Charlie Rose

marylaforet  12/12/2011 11:47 AM Report

It is interesting and encouraging to read that SO MANY PEOPLE are interested and committed to learning the truth about the brain. But the truth is that brain belongs to an individual and only that individual can accurately determine the outcome of any therapy or treatment.

I survived a TBI back when they were first studying the brain, 1975. I lived my whole life in varying degrees of disability and then realized I probably could retrain my body and determined through consistent working out in targeted training. It is working!!

I wrote a book about the experience http://tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61739-774-5 and I have a website melassoc.com Two weeks ago I was selling my book at a craftshow. People have told me they're glad I'm around....the comments make my day.

I believe we may be giving a little bit too much control of our lives to medicine. I try to point that out in my story but I'm beginning to think the forced paralyzed condition caused by the head blow was the best thing ever to happen to me!!

So the thing which prompted the most awareness was regaining my own continence.....and medicine wanted to cut my bladder for a tube! (Thank God my mother was so strong)This whole experience has forced me to get out of my own comfort zone and recognize that we are, like the recently deceased preacher Oral Roberts taught, a three-fold creation body-mind and spirit. If we can tap into that strength, I think we could solve a whole lot of dilemmas if only medicine could recognize this. They are the ultimate authority. If they could learn how to better teach, we could better confront our lives.

loridolezal  12/01/2011 08:06 PM Report

THANK YOU for part two...I have been anxiously awaiting this series--loved the first and look forward to another intriguing series of informative sessions!

ANDREW123  11/23/2011 11:59 PM Report

Thank you for devoting so much time to such a fascinating and important topic. I have watched every segment of the series presented with avid interest. I do wish that Dr. Fischbach had been allowed the opportunity to speak a greater length about epilepsy. This is the one of the most common neurological disorders, affecting fully 3% of the population worldwide. Stigma and misunderstanding are still rampant and the etiology is unknown in the majority of cases. Epilepsy is comorbid with mood disorders such as depression (the comorbidity is symmetric) and developmental disorders such as autism. A discussion of epilepsy would therefore converge on a number of subtopics integral to a series devoted to brain science. With so many individuals affected, the public interest ought to be great. Many individuals with epilepsy lead productive lives, indeed some have made major contributions to art or science. Nevertheless, concern for the possible cognitive sequelae of seizures inhibits the productive activity of many with this diagnosis. More information for the public is desperately needed.

ericfairfield  11/17/2011 12:41 PM Report

Thanks for doing this series. Since the first series, our models of brain function at the cellular level have advanced enough that we have predictions relevant to this series. Thanks to the series, I can get the research data quickly from experts.

ShirlMag  11/16/2011 12:58 PM Report

I agree with Shalom Freedman, every word of his comment.

This was an outstanding program.

finalfantasytown  11/12/2011 11:24 PM Report

It is so sad to see this comment.

We should understand all they do is trying to build their house, their living place, their amazon, the harmony because they are daughters of Gaya. Without their contributions, we cannot leave. Where are we going? What will we do? We swim in the river, surf through waves, sail in the sea. That is the happy ending! Do you want to be lion king? When I am through waves, I can see you patrol your border everyday.

Richard_DeBiase  11/11/2011 11:41 AM Report

@ johnteyre 11/05/2011 01:55 PM

I normally don't respond to personal attacks, but here goes.

I did not refer to Nora Volkow, from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), as the Dr. Josef Mengele of the drug war, whose theories result in the deaths of about 10,000 innocent Mexican citizens per year.

At least, J. Robert Oppenheimer felt guilty about developing the atomic bomb. But I saw nothing resembling guilt, or even understanding, from Nora Volkow about NIDA's role in the current Mexican carnage.

Maybe you should stop being a neuroscientist for a while, and try being a human being

GinnyCebe  11/11/2011 03:14 AM Report

I like the collegiality of the participants. They have to work together ahead of time to plan content, timing, and who discusses what. I found Shalom's comment most helpful as I have talked about this series to a number of people and his summary helps me tell them more. I would like to know when future broadcasts in the series will be aired. It used to be on Thursdays but it was not on tonight in Las Vegas, NV.

GeorgeSkoglund  11/09/2011 08:33 PM Report

What are primary areas of disagreement among the guests? I enjoyed the program, but I thought most of the guests where bending over backwards to be polite to one another.

anne4444  11/09/2011 04:37 PM Report

Great question, Charlie. What is intuition?

finalfantasytown  11/08/2011 08:02 PM Report

Alice Bailey, 1922, Consciousness of the Atom

ShalomFreedman  11/06/2011 12:37 PM Report

This was a very informative program. Each of the experts contributed in a significant way. Nora Volkow explained how addiction is a long- term disorder much different from the way we ordinarily depict it as overcomable through going 'cold turkey'. Cori Bargmann pointed to networking element of the brain and its flexibility in compensation. She also spoke about how we learn about the genetics of the brain from the study of animals, even lower level animals. Gerald Fishbach spoke about the special character of the brain not only in its great energy requirements but in its vulnerability to oxygen deprivation. He then after a Charlie Rose question spoke about the critical need for rapid treatment of stroke. He also spoke about the need for early awareness of signs. He too spoke about the way many of the mental problems and conditions are now seen as developmental illnesses. The hope here is to catch the disease process early on and so better limit its damage. Thomas Insel spoke about a new perception of Depression and a deep - brain stimulation technique pioneered by Helen Mayerberg which may be of help in Depression as well as Parkinson's. Eric Kandel spoke about the understanding of mental disease as biological brain disorder. They all gave a sense of there being far more to learn than we yet know. But they too gave hope of new discoveries that will improve the treatment of brain disorders.

An outstanding program.

JohnGelles  11/06/2011 07:39 AM Report

Can brains and money (as a language easily learned by the mind in love with treasure and more personal possessions) be studied together, to reduce the global sins of greed and class distinctions based on wealth or conquest?

If the more perfect union is a nation of cooperating individuals, whose individual share of the common wealth is modest, and whose ambition turns toward performing parental duties more than self aggrandizement, might we not design both a medicine that enhances empathy and a fairer monetary system of production?

The philosophy of REMant which rejects fairness as a form of tyranny and embraces self as all that counts, has been called into question by johnteyre.

It seems that John as a first name leads to thought that REMant is off course -- IF the individual pursuit of happiness is both right and a right endowed to ALL. The failure to want to maximize happiness (meaning virtue) and minimize misfortune is the disease of those who see cooperation as ant-like and mindless competition as the only game in town.

There is another game that many people find attractive: called sometimes a NON-ZERO SUM game. It can be played longer and more on purpose than the game fed by greed -- because no one has to be ELIMINATED and "winner take all" is a call for mass misery -- including even number 1.

Now winner-take-all types will claim that is nature's way of doing what is universally happening. They may see the poor in wealth as a legitimate underclass. They may cite chapter and verse on the history of benevolent reform: it has failed because faction was stronger than anything else when good brains got together to remake what is.

It often seems that the global population is split in two -- not into the 1% versus the 99%, but into the older form of left and right with 50% on each side.

JohnGelles  11/06/2011 01:09 AM Report

ADDENDUM:

If we ever fully map mind on to brain, we will know no more than the mind knows without the map.

BUT, as previously agreed, the greatness of mapping mind on to brain will be to fix some failures of brain, like Alzheimers, that are diseases we must cure by pursuing medical science. To do less is not morally acceptable.

JohnGelles  11/06/2011 01:02 AM Report

Correction:

... The excitement felt by scientists, in discovering the roots OF mind embedded in the brain, ...

[SOME DAY WE WILL HAVE POST-SEND EDIT. IT MAY NOT BE NECESSARY. BUT THE MIND WANTS IT. IT COSTS NOTHING. AND THE ONLY ARGUMENT AGAINST IT IS THAT CORRECTIONS CAN REMOVE ERRORS THAT SUBSEQUENT MESSAGES COUNTED ON. SUCH COUNTING ON ANOTHER'S ERROR WOULD BE VERY RARE OR NON-EXISTENT.]

ADDENDUM:

If we ever fully map mind on to brain, we will know no more than the mind knows without the map.

JohnGelles  11/06/2011 01:48 AM Report

Does it help us when conversing with OTHER PEOPLE to think of their MIND as separate from their BRAIN?

Or is it better to think of the the MIND as a prodUct of thE BRAIN -- albeit our conversation is always between TWO MINDS and not TWO BRAINS?

Scientists, like those conversing with us in this show, must try to map the brain to find and fix the mind when the latter fails.

But laymen need know nothing of the brain, they deal with each other only MIND to MIND.

The show was brilliant. The excitement felt by scientists, in discovering the roots mind embedded in the brain, is shared by an intelligent audience; but that lay audience does not need to know anything about the mapped brain until it knows all there is to know about the mapped mind.

And the mapped mind is identical with the mapped UNIVERSE --as it exists wholly apart from all brains.

We can say, the brain creates languages. Languages model the universe. And the MIND uses LANGUAGES, conciously AND unconciously, to protect the brain and body and/or to fail to do that task.

The point to this pseudo examination of mind, and its workings and failures, is that we want to model everything there is, using languages -- and not in fear of a metaphysical mind that prefers the physical world to the products of ignorant minds.

Superstition, and love of generality that goes too far, is the enemy of civilization and progressive thought.

Great minds make discoveries that free us from irreparable damage due to actions and beliefs by small minded people. We look to artificial intelligence (AI) to help our better minds become better still. And it may be that the brain can be reached by medicine to improve the mind. But, in my view, brain science must progress very slowly because it involves so astronomical a number of mchanisms, whereas great speed is possible in the simpler sciences, where we can do enormous good ASAP -- meaning in weeks and months.

Just in case I have said less in more words than necessary, please accept my apology. I promise to try harder -- but this interview delved deep, and, more or less, was stunning.

ddriver  11/05/2011 10:55 PM Report

What's the difference between the mind and the brain?

Activebz  11/05/2011 04:51 PM Report

Excited by the new series! Thanks to Charlie and all involved. For those interested, Dr. Gabor Mate is very well-spoken about epi-genetic findings around addiction and various mental illnesses. There are three worthwhile interviews with him at Democracy Now! and others on youtube. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/24/dr_gabor_mat_on_the_stress

johnteyre  11/05/2011 01:55 PM Report

I think Charlie got his answer to "what is the mind?". It came in the synthesis of several answers especially from Nora. It's the dynamic ever changing interaction of multiple circuits and sub-circuits e.g. orchestra metaphor from Nora. As a neuroscientist myself I can see Charlie is in miles over his head and worried that his questions are stupid in such august company. This panel is stunningly expert. There'll me more on the mind in the next episode "consciousness". Meanwhile I'm aghast at the abject stupidity of REMant and BeBias comments below. I'm surprized people that lame even watch Charlie Rose.

MSimon  11/05/2011 03:14 AM Report

If the drugs change the brain could the NIDA woman please explain why only 10% or so of those who try heroin become addicted? Does it only change some brains? Or is her theory bankrupt?

My theory is that people take the drugs in question for the same reason doctors prescribe them. To relieve pain. PTSD mostly. From war trauma, seeing others in trauma (EMTs), and child abuse. On the order of 70% of female heroin users were sexually abused as children. She had to know that.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/05/2011 02:17 AM Report

So we heard that a low grade fever can reduce some of the symptoms of Autism. It was also said that this symptom reduction may be due to the inflammation or a direct result of the heat.

This is very interesting. As we age our brains shrink so perhaps the inflammation causes the circuits to work better because the brain size is increased.

Einstein's brain was 15% wider than the other brains studied. Uniquely, Einstein's brain also lacked a groove that normally runs through part of this area. The researchers suggest that its absence may have allowed the neurons to communicate much more easily.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/371698.stm

So get the correct neurons closer together and perhaps we reduce the symptoms of Autism or create an Einstein?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/05/2011 02:02 AM Report

So low levels of hypocretin and we get narcolepsy and we get cataplexy with even lower levels of hypocretin. Our subconscious and conscious are switched on and off by this chemical. (Loved the dachsund by the way.)

Imagine a drone carrying a chemical that stops hyprocretin cells from producing. We might send our enemies, the ones hiding with civilians, into REM sleep and eliminate collateral damage.

We might also find a way to foster creativity by activating REM sleep at will.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/05/2011 01:42 AM Report

Funding came from the world's smartest billionaire and most likely his hedge fund.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simons_Foundation

Thank you one tenth of one percenter--you are smart.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/05/2011 01:36 AM Report

Charlie, you say:

"The brain is to the 21st century as the atom is to the 20th century."

That is a very powerful statement knowing the dark side of the atom.

Perhaps you might ask your guests to compare the century of the atom to what they think the century of the brain will be like. Then I can reduce my fear level to Defcon 2.

JohnGelles  11/04/2011 09:50 PM Report

The model of people's brains as "machines" that make us do and think "WHAT we do", as though we were fully predictable IF only our "machine" were fully understood AND all other happenings could be fully understood, as well, can be dismissed as it is expressed: WHY? Because almost none of our predictions will come true.

That is YOUR prediction? YES.

Dr. Contrary disagrees. He claims your brain was predicted to accept death without objection -- and that has happened billions of times.

You retreat. You decide to welcome the new science of brain and to see if it lasts. Does it have legs?

Your opponent agrees.

Case closed.

beenthere2460  11/04/2011 09:45 PM Report

I am still perplex at why we still can't figure out what is the best use for each person's unique brain wiring in "very specific ways".

It may answer what are we supposed to accomplish in our own lives. Having a blueprint would confirm many things that only time and intuition gives as an answer.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/04/2011 03:41 PM Report

Charlie, great question--"What is the mind?" Although I don't think you really got an answer.

So perhaps I might help?

The mind is part thought generator. It produces an inner voice that tells you something. One of your past guests said his high school coach was his inner voice at many points of his life. I would say for most of us much of our inner voice is our mother and for me this voice competed most of the time with my raging libido.

Personally, I can not control my thought generator but I can try to quickly replace negative thoughts with good thoughts.

So the mind is how you react to the thought generator in your brain. In Cognitive Behavior Therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy you learn to work with your thought generator. I would say this is therapy to have the mind exercise.

Of course, with low blood sugar or bad circuits the mind can do little. So first the brain has to work or the mind can not work well.

Still how would I create a mind if I am building a brain? How would I generate thoughts and make the brain think the thoughts are its identity?

maryx1937  11/04/2011 02:02 PM Report

Knowledge is power in fighting disease as in many other areas of life. The brain is extremely complex and it is going to take many efforts - research, prevention, treatment, compassion and free sharing of all we know to date to get to relief of suffering in the brain dysfunctions/disease area of human life. Thanks to Charlie et al and to PBS for taking us one step further.

REMant  11/04/2011 12:07 PM Report

I see Dr Kandel and his colleagues haven't learned much in the past year. What difference does it make whether something is considered a behavioral disease or a neurological one, except to exculpate the individual, and make learning inconsequential? It is crude reductionism. The result can only lead to testing to weed out and exterminate individuals deemed sick or undesirable. Like the economists, they study only because they ultimately want to manage life. These ladies and gentlemen may believe they can find and fix these things, but it is still THEIR determination of what is wrong and how it can best be fixed.

Dr Volkow says drugs "hijack" the system. How does she know what is a hijack and what is not? It is reasonable to assume that things which override rationality are bad, but that has not always been believed, and still frequently isn't, for instance by a raft of psychologists who disparage reason altogether, some of whom may be sitting at this very table. And carving out a major section of ppl's cerebrums was brutal, too, as was shocking them convulsively. Brutality is brutality whether a prison guard or a prison doctor does it, whether a person is hung or sent to a hospital.

This was the reason why John Locke argued against both heredity and voluntarism, so that life would be a matter not only of human responsibility, but also of human right. Genes are themselves only a means of education. Their existence makes no more difference to the argument than belief in divine intervention. These ppl can look down their noses at "moral character" all they want, but prevention is one thing, treatment quite another.

Even if the attempt is made to proclaim everyone genetically unique, it changes the situation not one iota. And I know these same arguments can be made as well with respect to ANY ailment, but they are no less true for that. Whether doctors like it or not staying alive or living well is a matter entirely of individual prerogative.

Richard_DeBiase  11/04/2011 11:14 AM Report

The woman from The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has absolutely no credibility with me.

The government has been making up lies about marijuana since the 1930's. The pseudo-science to support these lies has primarily been the product of The National Institute on Drug Abuse. Whenever The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) or the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) wants to claim that science is on their side they always cite The National Institute On Drug Abuse.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse does not even use the scientific method. That is, they have not allowed peer review, nor have they allowed others to study marijuana independently. At this point, I would not believe The National Institute On Drug Abuse even if they said water is wet.

Anyone who would choose to work for The National Institute on Drug Abuse has a problem with "moral integrity", "weakness of character" or "moral disorder". But even these idiots, should recognize that a Mexican citizen with a bullet in their head has a greater brain disorder, than I do from using marijuana.

We are not addicted. We are happy. Leave us alone.

If we want to save money by cutting government waste, fraud and abuse; then the first agencies that should be cut are NIDA, DEA and ONDCP.