Your brain is more than a bag of chemicals - David Anderson

Modern psychiatric drugs treat the chemistry of the whole brain, but neurobiologist David Anderson believes in a more nuanced view of how the brain functions. He illuminates new research that could lead to targeted psychiatric medications -- that work better and avoid side effects. How's he doing it? For a start, by making a bunch of fruit flies angry. (Filmed at TEDxCaltech.)

Talk by David Anderson.

[asillymuffin]

Wow, this was one of my favorite episodes! I liked walking through the experiments done and their implications, instead of just having accepted ways of thinking explained to me.

[nope.]

I love these videos... It's always interesting to know what our brains are capable of.

[NiteManhattan]

Wow! Great talk. Neuroscience is fascinating. The implications of this are exciting, but also concerning. I'm a little scared by the fact that my brain could be perfectly and precisely manipulated by gene-targeted drugs.

[MedEighty]

That was a great presentation. I look forward to seeing this kind of research turning medicine into a more modern, precise, and calculated field like engineering.

[rkolegendkiller]

Awesome presentation. The thing that astounds me the most is how detailed and specific the research was. It goes to show that even though we still have a long way to go before we fully understand the human mind, we're not doing too bad. I hope extraterrestrial aliens take that into account when deciding whether or not to enslave us.

[uuo]

This is one of the best videos I've watched on this channel. Thanks for the reupload.

[TheDezmona]

That's also true, anything so powerful that can be used for the good of the people can also be abused...

[Plusimurfriend]

what a great talk... its been awhile. thnx ted

[TiagoTiagoT]

Interesting how regular head meds are like getting rid of the chirping of an unseen cricket by blowing up the room...

[AmadeosWolfgang]

It is indeed fascinating and disturbing all at once. It makes a lot of sense though, and not just for neurological disorders, but for just about any genetic disease. But, it would also be possible to do just the opposite as well.

[nigelmckee]

yeah it all felt familiar but i felt like i learnt more, so i'm glad they did!

[JungleJargon]

The best way to treat the brain is to feed it the truth.
Lies are anathema to the brain.
Only your Maker is able to remake you again because no one else can.

[Wallflower]

Wow this is great! Have had questions on these meds.

[holleey]

yup it's an old talk. any talk on TEDed is a reupload afaik.

[SharpCats]

Dr Caroline Leafs 7 pillar learning approach is plausible and provable. Every person has their own way to process information or unique way of thinking; some kineasthetic as top pillar others intrapersonal, interpersonal, musical, logical mathematical, linguistic or visual spatial. Human brain is much more complex and destroying thoughts or neurons is not plausible or good due to interactive nature of brain. Brain is designed to add to existing thoughts as well as interaction of thoughts.

[shimondoodkin]

dopamine has a half-life of 2 minutes.
dopamine in the prefrontal cortex has half-life of 10 minutes in the prefrontal cortex

[z]

This was great, one of my new favorites.

[huyked]

What I find, is that is you plug in your question into a search engine, you'll usually find your answer.

[aureusyarara]

People have hypothesised that the sun revolves around the Earth and that there two massless fuilds, caloric and frigoric, both of which are self-repellant and flow from bodies who have much of them to bodies who have little.

A lot of things make sense at first, especially to human imagination.

But you are right. Occam's razor, right?

[knorrecheck]

Great Talk! The title is a bit misleading though:0