Attention, Perception & Social Cognition - The Nandy Lab at Yale School of Medicine

Transcript

• 00:05The neocortex
• 00:06is
• 00:07evolutionarily
• 00:08one of the
• 00:09newest structures in the brain.
• 00:11It's about two to three
• 00:12hundred million years old. It's
• 00:14actually also one of the
• 00:16largest in terms of brain
• 00:17volume. In humans, it takes
• 00:18about eighty percent of the
• 00:20volume of the brain.
• 00:22What is fascinating about the
• 00:24mammalian neocortex is it's got
• 00:27a six layered structure. You
• 00:28can think of it as
• 00:29a six layered pancake and
• 00:31the brain cells are embedded
• 00:33in these, different layers.
• 00:35And the neocortex
• 00:37is, responsible
• 00:38for sensory perception,
• 00:40attention, cognition,
• 00:42voluntary movement, and a host
• 00:44of other complex,
• 00:46social behaviors.
• 00:47What fascinates me is how
• 00:49little we know of the
• 00:51approximately five hundred cubic,
• 00:53centimeters of the neocortex cortex
• 00:55we have up there.
• 00:59In my lab, we have
• 01:00two main lines of research.
• 01:02We are interested in understanding
• 01:03how the neurons in the
• 01:04different layers of the cortex
• 01:06participate
• 01:07in basic brain
• 01:09And specifically in the lab,
• 01:11we're interested in these fundamental
• 01:13mechanisms
• 01:14of sensory perception and even
• 01:16more specifically in the mechanisms
• 01:18of what is known as
• 01:19active vision. So this is
• 01:21the ability to move our
• 01:23eyes, to sample parts of
• 01:24the visual scene, and to
• 01:26deploy attention to specific parts
• 01:28of the scene which might
• 01:29be more relevant to ongoing
• 01:32behavior. In the second line
• 01:33of research, we are interested
• 01:34in understanding
• 01:35the brain mechanisms underlying complex
• 01:37social behaviors such as competition,
• 01:40cooperation,
• 01:41and navigation in a complex
• 01:43social environment.
• 01:47In our work on active
• 01:49vision, what we do is
• 01:50we train
• 01:51animals to do various kinds
• 01:53of, if you will, computer
• 01:54games. They sit in front
• 01:55of a computer monitor.
• 01:57It is all very,
• 01:58carefully controlled, computer controlled, where
• 02:01we have
• 02:02precise knowledge of where they
• 02:03were looking at each moment
• 02:05in time and what they
• 02:06were seeing. This second line
• 02:07of research is, a little
• 02:09more ambitious where we are
• 02:10trying to understand
• 02:11the brain in as naturalistic
• 02:14as a state as is
• 02:15possible. So here we train,
• 02:17freely moving animals to do
• 02:19complex tasks such as, two
• 02:21animals cooperating for a mutual
• 02:22reward, or two animals competing
• 02:25for a larger reward,
• 02:26or animals navigating a complex
• 02:29social environment with or without
• 02:31the presence,
• 02:32of other individuals. And while
• 02:34they're doing these complex tasks,
• 02:35we record their behavior,
• 02:37from an array of synchronized
• 02:39cameras. With that, we have
• 02:40precise knowledge of where they
• 02:42were, what they were doing
• 02:43at each moment in time.
• 02:44So we can... We have
• 02:45a sense of their body
• 02:46posture,
• 02:47their head direction, and so
• 02:49on. And then once we
• 02:51finished,
• 02:51data collection, we we perform
• 02:53a host of modern,
• 02:55statistical data analysis to connect
• 02:57the behavior to the neural
• 02:58activity and vice versa.
• 03:04So by understanding
• 03:05the activity of simultaneously recorded
• 03:08neurons, whether these neurons are
• 03:09from the different layers of
• 03:10the cortex or from different
• 03:12brain areas, we hope to
• 03:14uncover
• 03:15fundamental principles of information processing
• 03:18and information
• 03:19flow in the, neocortex.
• 03:22And by understanding these
• 03:24basic principles, then we hope
• 03:25to make some headway in
• 03:27disease conditions such as schizophrenia
• 03:28and ADHD where information processing
• 03:31and flow are impaired.
• 03:33The brain is not giving
• 03:34up its secrets anytime soon,
• 03:36but, you know, that's that's
• 03:37what is fascinating. That's what
• 03:39keeps me up at night
• 03:40and brings me to the
• 03:41lab every day.