Learn about how scientists stimulated mouse neurons to make them see things that weren’t there; and, why mosquitoes are so dangerous and how they’ve shaped human history, with Dr. Timothy Winegard. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about how scientists stimulated mouse neurons to make them see things that weren’t there: https://curiosity.im/2KiCcpB Additional resources from Timothy Winegard: Pick up “The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator” on Amazon — https://amazon.com Colorado Mesa University faculty bio — https://www.coloradomesa.edu/directory/social-behavioral-sciences/timothy-winegard.html Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about how scientists stimulated mouse neurons to make them see things that weren’t there; and, why mosquitoes are so dangerous and how they’ve shaped human history, with Dr. Timothy Winegard.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about how scientists stimulated mouse neurons to make them see things that weren’t there: https://curiosity.im/2KiCcpB
Additional resources from Timothy Winegard:
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/history-changing-mosquitoes-w-timothy-winegard-and-stimulating-neurons-to-produce-images
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about how scientists stimulated mouse neurons to make them see things that weren’t there. You’ll also learn about how mosquitoes have literally shaped human history, from today’s guest: Dr. Tim Winegard.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Scientists Stimulated Mouse Neurons to Make Them See Things That Weren't There — https://curiosity.im/2KiCcpB (from Friday 8/16) (Ashley)
Scientists have stimulated mouse neurons to make them see things that weren’t there. And the results of this experiment could teach us about how our own brains work. For some context, there's a lot we don't know about how the brain goes about perceiving the world. For example, we know that certain neurons fire when you see a flower. But are those neurons making you see the flower, or are they just firing in response to the visual cue? That’s the million dollar question. And for this study published in August 2019, Stanford researchers came up with a way to answer it. Usually scientists use a technology called optogenetics to activate individual neurons. That involves introducing brain cells with foreign genes that code for light-responsive proteins. Those, in turn, let you activate those cells using carefully targeted doses of light. Yes, you heard me right — researchers can stimulate neurons using light. This Stanford team introduced the neurons with a gene from a microscopic marine organism to help them make more precise measurements than what you usually find in optogenetics. Then, the researchers measured the mice’s brain activity when they showed them certain images, like vertical and horizontal black-and-white bars. They also trained the mice to lick a drinking tube only when they saw one of those two images — like, every time they saw horizontal bars, they licked the tube.
Over the course of a few days recording the mice’s neurons as they saw those images, the researchers gradually took away the physical images and actually triggered the neurons that were associated with seeing those images. And it worked: the mice only licked the tube when the scientists activated the horizontal-bar neurons. As the experiment progressed, the scientists tried activating fewer and fewer of these neurons to see just how few you actually needed to target to get the same result. In the end, they realized that they only had to stimulate about 20 neurons to get the same licking behavior as actually displaying the black-and-white bars. Which begs the question: if just 20 or so neurons can make you perceive something and our brains are generally buzzing with random activity, then shouldn’t we just hallucinate all the time? The answer to that question may lead to a better grasp of the human brain in general, not to mention breakthroughs in our understanding of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia. The brain is a precisely tuned biological machine, and knowing how it's tuned can teach us more about why it breaks down.
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Timothy Winegard 1 - Why mosquitoes are so dangerous and what they’ve done [4:52] (Cody)
CODY: Across our planet since the dawn of humankind, a nefarious creature has been at the frontlines of history. It’s been a grim reaper, harvester of human populations, and the ultimate agent of historical change. That creature? Is the mosquito. And today we welcome a guest to help you understand how it’s been so impactful — and what we’re doing about it. Dr. Tim Winegard is a professor of history and political science at Colorado Mesa University, and author of the new book “The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator.” Let’s start off with how something so small has left such a big impact.
[CLIP 1:20]
So mosquitoes are everywhere. But Tim told us that they weren’t always carriers of these deadly diseases.
[CLIP 0:57]
Obviously these diseases have been deadly throughout human history. But we asked Tim if anything really surprised him when he was doing research for his book, and he told us this incredible story about Scotland with unbelievable implications.
[CLIP 1:30]
You heard that right: one could argue that Scotland lost its soverignty because of mosquitoes. And that’s just one of many stories in Tim’s book. Here’s one more mosquito history lesson for the road, from a little further back in the past — as in, ancient Greece.
[CLIP 1:06]
Okay, so if you can pretty much blame the rise and fall of empires on mosquitoes, then when did humans start working on ways to fight back, and how? Dr. Tim Winegard will be back tomorrow with some answers. Again, his new book is “The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator.” And you can find links to that and more from him in today’s show notes.
ASHLEY: And now, let’s recap what we learned today.
CODY: Today we learned that scientists can stimulate just a handful of neurons to make mice perceive something.
ASHLEY: And, that mosquitoes live everywhere. And you can blame them for major events in history, from Scotland losing its soverignty to the spread of ancient Greek culture.
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!