VIRGINIA HERNANDEZ
GRACE PABLOS
CRISTINA G. LUCIO
PILAR PEREZ
Updated Monday,6November2023-02:11
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It's cold and you curse yourself for not taking the jacket you had in your hand. You were in a hurry, so you just went out, going over the details of the presentation that you will have to deliver in less than an hour. You can already feel the butterflies in your stomach. The smell of the pastry shop next to the bus stop takes you back to that trip to Paris for a moment. How long ago? Three years? Nerves, or nostalgia, give you a twinge. It looks like the 46 is delayed. You'd better take the subway. A little race, just like in high school, and that's it.
Swap this moment for the beginning of your morning. Or any other that comes to mind. Never mind. All of them will have been ruled by their brain, that organ that, without us realizing it, organizes our actions and thoughts. It coordinates our organism and, at the same time, is attentive to what is happening outside, prepares us for possible threats, constantly makes decisions, develops new ideas, allows it to read and understand this text...
Our fascinating brain has only one problem. We still don't know very well how it works, so many times, when it breaks down, we don't know how to fix it.
That horizon of bewilderment, however, could soon change. Researchers such as Rafael Yuste, Professor of Neurobiology and Neuroscience at Columbia University, are convinced that neurology is about to experience a revolution, "a new Renaissance". One that will allow us not only to understand how the brain works or how it is possible for our mind to be generated in that gray matter, but also how we can combat the dreaded brain diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases. "It is estimated that one-third of humanity will suffer from brain diseases. One out of every three of us gets it," explains the director of the Center for Neurotechnology at this New York university.
Right now, Yuste explains, we don't fully understand what brain activity looks like – how the approximately 16,000 million neurons and a similar number of other cells that make up our brain – or how the human mind arises from that activity.
We've been gutting brain cells for 100 years, but we haven't been able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. There's starting to be a general theory of how all those neurons fit together
Rafael Yuste, neuroscientist
But thanks to advances in neurotechnology, these mysteries are beginning to be unraveled, techniques are beginning to be developed to record brain activity in a precise way, which opens the door to a new paradigm. A change that Yuste compares to the one achieved by discovering the double helix of DNA 70 years ago. "We've been gutting the molecules and cells in the brain for 100 years, but what we haven't done yet is put all the pieces of that puzzle together. However, we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, there is beginning to be a general theory of how all these neurons fit together and what the brain is for," Yuste continues.
"It's similar to what happened with genetics. Scientists had also been accumulating data for about 100 years, putting all the pieces of the puzzle on the table, but they didn't know how to fit it together until Watson and Crick, actually also with Rosalind Franklin's stolen data, came the model of the double helix of DNA. I think a similar thing is going to happen in neuroscience. There will be a general theory that brings together all this data that is now floating around and that will allow scientists and doctors not only to understand how the brain generates the human mind, but to understand brain diseases and to be able to tackle and cure them."
All this is for him "a new Renaissance", "because human beings define themselves precisely by the mental and cognitive capacities we have, by our mind, and with this theory we will be able to understand what the mind is, how it works and who we are inside".
Neuroscientist Rafael Yuste, ideologue of the Brain Project.Sergio Enríquez Nistal
The publication, just a few weeks ago, of the first complete atlas of the human brain is an important step towards this revolution, says the scientist. "Right now we already have the parts, what the engineers call the list of the parts of the machine. Without this list, we would not be able to understand how the machine that is the brain works, and this has been an example of the help that neurotechnology provides."
The work, which Yuste defines as "historic," is one of the main fruits of the Brain project, which the neuroscientist launched during Obama's term. "This research brings everything that Ramón y Cajal and Rafael Lorente [the Nobel Prize winner's main disciple] up to date, bringing it into the 21st century, where the cell types they described are quantified and expanded. We now have objective criteria for classifying brain cells," he says.
In addition, we now have the technology to enter the brain, which opens the 'Pandora's box' for the potential manipulation of human beings, says the researcher, who recalls that one of the most fashionable theories – yet to be confirmed – suggests that the brain is a machine that generates a kind of virtual reality, a model of the world that it uses to predict the future. That model of the world is perfectly integrated with the outside world in healthy people – but not in people suffering from psychiatric problems such as schizophrenia – and could be changed without the affected person noticing.
The atlas brings everything from Cajal and Lorente into the 21st century. The cell types they described are quantified and expanded
Rafael Yuste, neuroscientist
Yuste is convinced that "all human activities can be changed for the better if we know how the human mind works." From education, to the management of violence, to communication problems. "Imagine sorting out misunderstandings between people. 90% of problems between people are due to misunderstandings. You say one thing, they misunderstand you, they respond differently, you misunderstand the other and the matter gets tangled. Imagine if we could directly decipher what you think and transfer it directly to the other person without any misunderstandings."
That possibility, Yuste stresses, "will be part of this new Renaissance" which, obviously, also poses multiple challenges. For this reason, Yuste is one of the main advocates for the recognition of neurorights as a human right, such as mental privacy, free will or personal identity.
The Five Neurorights
Columbia University (NYC)
Right to mental privacy: that the contents of your mind cannot be decoded without your consent.
Right to your mental identity: that no one can change your self, who you are.
Right to freedom of decision and free will: no one should introduce someone else's decision into your brain through neurotechnology.
Right to equitable access to cognitive neuroaugmentation.
"For me, neurotechnology is all good. The problem is how it is used. It has happened with all technologies, from fire, the wheel, the printing press... You can put it to good use or not. With fire you can warm your cave in winter. Or you can burn the crop next door. We have to set rules for the ethical and social use of technologies. And the same scientists who are developing them are involved in these rules," he says.
Yuste points out from the window of his office to the building where the Manhattan Project began to be developed, the basement where the first nuclear reactor was conceived at his own university. "The same physicists who made the atomic bomb were the first to knock on the door of the United Nations for the regulation of atomic energy, which you see in the movie Oppenheimer."
"Similarly, we need to regulate neurotechnology from the point of view of fundamental human rights. And we have to worry about them now because before we didn't have a way to get into the human brain and now we're starting to have it." Countries such as Chile and Brazil have already begun to look at how to update their legislation to accommodate the protection of neurorights while research on the brain continues to advance.
To Manuel Martín-Loeches, Professor of Psychobiology at the Complutense University and author of the book 'What good is it to be so smart?' (Destino), he is fascinated by the progress made in the last three decades, "especially with respect to the things that intrigued us the most and that have more to do with the human mind and its degradation, neurodegeneration. Neuroimaging techniques are making it possible to see the activity of the brain in certain situations that were previously unthinkable and even its connections at a practically microscopic level in a living brain."
Why do neurons in the auditory cortex make me have auditory sensations if they are the same as those in the visual cortex?
Manuel Martín-Loeches, Professor of Psychobiology
"A lot of progress is being made and artificial intelligence is going to help us much more," continues the researcher, head of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section of the UCM-ISCIII Joint Centre for Human Evolution and Behaviour, who is particularly intrigued by the process that generates consciousness. "How is it possible that neurons that you see under the microscope and that have the same shape and work in the same way are different. Why do neurons in the auditory cortex make me have auditory sensations if they are the same as those in the visual cortex?"
Manuel Martín-Loeches, Professor of Psychobiology at the Complutense University.Sergio Enríquez Nistal
"The brain is an organ that occupies a small percentage of our body but takes 20% of our energy. It's very complex, but the progress that has been made lately has allowed us to take a big step forward. The path continues, but we will continue to move forward and get to know each other better," he says, convinced.
At the age of 18, María Llorens knew that she wanted to dedicate her professional life to studying the brain. The Parkinson's disease that affected his grandfather transformed his interest in animal behavior into a desire to find the keys that govern the functioning of this fundamental organ. Because getting to know him, he thought, is the first step to one day being able to treat him.
The researcher at the Severo Ochoa Center for Molecular Biology in Madrid (CBMSO, UAM-CSIC) is on the right track. His team has managed to show that new neurons are produced in the hippocampus throughout life, definitively dispelling a widespread myth about brain function.
"One of the longest-running dogmas in neuroscience is the old concept that the brain doesn't generate new neurons. This paradigm began to break in rodents, in experimental animals around the 60s, but due to the existence of contradictory results in different studies, it was still thought that the human brain did not generate new neurons. However, our group has helped to show that yes, new neurons are born, at least in the hippocampus, and that this is precisely related to the acquisition of new memories," he says in his laboratory.
Our group has helped to show that neurons do occur, at least in the hippocampus. It is related to the acquisition of new memories
María Llorens, researcher
Specifically, the scientist's research has revealed the existence of stem cells that divide, give rise to proliferative cells and become neurons also in adulthood, a process that is altered when there are neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
"This discovery opens the door to understanding new regeneration mechanisms that occur in our brain and that could perhaps be used in those circumstances in which there is neuronal death or there is loss of connections," explains the researcher.
Researcher María Llorens, from the Severo Ochoa Center for Molecular Biology.Bernardo Díaz
Other myths banished in recent years are those that claim that we only use 10% of our brain or that the organ is divided into watertight compartments, intended for a certain ability.
"Today we know, to cite just one example, that painting is a super complex task that involves theactivity of many brain areas, both for the reception of stimuli and the emission of motor movements, relationship with areas of emotions, etc. At least in terms of complex functions, we cannot say that a function falls exclusively on a specific area," says Llorens.
"There are neural groups that have a special dedication to certain things. To speech, to hearing, to language comprehension... But then those neural groups are interconnected with other areas. If I tell you a phrase that evokes something visual, such as 'A sea with a sun reflection', your brain will also activate your visual area, which does not participate in speech. There are a lot of connections that are necessary for the optimal functioning of the brain," says María José Mas, neuropediatrician and author of the books 'The Adventure of Your Brain' and 'The Brain in its Labyrinth' (Next Door Publishers), who stresses that "our brain is continuously changing".
Neuropediatrician María José Mas.EM
"It's the one organ that's never finished." Because they always have the ability to learn, to face challenges, to adapt to the environment...
"Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to establish new connections and, therefore, new routes and paths, is fascinating," agrees Rosa Molina, a psychiatrist at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid and with extensive experience in psychopsychiatry, who gives guidelines to keep the brain in good shape and promote brain plasticity.
Neural groups are interconnected with other areas. If I tell you a phrase that evokes something visual, that area is going to be activated as well
María José Mas, neuropediatrician
Eating a healthy diet and sleeping well are key, explains the author of the book 'A Mind with a Lot of Body' (Paidós). So is regular physical exercise. These three habits are essential, in general, to take care of our entire body and optimize its capabilities. But to pamper the brain and enhance its plasticity, it is also important to "always learn new things, face challenges, look for solutions to day-to-day problems".
"I'm always asked about older people, about what they have to do, whether to do Sudoku or what. And I always say that I find it much more useful to have social interactions, because in that interaction, even if we don't realize it, we're putting a lot of brain areas into operation. Those social formalisms that we have to maintain, saying good morning, understanding irony and sarcasm, joking... All of that activates a lot of brain regions and is more useful than doing sudoku every day."
Psychiatrist Rosa Molina, from the Clinic of Madrid.Sergio Enríquez Nistal
Unfortunately, he continues, there is more and more loneliness among the elderly and loneliness is a great enemy of both physical and mental health.
Hyperstimulation, he continues, doesn't do us well either. "In the age of hyperstimulation, you have to maintain balance," because too much can be harmful. "The overload that we have so much visual, auditory or doing so many things at once eventually exhausts the brain."
It's most useful to have social interactions, because we get a lot of brain areas going. Social formalisms are much more useful than Sudoku puzzles
Rosa Molina, psychiatrist
"We don't leave the brain with social media and technology. Now you get bored and start scrolling with your finger instead of leaving your brain relaxed for 10 minutes. When you're doing any task, it's as if a particular brain circuit is active. But when you let your brain wander, it's in what's called the resting state. I always compare it to the floating particles that we can see through a sunbeam, which float around and suddenly collide," Molina exemplifies.
"The same thing happens to our brains. Creativity, those eureka moments come precisely in moments of rest, when we are relaxed and ideas collide, so to speak. If you're focused on a task, ideas don't collide. So, those moments of relaxation, of alternating moments of concentration with others of doing absolutely nothing, even if it's just 10 minutes, are good for the brain. He needs them."
So now you know. Put down your phone for a while, turn off your computer, don't continue to the next chapter of the series. Let your brain randomly take you down the intricate paths of your mind: among the memories, catchy songs, your notions of music theory and the occasional fear, there are also some wonderful ideas waiting for you to find them.
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