After watching this, your brain will not be the same | Lara Boyd | TEDxVancouver

0:00 Transcriber: Jessica Lee Reviewer: Denise RQ So how do we learn?

0:16 And why does some of us learn things more easily than others?

0:21 So, as I just mentioned, I'm Dr.

0:23 Lara Boyd.

0:24 I am a brain researcher here at the University of British Columbia.

0:28 These are the questions that fascinate me.

0:31 (Cheers) (Applause) So brain research is one

0:37 of the great frontiers in the understanding of human physiology,

0:41 and also in the consideration of what makes us who we are.

0:45 It's an amazing time to be a brain researcher,

0:47 and I would argue to you that I have the most interesting job in the world.

0:52 What we know about the brain is changing at a breathtaking pace.

0:56 And much of what we thought we knew and understood

0:58 about the brain turns out to be not true or incomplete.

1:03 Some of these misconceptions are more obvious than others.

1:06 For example, we used to think that after childhood the brain did not,

1:12 really could not change.

1:14 And it turns out that nothing could be farther from the truth.

1:18 Another misconception about the brain is that you only use parts

1:21 of it at any given time and it's silent when you do nothing.

1:25 Well, this is also untrue.

1:27 It turns out that even when you're at a rest and thinking of nothing,

1:31 your brain is highly active.

1:33 So it's been advances in technology, such as MRI,

1:37 that's allowed us to make these and many other important discoveries.

1:40 And perhaps the most exciting,

1:42 the most interesting and transformative of these discoveries is

1:45 that, every time you learn a new fact or skill, you change your brain.

1:51 It's something we call neuroplasticity.

1:54 So as little as 25 years ago, we thought that after about puberty,

1:58 the only changes that took place in the brain were negative:

2:01 the loss of brain cells with aging, the result of damage, like a stroke.

2:06 And then, studies began to show remarkable

2:09 amounts of reorganization in the adult brain.

2:13 And the ensuing research has shown us

2:15 that all of our behaviors change our brain.

2:19 That these changes are not limited by age, it's a good news right?

2:24 And in fact, they are taking place all the time.

2:27 And very importantly,

2:29 brain reorganization helps to support recovery after you damage your brain.

2:34 The key to each of these changes is neuroplasticity.

2:39 So what does it look like?

2:41 So your brain can change in three very basic ways to support learning.

2:45 And the first is chemical.

2:48 So your brain actually functions

2:49 by transferring chemicals signals between brain cells,

2:52 what we call neurons, and this triggered a series of actions and reactions.

2:57 So to support learning, your brain can increase the amount or the concentrations

3:01 of these chemical signaling that's taking place between neurons.

3:06 Because this change can happen rapidly,

3:09 this supports short-term memory or the short-term

3:12 improvement in the performance of a motor skill.

3:15 The second way that the brain can change

3:17 to support learning is by altering its structure.

3:21 So during learning, the brain can change the connections between neurons.

3:25 Here, the physical structure of the brain is

3:28 actually changing so this takes a bit more time.

3:30 These type of changes are related to long-term memory,

3:33 the long-term improvement in a motor skill.

3:37 These processes interact, and let me give you an example of how.

3:41 We've all tried to learn a new motor skill,

3:44 maybe playing the piano, maybe learning to juggle.

3:48 You've had the experience of getting better

3:50 and better within a single session of practice,

3:53 and thinking "I have got it." And then, maybe you return the next day,

3:57 and all those improvements from the day before are lost.

4:01 What happened?

4:02 Well, in the short-term,

4:04 your brain was able to increase the chemical signaling between your neurons.

4:08 But for some reason, those changes did not induce the structural

4:13 changes that are necessary to support long-term memory.

4:17 Remember that long-term memories take time.

4:20 And what you see in the short term does not reflect learning,

4:23 It's these physical changes that are now going to support long-term memories,

4:27 and chemical changes that support short-term memories.

4:32 Structural changes also can lead to integrated networks

4:35 of brain regions that function together to support learning.

4:39 And they can also lead to certain brain regions that are

4:42 important for very specific behaviors to change your structure or to enlarge.

4:46 So here's some examples of that.

4:49 People who read Braille have larger hand sensory areas

4:53 in their brain than those of us who don't.

4:56 Your dominant hand motor region, which is on the left side of your brain,

5:00 if you are right-handed, is larger than the other side.

5:04 And research shows the London taxi cab drivers who actually have

5:08 to memorize a map of London to get their taxi cab license,

5:12 they have larger brain regions devoted to spatial, or mapping memories.

5:17 The last way that your brain can change

5:19 to support learning is by altering its function.

5:23 As you use a brain region,

5:25 It becomes more and more excitable and easy to use again.

5:29 And as your brain has these areas that increase their excitability,

5:32 the brain shifts how and when they are activated.

5:35 With learning, we see that whole networks

5:38 of brain activity are shifting and changing.

5:42 So neuroplasticity is supported by chemical, by structural,

5:46 and by functional changes, and these are happening across the whole brain.

5:51 They can occur in isolation from one or another,

5:53 but most often, they take place in concert.

5:57 Together, they support learning.

5:59 And they're taking place all the time.

6:04 I just told you really how awesomely neuroplastic your brain is.

6:08 Why can't you learn anything you choose to with ease?

6:13 Why do our kids sometimes fail in school?

6:16 Why as we age do we tend to forget things?

6:20 And why don't people fully recover from brain damage?

6:23 That is: what is it that limits and facilitates neuroplasticity?

6:29 And so this is what I study.

6:31 I study specifically how it relates to recovery from stroke.

6:35 Recently, stroke dropped from being the third leading cause of death

6:39 in the United States to be the forth leading cause of death.

6:42 Great news, right?

6:44 But actually, it turns out that the number

6:47 of people having a stroke has not declined.

6:49 We are just better at keeping people alive after a severe stroke.

6:53 It turns out to be very difficult to help the brain recover from stroke.

6:58 And frankly, we have failed to develop effective rehabilitation interventions.

7:05 The net result of this is that stroke is

7:08 the leading cause of long-term disability in adults in the world;

7:13 individuals with stroke are younger and tending

7:16 to live longer with that disability,

7:18 and research from my group actually shows that the health-related

7:22 quality of life of Canadians with stroke has declined.

7:26 So clearly we need to be better at helping people recover from stroke.

7:30 This is an enormous societal problem, and it's one that we are not solving.

7:36 So what can be done?

7:38 One thing is absolutely clear:

7:41 the best driver of neuroplastic change in your brain is your behavior.

7:46 The problem is that the dose of behavior,

7:49 the dose of practice that's required to learn

7:51 new and relearn old motor skills, is very large.

7:55 And how to effectively deliver these large

7:57 doses of practice is a very difficult problem;

8:00 It's also a very expensive problem.

8:03 So the approach that my research has taken is to develop

8:06 therapies that prime or that prepare the brain to learn.

8:09 And these have included brain simulation, exercise, and robotics.

8:14 But through my research, I've realized that a major limitation

8:18 to the development of therapies that speed recovery

8:21 from stroke is that patterns of neuroplasticity

8:24 are highly variable from person to person.

8:28 As a researcher, variability used to drive me crazy.

8:32 It makes it very difficult to use

8:35 the statistics to test your data and your ideas.

8:38 And because of this, medical intervention

8:40 studies are specifically designed to minimize variability.

8:45 But in my research, it's becoming really clear that the most important,

8:50 the most informative data we collect is showing this variability.

8:56 So by studying the brain after stroke, we've learned a lot,

9:00 and I think these lessons are very valuable in other areas.

9:06 The first lesson is that the primary driver

9:09 of change in your brain is your behavior,

9:11 so there is no neuroplasticity drug you can take.

9:15 Nothing is more effective than practice at helping you learn,

9:19 and the bottom line is you have to do the work.

9:23 And in fact, my research has shown increased difficulty,

9:26 increased struggle if you will,

9:29 during practice, actually leads to both more learning,

9:32 and greater structural change in the brain.

9:37 The problem here is that neuroplastcity can work both ways.

9:42 It can be positive, you learn something new, and you refine a motor skill.

9:47 And it also can be negative though, you forgot something you once knew,

9:51 you become addicted to drugs, maybe you have chronic pain.

9:56 So your brain is tremendously plastic,

9:58 and it's been shaped both structurally and functionally by everything you do,

10:03 but also by everything that you don't do.

10:07 The second lesson we've learned about the brain

10:09 is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to learning.

10:14 So there is no recipe for learning.

10:16 Consider the popular belief that it takes 10,000 hours

10:19 of practice to learn and to master a new motor skill.

10:23 I can assure you it's not quite that simple.

10:27 For some of us, it's going to take a lot more practice,

10:30 and for others it may take far less.

10:32 So the shaping of our plastic brains is far too unique for there

10:37 to be any single intervention that's going to work for all of us.

10:41 This realization has forced us to consider something call personalized medicine.

10:46 This is the idea that to optimize

10:48 outcomes each individual requires their own intervention.

10:53 And the idea actually comes from cancer treatments.

10:55 And here it turns out that genetics are very important

10:58 in matching certain types of chemotherapy with specific forms of cancer.

11:04 My research is showing that this also applies to recovery from stroke.

11:08 There're certain characteristics of brain

11:10 structure and function we called biomarkers.

11:12 And these biomarkers are proving to be very helpful

11:15 and helping us to match specific therapies with individual patients.

11:20 The data from my lab suggests it's a combination of biomarkers

11:24 that best predicts neuroplastic change and patterns of recovery after stroke.

11:29 And that's not surprising, given how complicated the human brain is.

11:34 But I also think we can consider this concept much more broadly.

11:39 Given the unique structure and function of each of our brains

11:43 what we've learned about neuroplasticity after stroke applies to everyone.

11:50 Behaviors that you employ in your everyday life are important.

11:54 Each of them is changing your brain.

11:57 And I believe we have to consider

11:59 not just personalized medicine but personalized learning.

12:03 The uniqueness of your brain will affect you

12:05 both as a learner and also as a teacher.

12:08 This idea helps us to understand why some children

12:13 can thrive in tradition education settings and others don't;

12:17 why some of us can learn languages easily and yet,

12:20 others can pick up any sport and excel.

12:25 So when you leave this room today,

12:28 your brain will not be the same as when you entered this morning.

12:32 And I think that's pretty amazing.

12:36 But each of you is going to have changed your brain differently.

12:40 Understanding these differences, these individual patterns,

12:44 this variability and change is going

12:47 to enable the next great advance in neuroscience;

12:49 it's going to allow us to develop new and more effective interventions,

12:53 and allow for matches between learners and teachers,

12:57 and patients and interventions.

13:00 And this does not just apply the recovery from stroke,

13:03 it applies to each of us, as a parent, as a teacher, as a manager,

13:08 and also because you are at TEDx today, as a lifelong learner.

13:13 Study how and what you learn best.

13:16 Repeat those behaviors that are healthy for your brain,

13:20 and break those behaviors and habits that are not.

13:24 Practice.

13:26 Learning is about doing the work that your brain requires.

13:30 So the best strategies are going to vary between individuals.

13:34 You know what, they're even going to vary within individuals.

13:37 So for you, learning music may come very easily,

13:40 but learning to snowboard, much harder.

13:44 I hope that you leave today with a new

13:47 appreciation of how magnificent your brain is.

13:49 You and your plastic brain are constantly being shaped by the world around you.

13:54 Understand that everything you do, everything you encounter,

13:58 and everything you experience is changing your brain.

14:01 And that can be for better, but it can also be for worse.

14:05 So when you leave today, go out and build the brain you want.

14:10 Thank you very much.

14:11 (Applause)