1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,080 The amygdala was just so strong. 2 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:13,560 It was a defining kind of moment because it just showed how much these pathways were important 3 00:00:13,560 --> 00:00:19,840 for cognition and emotion and the two could not be separated. 4 00:00:19,840 --> 00:00:25,040 And so it's really the data that were kind of screaming at me. 5 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:32,040 The human brain is the most complex structure in the known universe and we are in the middle 6 00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:35,280 of a scientific revolution to understand its inner workings. 7 00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:40,000 Join us for a conversation with world-renowned neuroscientists as they visit Rochester. 8 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,880 I am Dr. John Foxe, Director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University 9 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:48,400 of Rochester and you are listening to Neuroscience Prospectives. 10 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:51,360 I'm John Fox. 11 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:55,960 I'm the Director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester 12 00:00:55,960 --> 00:01:02,200 and it is an absolute pleasure today to have one of the true giants in the field of neuroanatomy 13 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:09,280 and neuroscience here with us in Rochester, Professor Helen Barbas from Boston University. 14 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:11,480 What took you to graduate school? 15 00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:16,600 Was it there that you got fascinated by the brain or was there a signature moment? 16 00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:21,800 I was actually quite naive when I came to study. 17 00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:27,800 I got a Fulbright Scholarship and they did send me to Kean College because I thought 18 00:01:27,800 --> 00:01:33,720 that I was interested in people who has brain disorders and children with disabilities and 19 00:01:33,720 --> 00:01:37,120 so forth and that was a good place for that. 20 00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:42,320 And I learned more and more that I was much more interested in the brain as we got to 21 00:01:42,320 --> 00:01:48,760 know more about the brain and to make the long story short I ended up at McGill later 22 00:01:48,760 --> 00:01:57,600 on and became much more hardcore in the neuroscience from the neurophysiology perspective at the 23 00:01:57,600 --> 00:01:58,600 beginning. 24 00:01:58,600 --> 00:01:59,600 Well, let's back up actually. 25 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:03,120 I mean you got this Fulbright Scholarship but tell us a little bit about where you came 26 00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:04,800 from and what brought you to the United States. 27 00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:16,040 I came from Cyprus and so there was an American consulate there and they had the Fulbright 28 00:02:16,040 --> 00:02:21,200 program and they had some scholarships and it was the same for undergraduates, people 29 00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:26,120 going for undergraduate studies and graduate studies and I was one of a lot of people who 30 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:35,040 competed when they ended up being nine in the end but that was probably more than a 31 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:40,480 year of tests that at each stage they eliminated quite a few people. 32 00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:46,000 It was quite intimidating but when you're 17 you sort of go with the flow. 33 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:52,200 Right and I mean it's thinking about a 17 year old young lady in Cyprus heading off 34 00:02:52,200 --> 00:02:55,240 to the United States it does sound intimidating. 35 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:59,520 Did you think when you were leaving then that you would spend the rest of your career in 36 00:02:59,520 --> 00:03:00,520 the United States? 37 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:03,600 No, no and certainly my mother didn't. 38 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:04,600 Sure. 39 00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:13,800 So but it got deeper and deeper into it and after a while it is the States is one of very 40 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:22,240 few places where you can do this type of work and Boston is one of a few places and maybe 41 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:29,240 Rochester too and Penn and New York where you can do primate work and ultimately work 42 00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:30,240 with humans. 43 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:32,160 Yeah and why anatomy? 44 00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:34,920 You're really a hardcore anatomist. 45 00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:37,040 What drew you to that? 46 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:44,480 When I was in graduate school I was doing neurophysiology and I was working with different 47 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:52,480 animal models and cats and some of the questions that emerged from that could be addressed 48 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:57,820 best at the level of circuits and at the anatomical level. 49 00:03:57,820 --> 00:04:03,080 So I wanted to come to the States and acquire some background in that field and then go 50 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:07,760 back to physiology which everybody thinks is more exciting and so forth. 51 00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:14,560 And then I got hooked because I started seeing patterns and it was solving problems that 52 00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:21,360 I couldn't really do as well in physiology and with the methods that we had at the time 53 00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:23,560 it wasn't really possible. 54 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:32,800 So it was really the field that fascinated me and what you could do with so much complexity. 55 00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:37,480 And you're extremely well known as well for venturing up to the front of the brain, right? 56 00:04:37,480 --> 00:04:43,960 There's a lot of anatomy and fundamental sensory cortices but you got stuck in what was considered 57 00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:45,920 very difficult territory. 58 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:56,120 Right and at that time I was interested in eye movements and what really was important 59 00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:59,840 for eye movements proprioceptive information. 60 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:09,000 And so people who knew that I was studying the frontal eye fields they say why are you 61 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:10,840 studying that area? 62 00:05:10,840 --> 00:05:14,400 It's neither necessary nor sufficient for eye movements. 63 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:21,440 My answer was perhaps the right question is what is their role in eye movement? 64 00:05:21,440 --> 00:05:27,560 And at that point there was quite a bit of increase in activity that people found that 65 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:36,200 when an animal, a monkey in this case, was trained in a visual task the receptive fields 66 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:43,160 in the frontal eye fields which are very large were enhanced when the animal made a saccade 67 00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:45,680 towards the receptive field. 68 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:46,680 So it was purposive. 69 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:49,120 It had to do with the task. 70 00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:54,000 And so it was at the time when I was studying the visual input to that so the people who 71 00:05:54,000 --> 00:06:00,040 were studying the frontal eye fields became very intrigued with that. 72 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:05,640 So it was the first demonstration of the visual input to the frontal eye fields. 73 00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:06,640 Yeah superb, superb. 74 00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:08,800 It was amazing work. 75 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:14,760 And then it's funny you started by saying that you came to, you know, with an eye towards 76 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:20,400 clinical conditions, autism and developmental disabilities and then sort of quickly turned 77 00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:21,560 to anatomy. 78 00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:25,880 But in more recent years now your work has turned to the emotional circuits and you've 79 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:34,360 come back to thinking about psychiatric neurodevelopmental diseases as a funny circular or tour de force 80 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:35,360 really. 81 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:38,600 Would you like to speak a bit about what brought you back into that domain? 82 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:47,680 Yes, well the data always speak and when I started going outside the frontal eye fields 83 00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:55,480 and the lateral prefrontal areas where we could see these very primary sensory connections, 84 00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:58,040 they went to the orbital frontal cortex. 85 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:02,080 The amygdala was just so strong. 86 00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:11,640 It was a defining kind of moment because it just showed how much these pathways were important 87 00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:19,640 for cognition and emotion and the two could not be separated. 88 00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:26,640 And so it's really the data that they were kind of screaming at me. 89 00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:28,000 Change of direction actually. 90 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:34,120 You have really in some ways your career is unusual because in our field people often 91 00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:39,960 move from institution to institution but you've been at Boston University for really most 92 00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:42,160 of your career, is that the case? 93 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:50,080 Yes, yes and one of the reasons is because it's a good place. 94 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:56,680 There are a lot of people who work in that area but once you start a lab like that and 95 00:07:56,680 --> 00:08:02,520 you go from the system to the synapse you're kind of tethered. 96 00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:04,640 You really develop a lab. 97 00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:07,920 You start from the ground up. 98 00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:11,760 And anything that takes time away I don't like. 99 00:08:11,760 --> 00:08:17,360 It's downtime and sometimes it's moving. 100 00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:19,560 It's quite disruptive. 101 00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:22,720 And it's not always the best way to get ahead. 102 00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:25,760 Sometimes it's better to just hop around. 103 00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:28,600 I just would not like losing time. 104 00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:30,760 Life in Boston has been good to you. 105 00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:31,760 Life in Boston, yes. 106 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:35,860 Boston was always a good place to go after Montreal. 107 00:08:35,860 --> 00:08:38,440 And a great science town and a great neuroscience town. 108 00:08:38,440 --> 00:08:39,440 Yes, yes. 109 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:41,720 Absolutely great community there. 110 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:49,720 You're a trailblazer as a woman in science as well and a lot of the folks who watch this 111 00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:52,720 segment that we do are young women in science. 112 00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:57,440 Do you have words of wisdom for them about what it means to be a woman in science? 113 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:00,760 Things that are guiding principles for you? 114 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:10,920 Yes, I think that we learn how to persist in spite of all the drawbacks. 115 00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:18,120 Helen, it's such a pleasure to get to spend some time with you and to catch up with you. 116 00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:25,040 Just to express my congratulations and appreciation for your long career in anatomy and the long 117 00:09:25,040 --> 00:09:29,320 reach and penetration of the work that you've done. 118 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:32,920 It's really laid a foundation for a lot of us working in the field. 119 00:09:32,920 --> 00:09:33,920 Great to have you here. 120 00:09:33,920 --> 00:10:00,960 Thank you.