this is going on. She's saying that our brains are, follow me up the ramp inside the big black brain. Once we get inside the local chat will start streaming the BAs and their functions and you'll see all this thing going around you. This services a reminder that our brains are busy even while we are trying to ignore local chat and concentrate on the incredible words. It's a little distracting, but services a reminder that our brains are busy buzzing along. I'm going to restart. So Tuy is going to start that. Okay. Okay, we have Tuy here to do that. While she's doing that, I just want to add a few more notes here. The transparent floor cuts our brain roughly in half. The magic of second life. Standing on the post stand presents me with a menu of actions and visual stimuli. When I choose one, the correct broadband areas are activated. Watch my avatar for a moment while I engage actions or look at images. The images are anonymous as you can see. No informed consent required. Now zoom out your camera to see the whole brain at once. What functions happen in what BAs when our cortex is active? So this is what she's trying to show you. The last time we did this at Science Circle six months ago, I guess, we did it there without having people come inside the brain. We just showed them. So it was, and it was a smaller group. So we didn't have quite the same challenges we're having here. So thank you for being patient with us. Normally we don't have this many people at one time and everything works well. You know, second life, right? Yep. The brain lights up in there if you're watching when she certain parts light up and you see where things do. And then your own brain, the one you're wearing also if you walk around, you look, you'll see your own brain lights up in the areas that light up when you walk. Okay. She says watch my avatar for a moment while I engage actions or look at images. The images are anonymous as you can see. No informed consent required. Oh, I'm glad you like it. Osengar and Biru and Osengar now is working so hard on this, especially the new mesh brain. Maybe you can help her. Zoom your camera view to see the whole brain at once, which is what we suggested before. Notice what functions happen in what BAs when our cortex is active. That's Broadman areas, BAs. Osengar says now I will punch you in my fists showing perfect second life motion. And notice what happens in the areas when she does that. Brain poses and areas light up connected to the motor action. And do come back yourselves and stand on the platform because it's very interesting to try different things and see where in the brain they occur. Way up top, the left and right motor strips are activating to produce my movement in my upper extremities, Osengar says. The primary motor strips, BA4S, or 4s are just across the central sulcus from the primary sensory strips, BA5s, 7s in the parietal lobes. So this gives you a sense of the space, a big dark cavern with globes hanging from the ceiling. Each globe is in the exact 3D coordinates. The real BAs, of course, are not spheres and they vary in size. Interesting to watch from the outside here. And she's going to say next let's chat about language. While I'm typing, BA45 Broca's area, which is BA45, is activating only on the left and only very localized. Is everything working okay now? I think so. Okay. I'm seeing things light up. Yep. Great. And you see it again in chat, what I just said. Yeah. There's a little chat lag. How localized? How proven? The answer is statistical significance. In fMRI studies, the activations in synchrony called functional connectivity are statistical differences in magnetic signal intensity of hemoglobin for specified clusters of voxels. Okay. P, how do I say that to you? 0.05 is colored red. Deactivations blue in fMRI maps. It's the best technique there is for studying brain function of groups of neurons rather than single neurons. It measures the oxygen used by groups of neurons. The visual cortex, BA17, is right behind me at the back. See it lighting up in the back? The visual cortex takes sensory input from the thalamus and detects patterns. I'm not sure about whether they're lighting up. I see things lighting up, do you all? Osengar says, in the far front is the polar frontal lobes, BA10, that collects detailed plans of possible actions, including simulations. Jenny asks, so you're not actually directly measuring neuronal activity but the oxygen usage? And I think this goes back to Berrigan's question, right? Are the areas active in both hemispheres? And she said, Osengar says, except for language, yes, bilateral. And then correct Jenny to her question. Hopefully the next activities will glow correctly. I don't know if Osengar can see them. It might be that she can't and we're seeing them okay. The cortex doesn't execute. There is no decider in the cortex. The cortex contains the detailed maps and instructions for activities and environments. The sub-cortex manages the basics. So why does it feel like we're doing it all voluntarily even, oh my God, intentionally? That's a very good question. Okay, things are lighting up. I hope she sees it. So she says, now I'm activating the insula, BA34 and 35 bilaterally. The insula is where the temporal lobes meet the frontal and parietal lobes. This will come in text probably in a minute or two. The insula collects internal sensations from our bodies. In particular, our visceral sensations, not external sensations, not pain. Pain pathways start in the skin and terminate in the parietal lobe. In the insula, we feel. Bergen Betz has something here. Question. When things light up near the base, does that mean the function is more primitive? I think Osengar will see that and answer it in a minute. Can you all see the images that are coming up that go with these light, the things that light up? I see brain poses, angry tantrum. I think as we're saying this again, the insula collects internal sensations from our bodies. In particular, our visceral sensations, not external sensations, not pain. Pain pathways start in the skin and terminate in the parietal lobe. In the insula, we feel. We sense directly. Hunger, nausea, fear, anger, sadness, longing, sexual arousal, bladder pressure, an important distinction, and social rejection. Bergen Betz says, I feel all of those sometimes at the same time. Osengar says, the insula doesn't cause these sensations. It registers and organizes them. Culturally, we prefer to ignore them. We've been having a lot of conversations here about that, the ignoring them. I will show you an example of using the visual stimuli. You can try these yourself. Again, I think the leg is making it slower than it would normally be. Anonymous entity asks, are images being displayed? And no, what's being displayed is the text of the activity that Osengar is initiating, and the corresponding broadened area of the brain lights up when she performs that activity. There are no visual stimuli being given here. However, I don't think there are visual stimuli. She hit block by mistake to you. She said, what does she do? She always guesses, ignore blah. I don't know. Okay, why don't I just hang on one second? I will restart the script again. Okay, I'm going to restart. Someone's telling her to open the block list. I don't think she'll know what to do with that. So Tui is going to help. She's going to get the menu back. She lost it. So please very let her know also, if she doesn't see this, that Tui is on it. We've got a team here. This is great. Osengar wants to show us meditation activations. She went offline. I don't think she... Okay, let me continue. She says something happened. She'll be right back. Okay. Meditation, by the way, is something that's important because it's the particular area of research that Osengar is involved in in her work, meditation. And meditation, as she explains, activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the VMPFC. Especially BA25, if you can see it in there. Well, the rest of the cortex is quiet. Ushikma's back online. So it's been interesting. And by the way, Osengar would like to do some research in Second Life on some of these things. So if you've engaged in research here, please contact us to let us know because we could... We'd appreciate your input and help in setting up a study that could be published. Okay. Oh, Osengar's always claiming terrible things to you. When we experiment on someone, we expand their brain to about the size of a football field, but we give you plenty of pain relievers first. Okay. So we said... We read this to you already about meditation. I think it seems to be working. Does it seem to be working now, folks? Just reassure Osengar that it's working. She says the VMPFC is my favorite brain region. It's the final evolution of cortical development where the frontal lobes expand so much that they fold under deep in the midline above the nose. Can you do it to you? Are you able to get the menu and do it for her? So follow... See if you can see Osengar. She's going to fly to the area. BA 25 is just below the anterior cingulate that monitors incoming conflicts and just in front of the basal ganglia that drives us. It's the present moment self. Bergen, I'm not sure she's using Firestorm. She may be on the Second Life viewer. So look for her. Look for her. She's sort of standing on the ventral medial free from the cortex. Amazing things you can do inside the brain. In some studies, another region, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, BA 9 and 46, also activates alternating BA 25. I suspect she says this happens when the meditator is engaging in a task instruction from the study investigator. So you can see the area she's talking about here. She's there. I see activity that's supposed to stimulate those areas. I see yoga float in the menu, but I don't see meditation. Meditation? No, it's not on the menu. So she's talking about the task instructions too. Okay. Things are moving. I should just add that Osengar brought this in originally or created it in Second Life because she wanted to teach neurologists from the inside, but she couldn't get any interested from outside. So now she poses a question after this about other areas that get activated. What about other areas? I don't know if she can do any of this if it's not working. She's going to try to ask you what areas activate with certain kinds of emotions or movements or whatever. I see a lot of movement going on. It is a busy brain. She has some questions, and I just thought I'd bring them up here because parts of the brain light up on that platform. These are parts of the brain lighting up that you're seeing in the local chat. The questions that Osengar is asking are what areas activate with love and sex? For instance, the frontal lobe, some voluntary plan of smooth moves, not appealing. Parietal lobe, pleasing sensations, hopefully some place more. Insular cortex, emotions aren't real anyway, right? Wrong. I'll see if we can get Osengar back here into text. Many fMRI studies have made it clear that emotions are real. For example, orgasm and sexual arousal are associated with activation of the hypothalamus. Yes, the lowly hormone secretor is involved in that. You want to read Berrigan? Berrigan says, I get the sense that the brain is expanded. Functional areas just smushed into the skull wherever they could fit. The skull evolved. Is Osengar trying to get the thing to work? I can't see her. I'm on some emotions here. Let's see. This is expressing fear. She's interested in Berrigan's comment. As all of us know, we really don't learn how to deal with emotion for many years, and it's certainly not while our brain is still soft and pliable. For many of us, we don't really understand emotion or learn how to handle it until we're about 30. And by then, our brain cannot expand anymore because our skull is set. At least one person is reliving some questions to Osengar. This is expressing fear. Now I will express a kiss. I see both. I want to each side of the brain to light up. This is BA21L. I think she's moved down to the new brain, but nobody knew it. I see people going down. Many are welcome to try out this big brain. We're coming back to the mesh developing. Osengar has asked, do two regions light up for each action? I think that's true. You'll see over behind our friends here, there's an exit, marked exit, the exit ramp. Follow us down the exit ramp, please. We'll probably try to let you all know through Science Circle and do it again. Does Osengar know? Is she typing in the nearby chat? Because I don't see it at all. She's not doing it. I think text and voice are set to be able to cross across boundaries. Sign up sessions with a few with a controlled amount of visitors might be a good idea. It's a kind of personal thing here, an intimate thing. She raises some very interesting questions about where in the brain things happen and what that means. So here, Osengar says, each structure here is labeled, including its function. In the back are the two blue thalamai. These are the sensory relay stations. Pretty straightforward, its activity is unconscious. We can't see or feel or hear until the thalamus shares it with the cortex. At the front of the subcortex is the yellowish amygdala. Its function is not fear, it is danger. The amygdala monitors for danger, including anything unfamiliar or surprising. When bad experiences are remembered, they will activate the amygdala next time. Behind, adjacent and functionally connected to the amygdala is the hippocampus, the large bright red structure. Although hippocampus and memory are spoken in the same breath, it is more accurate to call the hippocampus the map maker. Lower, non-cognate animals establish their location in the environment so they can remember where it is at. So they can remember where they are, which way to go in the maze to get the food pellet next time. But the experience, the sensations of memories are not stored in the hippocampus. They are stored in the parietal and temporal lobes where the sensations were experienced during the memory episode. The dark blue structures are the putamen. This is where motor routines are learned and practiced. Skills, habits and behaviors. The cortex contains fine-tuned complex routines like playing the piano or communicating. But the automatic part that you do without looking like riding a bike, that is a putamen. I'm probably not pronouncing that right, but the instinctual drives are error, water, food, reproduction, intimacy, shelter, comfort, social connectedness, dominance, exploring, foraging. We capitalize on these instincts to learn a nearly unlimited smorgasbord of conditioned stimuli and conditioned responses. What about learning? The same as memory? No. Motor learning is different from episodic memory. The method of learning is different, called conditioning. This occurs in the codate. The bright green structures are the codate extending upwards and backwards, the nucleus accumbens. This is the land of Pavlov, skinner and dopamine. Drugs of abuse, alcoholism, overeating. I always wondered where that was lying there. That's where it is. Obsessions, narcissism, craving Twitter in the White House. The codate makes us pursuing rewards even when they are not rewarding. The codate makes us suffer the ache of withdrawal when what we want is withdrawing from us. I guess this gets into the emotions. Wanting won't wait. It's not voluntary. Longing lingers here while we suffer in the insula. The slideshow board is rotating through all 50 of the broadman areas. The tele-raic coordinates and their functions. Oversimplified. Please try out the post stand in the big brain and challenge me with your questions. So I think it's question and answer time. Please type your questions in, even if you typed them before, type them in again now. Someone asked the question, where is dark despair actualized based on metabolic activity? She answers, sadness activates the insula. Someone asks, what is Osengard's background? She answers, I'm a neurologist. I'm a postdoc in an fMRI lab in California, which is still part of the U.S. Good to know. Kira says, there was a statement that we tend to ignore our emotions in inner sensation. Failing to ignore sexual stimuli can land people in jail. So it seems that we better learn to ignore them much of the time. It's complicated for a social animal. So are there theories of self-control evolved? Taglan asked about suicidal ideation. And Osengard's ideation is cortical. Language. Can you hear me? Hello? Can you hear me? Okay. Ideation is cortical. Language-based ruminations. Okay, thank you. How do disorders like epilepsy affect BAs? A lot of questions here. I'm not sure which are the answers to which. So Taglan, are you referring to drug abuse and alcohol abuse? How does that bring protected self against self-abuse or even more directly like how does the brain protect itself from suicide? I don't know. Since Osengard can't hear that, I'm not sure she's able to read along here because there's so many questions coming in. She does mention that in epilepsy, the epileptic foci originate in scarred cortical regions, especially in insulus, so that would be BA34. I don't know that she was ever Yeah, sorry, go ahead. Go right ahead. Are all brain areas affected equally with statistic Alzheimer's? That's a good question too. Yes, I wonder if we can have some way of showing them up to her. I'm asking her if she can see the questions. Maybe I can put them into instant message to her. We just have to know which are the answers to which questions, right? Okay, so maybe if one person could put let's see, a little hard when you're all doing it through text. If anybody here has a question that was not answered by Osengard, just put it in text again right now. Okay, let's go with tagline first. Tagline and when that's answered, the next person can put their question in. We'll do it that way, okay? Go ahead, Katia. Read it. Tagline asks, pain of tactile origin is processed in the parietal lobe, if I understood the presentation. Where is deep visceral pain processed? Okay, she's gone back to an earlier one. Okay, thank you. Osengard is answering a previous question about Alzheimer's. Abnormal protein collects preferentially in the tibocampus, insula. Now that goes with this tagline. Question I believe. So I believe tagline? He answered your question. Insula. Oh goodness. Okay. So I'm going to paste tagline's question into Osengard. Oh, so the visceral receptors, which is what tagline is asking about, are primarily, what is that? Pressure and stretch receptors, not true pain receptors. They go to the midbrain and then to the insula. Okay. Uh-oh. Okay, okay. And then Berrigan asks the question. And tagline, this is from peritonitis, or evisceration. And pressure receptors are called pasinian corpuscles. Okay. I think Berrigan, you want to put yours in again? If you meant to be a serious question. She's a little miff that you haven't noticed her clothing. So Berrigan asked the question this time. I have a pretty specific question from Berrigan. What area of the brain does snorting crushed antero affect? No distractor. So the answer is, all the stimulants short-circuit the dopamine pathway between the brainstem and the basal ganglia, which is why she's so interested in the basal ganglia and would like to develop this part of this brain. That's a question. A good question. Is the part of the brain that controls shopping bigger in women than in men? Or maybe it's the part of the brain that inhibits shopping impulses and Osengar reminds us they've shown that the London taxi drivers have a normally large hippocampi and when they stop driving the hippocampi shrink again. Carry the map in their brain. Yes, that's been a very classic study. Blame is the behavior of excess wanting. That's an interesting statement. So anonymous asking Osengar to explain that statement. That blame is excess wanting. Osengar says, I don't know but it's the main recourse of alcoholics. I am mindful of the time here. I know this was originally set for an hour and there's so much here. Chantel, what do you think? To you makes the point there's alcoholism. Yeah, Osengar would like to know if anybody can help her getting texture on these hemispheres or knows of somebody who might be able to help her please contact her because it's been an issue to be able to get this developed and she'd like to show this as a next step in what she's doing here, evolution of what she's doing here. So if anybody is interested in helping with that it would be wonderful for her. Please just I am her. Would you like to make this more like a real brain? Mr. Berrigan announces the next on the 29th of December, I assume a science circle presentation on gene editing that he will moderate and everyone is invited. Okay, Osengar, we'll work on that. We'll continue to work on mapping rodman areas to the mesh model. Well, I'll need access to typically textures are designed in conjunction with the mesh model at the same time so if you do not have the original mesh file that we can work on this may be very difficult but we can probably come up with something. Yes, such a curious and interested group it's always wonderful to have you here at Inspiration Island we'll probably have a physics day coming up in the early spring here too.