Incredible Human Machine Page #9

the confines of this claustrophobic machine.

While she's in there

the Stanford team gives her a real-time picture

of the activity in her brain's pain areas.

Represented by either a line graph or a flame.

By simply thinking about

putting those flames out,

Kimberlee is, for the first time,

putting her pain out.

The idea is to drive the activity down.

And in doing so, we also hope to see

that the flame goes down.

We still don't understand

how the brain does this.

But one thing is clear,.

we can physically change the activity

in our brains and the FMRl lets us watch.

What we showed here is that you can

actually focus on a particular region,

a particular area, and learn to control that.

And that's the first time this has been done.

This new-found power over our brains

has applications well beyond pain

to mental illnesses like depression,

phobias and addiction.

Our brains are highly malleable,

plastic, changeable.

We really can control and change our brain.

And so the opportunities are truly limitless,

because there's no area of the brain

that we can't now tap into

and have somebody learn how to control it.

What's news to neuroscientists has been

practised by others for thousands of years.

Using nothing but simple meditation, some of us

have already learned how to control the brain.

Our brains enable us to do extraordinary things,

but some are much better than others

at harnessing its power.

Buddhist monks have used their brains

to dry wet sheets on their backs,

slow their heart rates,

or be incredibly resistant to pain.

For Souei Sakamoto, a Shingon Buddhist,

it's meditating half an hour a day

under a frigid waterfall in Toyama, Japan.

A ritual that dates back hundreds of years.

(Speaks Japanese)

TRANSLATOR:

We have an old saying in Japan;

''Clear your mind of all mundane thoughts

and you'll find that even fire is cool.''

When you learn to control your brain

it may be possible to use the brain

to influence the body in very unusual ways.

To understand the brain's power

Richard Davidson

of the University of Wisconsin-Madison

studies the effects of meditation

on Buddhist monks.

Specifically, measuring how their ancient

practices physically change their brains.

These are individuals who we can think of

as the Olympic athletes of meditation.

They have spent years cultivating

certain qualities of mind

and they are virtuosos in many respects.

This is just to keep any water that might drip

down from getting on your clothing.

- Oh.

- A little bit of water might drip on you.

East meets West in Davidson's lab

as FMRls, PETscans

and electroencephalograms, or EEGs,

which involve this unusual contraption,

are all aimed at monks deep in meditation.

Today it's 84-year-old Geshe Lhundab Sopa,

who's been an ordained Tibetan monk

since 1 932.

You have an interesting new hat, Geshe.

You look very futuristic.

By attaching these 1 28 wire-laden sponges

to Geshe Sopa's head,

the Wisconsin team can record

the tiny electrical currents

that continuously emanate through his scalp.

A measure of the millions of neurons firing away

in his brain at any given moment.

He'll begin with a traditional

compassion meditation.

So we'll begin in the neutral state, Geshe,

and l'll let you know when to begin

the compassion meditation.

Experienced meditators can enter a deep,

meditative state in less than 20 seconds

and with the EEG we can watch as it happens.

Compassion, compassion.

Just at the start of the transition

when a practitioner begins to meditate

there is a very discernible change

in these brain signals.

And together with FMRl data,

Davidson has located these changes

in several areas of the brain

including the prefrontal cortex.

So this is an area here

that is in the left prefrontal cortex,

that we find more activated in the practitioners,

particularly when they're generating

this compassion meditation.

Left activity in this region is associated

with enthusiasm and happiness,

right with negativity and stress.

By meditating these monks are able to shift

their neurons'activity from right to left.

DAVlDSON:
These changes are changes

that have not been seen before

and so this opens up whole vistas

of new possibilities

that we're only just beginning

to scratch the surface with.

Already, Davidson and others have found

that meditation's effects on brain activity

can lower levels of stress hormones

and boost immune function.

And for as little as two minutes three times a day

he believes even those on a much lower plane

of enlightenment can reap these benefits too.

Whether we control them or they control us,

our brains more than anything else

set us apart from all other species,

and one another.

But thought, feeling and selfhood are fragile.

Though it's only about 2% of our body weight,

the brain exhausts 20% of our oxygen.

lf the brain is without oxygen for

just ten seconds we lose consciousness.

Four minutes,

and the damage can be permanent.

And unlike other cells in the body,

when neurons get badly damaged

they cannot be replaced.

WOMAN:
(over speakerphone) OK,

this is the result for patient Carson, Brandon.

For section No.1 left frontal tumour,

the diagnosis is...

At UCLA Dr Linda Liau continues to work

on 23-year-old Brandon Carson.

After mapping the speech areas of his brain,

she's ready to remove a cancerous tumour.

That darkened mass, yes.

What l'm trying to do is dissect around it.

As an electronic scalpel cuts into his brain

Brandon is still responding to those flash cards.

Not a scrap of cancerous tissue can stay.

And just the tiniest sliver of brain

can be removed.

There's some deeper parts of the tumour

that are near blood vessels,

and, obviously, we don't want to take out

any necessary blood vessels.

The only way we could see that

is through the microscope.

This is the hole where the tumour used to be.

Thanks to these new real-time glimpses

into the brain

Brandon will soon wake up from his surgery,

tumour-free and speech intact.

We inch one step closer to understanding

how it all works

and how far we still have to go.

l think that as you learn, you know,

where vision is

and where l control my hand from

and where my speech is located,

you begin to feel like,

''l'm understanding this circuitry.

l think l understand how the brain works.''

And then you get into it a little more deeply

and you realise you don't know very much at all.

That the wonder of the human brain is sort of

one of these great frontiers. That's the truth.

The more you learn

the dumber you realise you are.

The same applies to all parts

of the incredible machine.

Whether it's our control centre

or pumping station,

our security or exhaust system,

our power plants or copying machines,

the human body has been a marvel

of complexity for more than 1 00,000 years.

From its surface to its core,

amongst its trillions of cells,

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