WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.419 Time is something that most fields don't get 00:00:02.419 --> 00:00:04.940 to until they sort of, you know, gain enough 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:08.300 courage or craziness to tackle. But it's so, 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:11.599 so fundamental to the broad principles of organization 00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:16.019 of the brain. The human brain is the most complex 00:00:16.019 --> 00:00:18.359 structure in the known universe, and we are in 00:00:18.359 --> 00:00:20.839 the middle of a scientific revolution to understand 00:00:20.839 --> 00:00:23.480 its inner workings. Join us for a conversation 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:25.719 with world -renowned neuroscientists as they 00:00:25.719 --> 00:00:28.640 visit Rochester. I am Dr. John Foxe, Director 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:30.820 of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:33.159 the University of Rochester, and you are listening 00:00:33.159 --> 00:00:38.369 to Neuroscience Perspectives. I'm John Foxe, Director 00:00:38.369 --> 00:00:40.409 of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience here 00:00:40.409 --> 00:00:42.429 at the University of Rochester, and I'd like 00:00:42.429 --> 00:00:44.770 to welcome you to another episode of Neuroscience 00:00:44.770 --> 00:00:47.750 Perspectives. I'm absolutely thrilled today to 00:00:47.750 --> 00:00:51.030 introduce my guest, Dr. Kia Nobre. Dr. Nobre 00:00:51.030 --> 00:00:53.570 is the Director of the Centre for Neurocognition 00:00:53.570 --> 00:00:56.049 and Behaviour at the Wu Tsai Institute at Yale 00:00:56.049 --> 00:00:58.890 University. She recently returned to her alma 00:00:58.890 --> 00:01:01.070 mater after spending the majority of her career 00:01:01.070 --> 00:01:03.409 at Oxford University, where she held several 00:01:03.409 --> 00:01:06.540 major leadership roles. including the director 00:01:06.540 --> 00:01:08.599 of the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity. 00:01:09.079 --> 00:01:11.219 She is an international member of the National 00:01:11.219 --> 00:01:13.299 Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the British 00:01:13.299 --> 00:01:16.099 Academy, and she has received numerous honours, 00:01:16.099 --> 00:01:18.459 including Lifetime Mentor Award from the Association 00:01:18.459 --> 00:01:21.959 for Psychological Science, the MRC Suffrage Science 00:01:21.959 --> 00:01:24.859 Award, the Broadbent Prize from the European 00:01:24.859 --> 00:01:27.560 Society for Cognitive Psychology, and the D. 00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:30.840 Carvajal Heineken Prize for Cognitive Neuroscience. 00:01:31.659 --> 00:01:34.659 Her discoveries have literally revolutionized 00:01:34.659 --> 00:01:36.620 our understanding of human brain and behavior. 00:01:37.099 --> 00:01:40.060 So thank you, Dr. Knope, for being here on Neuroscience 00:01:40.060 --> 00:01:42.879 Perspectives with us. Let's dive in. Let's dive 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:45.500 straight in with your research. We've known each 00:01:45.500 --> 00:01:47.879 other quite some time, and actually we do stuff 00:01:47.879 --> 00:01:50.060 in the same kind of vein. So I have been a huge 00:01:50.060 --> 00:01:53.170 fan, and I've followed your work for... I shouldn't 00:01:53.170 --> 00:01:55.370 say decades, but it is decades. Decades, likewise, 00:01:55.469 --> 00:01:59.989 yes. So, and, you know, I always think of you 00:01:59.989 --> 00:02:03.969 as an attention researcher. But you've really 00:02:03.969 --> 00:02:07.629 spanned the gamut, looking at sort of the role 00:02:07.629 --> 00:02:11.150 of cognition in determining behavior. And one 00:02:11.150 --> 00:02:15.420 specific area is this business of time. attention 00:02:15.420 --> 00:02:18.659 or cognition in time and frameworks of time. 00:02:18.759 --> 00:02:21.759 So why time and why is it so important? I'm like 00:02:21.759 --> 00:02:24.759 voraciously curious about the brain, always have 00:02:24.759 --> 00:02:28.740 been as long as I can remember. And, you know, 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:30.819 when I was a graduate student, I didn't know 00:02:30.819 --> 00:02:32.659 what I was going to do. Am I going to do cellular, 00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:35.460 molecular, systems level, human stuff? So I'm 00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:38.139 really curious about the whole breadth of it. 00:02:38.539 --> 00:02:42.379 And so I kind of found a trick, which is to study 00:02:42.379 --> 00:02:44.650 some things that are relevant. to everything 00:02:44.650 --> 00:02:47.909 so that I can kind of dabble in understanding, 00:02:48.169 --> 00:02:51.530 you know, ultimately trying to pick up the broad 00:02:51.530 --> 00:02:54.569 principles of organization of the brain. So in 00:02:54.569 --> 00:02:58.189 my sort of way of thinking about attention, it's, 00:02:58.189 --> 00:03:02.710 you know, really maybe not about our... colloquial 00:03:02.710 --> 00:03:05.550 definition of it but it's really about how the 00:03:05.550 --> 00:03:08.110 brain picks out the relevant information out 00:03:08.110 --> 00:03:10.710 in the world and how it does that proactively 00:03:10.710 --> 00:03:14.310 dynamically as we moving around the world and 00:03:14.310 --> 00:03:17.669 you know meanwhile how it's putting all those 00:03:17.669 --> 00:03:20.189 signals together how it's putting away other 00:03:20.189 --> 00:03:22.849 things and all of this is also happening through 00:03:22.849 --> 00:03:27.689 time and you know and I think that time is something 00:03:27.689 --> 00:03:30.509 that most fields don't get to until they sort 00:03:30.509 --> 00:03:33.169 of you know gain enough courage or craziness 00:03:33.169 --> 00:03:37.009 to tackle. But it's so, so fundamental to the 00:03:37.009 --> 00:03:39.389 broad principles of organization of the brain. 00:03:39.449 --> 00:03:42.469 So for me, like studying attention and studying 00:03:42.469 --> 00:03:45.169 attention in a dynamic, temporally structured, 00:03:45.469 --> 00:03:48.569 proactive way is a way of kind of carving out 00:03:48.569 --> 00:03:52.280 the core principles of brain organization. And 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:55.319 it goes back to this idea of a limited resource, 00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:58.439 right? There's only so much you can take on at 00:03:58.439 --> 00:04:00.360 any given time, which is kind of how I think 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:02.120 most of the field think about it. I'm going to 00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:04.599 attend over here, not over there. I'm going to 00:04:04.599 --> 00:04:06.800 attend to red and not blue and so on. And those 00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:09.400 are in instantaneous time. And so you've said, 00:04:09.419 --> 00:04:11.819 I need to understand this as it plays out across. 00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:15.000 an episode or a period. You know, I think that 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:17.839 framing that you gave is like the textbook framing 00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:19.980 of the field. You know, like we have limited 00:04:19.980 --> 00:04:23.399 resources, there's bottlenecks, and it kind of 00:04:23.399 --> 00:04:28.920 emphasizes sort of the limitations of our mental 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:31.379 capacity and our brain. I like to think about 00:04:31.379 --> 00:04:33.300 it a different way. I think that actually the 00:04:33.300 --> 00:04:36.100 brain is pretty clever of trying to pick out 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:40.540 the right things in order to plan for adaptive 00:04:40.540 --> 00:04:42.560 behavior. So it's kind of always ahead of the 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:46.839 game and picking out things to do as far as it 00:04:46.839 --> 00:04:48.620 can tell what's going to be the right thing next. 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:52.639 So I kind of think of this idea of picking out 00:04:52.639 --> 00:04:55.920 information as a positive, constructive, proactive 00:04:55.920 --> 00:04:59.160 thing for guiding behavior rather than because 00:04:59.160 --> 00:05:02.680 we have these limited resources. And I also think 00:05:02.680 --> 00:05:05.220 that that kind of framing of the limited resource 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:07.120 doesn't really tell us anything about how it 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:09.649 works. So I think it's true that there are some 00:05:09.649 --> 00:05:11.329 limitations in the brain, but we should think 00:05:11.329 --> 00:05:14.990 about how do they come about? What kind of nature 00:05:14.990 --> 00:05:17.269 are they and how does that? So I think a lot 00:05:17.269 --> 00:05:20.110 of it is, you know, we pick up the world through, 00:05:20.209 --> 00:05:22.550 you know, our different, you know, quite restricted 00:05:22.550 --> 00:05:26.850 sensors. Then we split out that information into 00:05:26.850 --> 00:05:28.589 lots and lots of different features. They're 00:05:28.589 --> 00:05:30.449 all rumbling around the brain at different, you 00:05:30.449 --> 00:05:33.389 know. and looping around. And somehow we have 00:05:33.389 --> 00:05:36.050 to put that all together. So I think the constraints 00:05:36.050 --> 00:05:38.750 are really about when there's overlap of information 00:05:38.750 --> 00:05:41.430 hitting on the same cells, how do the cells know 00:05:41.430 --> 00:05:43.850 who to connect to. And it's not about that there's 00:05:43.850 --> 00:05:47.550 just too much. It's the problem of stitching 00:05:47.550 --> 00:05:51.230 it all together again that I think is the tough 00:05:51.230 --> 00:05:54.959 bit. Does it go hand in hand? Theories come and 00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:57.779 go in our field and we're all about predictive 00:05:57.779 --> 00:05:59.819 coding at the moment. This idea of having like 00:05:59.819 --> 00:06:03.079 a model and projecting out into the future. Is 00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:06.699 it related to that? Yeah, I mean, I think, you 00:06:06.699 --> 00:06:08.279 know, attention research has been looking at 00:06:08.279 --> 00:06:10.600 that stuff for a long time. And I think predictive 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:12.740 coding, so I don't want to bad mouth predictive 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:15.379 coding. I love predictive coding colleagues. 00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:17.740 But, you know, predictive coding has come in 00:06:17.740 --> 00:06:22.560 as almost like a new framework. But it's an old 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:26.220 idea. Yeah, and I think the two fields could 00:06:26.220 --> 00:06:29.459 do better at finding the points of conciliation, 00:06:29.660 --> 00:06:33.000 convergence, mutual information. So I think a 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.620 lot of the predictive coding literature has emphasized 00:06:36.620 --> 00:06:39.040 the fact that if you already know something, 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:41.779 then you don't actually need to process it because 00:06:41.779 --> 00:06:44.240 you kind of filter it out and you just process 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:46.319 the things you don't know. Whereas the attention 00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:48.790 literature... tells you exactly the opposite. 00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:51.250 It says if you know things, you can put them 00:06:51.250 --> 00:06:53.550 to really good use and do that thing to the best 00:06:53.550 --> 00:06:55.870 of your ability, like if you're in a tennis game 00:06:55.870 --> 00:06:58.189 or, you know, marathon and having to figure out. 00:06:58.810 --> 00:07:01.990 I think that both of those things are probably 00:07:01.990 --> 00:07:04.850 correct, and they happen probably in different 00:07:04.850 --> 00:07:07.509 circumstances, within different mechanisms, and 00:07:07.509 --> 00:07:10.290 possibly within different circuits. But I think, 00:07:10.290 --> 00:07:12.629 you know, sometimes the predictive coding has 00:07:12.629 --> 00:07:15.980 kind of swept the attention. field under the 00:07:15.980 --> 00:07:17.800 carpet and I think it would be much better if 00:07:17.800 --> 00:07:19.779 we bring all those threads together and build 00:07:19.779 --> 00:07:22.360 a better tapestry out of it. Tell me something 00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:26.360 that you've learned about a mechanism that keeps 00:07:26.360 --> 00:07:30.860 track or divvies out my resources in this temporal 00:07:30.860 --> 00:07:33.100 way over time. Would you have a simple answer 00:07:33.100 --> 00:07:35.420 to that or is that an impossible question? I'm 00:07:35.420 --> 00:07:37.379 not sure what you mean, but I think we can read 00:07:37.379 --> 00:07:40.060 out the fact that the brain is pre -playing and 00:07:40.060 --> 00:07:43.540 pre -playing things in time. We can read these 00:07:43.540 --> 00:07:46.100 things out. We can read out what you're focusing 00:07:46.100 --> 00:07:48.779 in mind based on what you're going to have to 00:07:48.779 --> 00:07:51.220 retrieve all the way to your eyeballs by measuring 00:07:51.220 --> 00:07:54.220 your pupil. We can look at how the brain is selectively 00:07:54.220 --> 00:07:56.220 focused on the information it's going to need 00:07:56.220 --> 00:07:59.040 to retrieve at a given moment. We can measure 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:00.819 that from your eyes, for example, which is pretty 00:08:00.819 --> 00:08:04.120 crazy. So seeing the signals in neuron circuits. 00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:06.699 Using electrophysiology or imaging and saying, 00:08:06.759 --> 00:08:08.439 yeah, this area. And even physiological signals 00:08:08.439 --> 00:08:10.399 all the way to, you know. Right, and the periphery. 00:08:10.399 --> 00:08:15.040 Yeah. Right, right. And is that, like, do oscillations, 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:17.300 for example, like, you know, as part of a temporal, 00:08:17.339 --> 00:08:21.040 a way to hold on to time. Yeah. Is that a player 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:25.259 in this? There are a lot of potential players 00:08:25.259 --> 00:08:28.240 in time processing at the moment. And I think 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:32.710 that, I don't think we have a. consensus, broad 00:08:32.710 --> 00:08:35.450 understanding of which of the many potential 00:08:35.450 --> 00:08:37.730 mechanisms that might be contributing to this. 00:08:37.830 --> 00:08:40.590 For example, there are oscillations. Oscillations 00:08:40.590 --> 00:08:43.370 have been proposed as keeping beats and keeping 00:08:43.370 --> 00:08:46.149 tempos and possibly structuring a bit of our 00:08:46.149 --> 00:08:50.590 active sensing of the world. There are also activity 00:08:50.590 --> 00:08:53.570 in neurons that ramp up to anticipated moments. 00:08:54.009 --> 00:08:57.929 There are dynamical systems that are very dynamical 00:08:57.929 --> 00:09:00.710 and that At given moments of time, if something 00:09:00.710 --> 00:09:03.149 happens that's important, you get a plasticity 00:09:03.149 --> 00:09:07.690 event, which then consolidates that state, which 00:09:07.690 --> 00:09:10.549 intrinsically carries time information in it. 00:09:10.690 --> 00:09:12.789 So there are lots and lots of different types 00:09:12.789 --> 00:09:16.590 of potential time -contributing mechanisms, and 00:09:16.590 --> 00:09:19.529 I think a really big challenge for the field 00:09:19.529 --> 00:09:22.100 is going to be to... try to understand, like, 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:25.179 do all of these happen? Are some of them incompatible 00:09:25.179 --> 00:09:27.220 with each other? Do some serve certain purposes 00:09:27.220 --> 00:09:30.659 or others? And I don't think that we'll, you 00:09:30.659 --> 00:09:31.960 know, John, you and I, we're not going to be 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:34.360 able to do this only with the human methodology. 00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:37.399 So I think this is going to take a concerted 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:40.820 effort of colleagues working across scales, you 00:09:40.820 --> 00:09:43.539 know, all the way to some of the cellular mechanisms, 00:09:43.539 --> 00:09:45.820 but also, you know, very importantly, like the 00:09:45.820 --> 00:09:48.820 animal models, circuit models, to try to put 00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:52.250 it all together. Very good. So I'm going to pull 00:09:52.250 --> 00:09:55.610 back up a little bit. I recently saw you giving 00:09:55.610 --> 00:09:59.330 the Fred Cavley Distinguished Contributors Award 00:09:59.330 --> 00:10:01.789 lecture at the Cognitive Neuroscience meeting 00:10:01.789 --> 00:10:05.029 in Toronto. I was out there in the adoring crowd. 00:10:05.409 --> 00:10:10.649 And I was really struck by what you did there. 00:10:10.710 --> 00:10:14.169 You pulled back and did one of those 30 ,000 00:10:14.169 --> 00:10:17.190 -foot sort of career -wide things. And a number 00:10:17.190 --> 00:10:20.580 of things you said there. struck me what one 00:10:20.580 --> 00:10:24.000 was you talked about us as a young immature field 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:27.820 yeah and and another thing you said was you know 00:10:27.820 --> 00:10:30.360 we've gone down many cul -de -sacs you've you've 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:33.019 you know having a sort of front row view from 00:10:33.019 --> 00:10:35.940 really the very early days of cognitive neuroscience 00:10:35.940 --> 00:10:38.980 so so two things two questions for you there 00:10:38.980 --> 00:10:44.100 are we still young are we maturing um is there 00:10:44.100 --> 00:10:46.179 a lesson to be learned about ways that going 00:10:46.179 --> 00:10:48.970 forward we don't track ourselves down these cul 00:10:48.970 --> 00:10:51.009 -de -sacs do you have an insight on that you 00:10:51.009 --> 00:10:52.789 know now that you're in this really enormous 00:10:52.789 --> 00:10:55.450 leadership role. Thank you for that question. 00:10:56.070 --> 00:10:58.669 First of all, I really agonized about whether 00:10:58.669 --> 00:11:00.870 I should give that kind of talk or whether I 00:11:00.870 --> 00:11:03.029 should just talk about the trajectory of my own 00:11:03.029 --> 00:11:06.330 science. I feel like some of those messages are 00:11:06.330 --> 00:11:08.769 important enough to me that I thought maybe it 00:11:08.769 --> 00:11:11.149 was important to say them out loud and not just 00:11:11.149 --> 00:11:14.330 to my people in my own research group. I know 00:11:14.330 --> 00:11:16.750 the audience appreciates that. Maybe that actually 00:11:16.750 --> 00:11:19.950 goes to the immaturity pieces. We need the... 00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:22.419 the foundational people in the field to step 00:11:22.419 --> 00:11:25.440 up that and and really take that longer view 00:11:25.440 --> 00:11:27.460 and say like what are we doing here and are we 00:11:27.460 --> 00:11:29.480 are we really approaching these questions in 00:11:29.480 --> 00:11:31.639 the right way i mean i think you know i think 00:11:31.639 --> 00:11:35.379 we are in an amazingly exciting time i mean in 00:11:35.379 --> 00:11:39.080 our you know, careers. We've seen all of the 00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:42.679 human neuroimaging methodology emerge and it 00:11:42.679 --> 00:11:46.220 keeps, you know, it keeps transforming and advancing 00:11:46.220 --> 00:11:49.519 at, you know, a relentless pace. And we've learned 00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:52.539 a lot really very, very fast. And I think the 00:11:52.539 --> 00:11:56.639 thing which, you know, you know, naturally we're 00:11:56.639 --> 00:11:58.539 swept away by how much we've learned and how 00:11:58.539 --> 00:12:00.980 smart we are and how much smarter we are than 00:12:00.980 --> 00:12:03.720 we were 10 years ago and stuff. But I would say 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:06.750 that, yeah, we are. crawling as a science you 00:12:06.750 --> 00:12:09.230 know first of all a point that I made only I 00:12:09.230 --> 00:12:11.330 just mentioned this and I didn't talk about it 00:12:11.330 --> 00:12:15.009 in my talk is that our science had a really tough 00:12:15.009 --> 00:12:18.370 genesis. People did not believe that you should 00:12:18.370 --> 00:12:21.669 or could understand the subjective mind. You 00:12:21.669 --> 00:12:24.070 can understand the brain, the organ, but actually 00:12:24.070 --> 00:12:26.809 understanding cognition was not something that 00:12:26.809 --> 00:12:29.509 people thought should happen necessarily in the 00:12:29.509 --> 00:12:33.830 1800s and 1700s. So if you read some of the original 00:12:33.830 --> 00:12:37.049 papers of some of those pioneers, like Wundt, 00:12:37.049 --> 00:12:38.970 for example, or Helmholtz, those people were 00:12:38.970 --> 00:12:42.179 fighting. deep prejudice to sort of you know 00:12:42.179 --> 00:12:44.899 create you know psychophysics and psychophysiology 00:12:44.899 --> 00:12:46.899 and all these different approaches that we have 00:12:46.899 --> 00:12:49.980 today so we started late we started much later 00:12:49.980 --> 00:12:53.100 than most other sciences and yeah the mind is 00:12:53.100 --> 00:12:56.600 hard you know it's subjective it's crazy stuff 00:12:56.600 --> 00:12:59.139 to try to get a hold of we have to triangulate 00:12:59.139 --> 00:13:00.659 it you have to get it through behavior through 00:13:00.659 --> 00:13:03.309 brain you know you can't you can't measure it 00:13:03.309 --> 00:13:05.789 necessarily directly so you have to kind of approach 00:13:05.789 --> 00:13:10.029 it so it's it's it's a hard science and I think 00:13:10.029 --> 00:13:11.870 if you look at the state of our field we still 00:13:11.870 --> 00:13:15.019 kind of you know really the the grounding start 00:13:15.019 --> 00:13:18.100 point for most people are is just intuition how 00:13:18.100 --> 00:13:20.559 do we think oh we make a decision we have this 00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:23.279 choice or that choice we you know it's very much 00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:26.539 folk psychology intuition still grounding us 00:13:26.539 --> 00:13:29.740 we don't have like a formal language of the field 00:13:29.740 --> 00:13:32.480 and and you know I think we're doing really well 00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:34.840 I don't think we're immature I think we're young 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:37.200 yeah so would you mean things like you know right 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:41.080 we have these this sort of taxonomy of terms 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:42.379 that, you know, consciousness. We don't even 00:13:42.379 --> 00:13:44.879 have a good taxonomy yet, you know. Yeah, attention. 00:13:45.320 --> 00:13:48.200 Yeah. And I know you think we may need to really 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:51.100 re, even re -examine those concepts. I think 00:13:51.100 --> 00:13:52.960 we're going to, I think. Constructs. I think 00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:55.159 many of those things will probably, you know, 00:13:55.159 --> 00:13:57.440 if we're successful, many of those things are 00:13:57.440 --> 00:13:59.240 going to be radically transformed and we will 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:00.700 have a different understanding. You know, it 00:14:00.700 --> 00:14:03.240 could be, you know, that it's more of an evolutionarily 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:05.120 rooted thing. It could be, you know, that we 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:08.019 focus more on the senses and sensory motor anchors 00:14:08.019 --> 00:14:10.049 or. I don't know what it's going to look like, 00:14:10.049 --> 00:14:12.730 but I think we're still carrying a lot of folk 00:14:12.730 --> 00:14:17.210 psychological baggage with us. Right. So I think, 00:14:17.210 --> 00:14:19.009 you know, I think we are in the stage like kind 00:14:19.009 --> 00:14:22.110 of the... aristotelian slash newtonian phase 00:14:22.110 --> 00:14:24.809 of like you know we kind of use common sense 00:14:24.809 --> 00:14:27.429 observation intuition but yeah we have amazing 00:14:27.429 --> 00:14:29.470 measuring tools and they keep getting better 00:14:29.470 --> 00:14:31.190 and better we can quantify and measure and relate 00:14:31.190 --> 00:14:34.929 but we haven't kind of gotten to that core theoretical 00:14:34.929 --> 00:14:37.669 principles we're not like where some of the quantum 00:14:37.669 --> 00:14:40.250 physics and some of the other more advanced and 00:14:40.250 --> 00:14:42.169 would you say in some ways those are advanced 00:14:42.169 --> 00:14:44.169 science because the questions themselves are 00:14:44.169 --> 00:14:46.070 more tractable is it does it go back to that 00:14:46.070 --> 00:14:48.470 business of complexity i think that's part of 00:14:48.470 --> 00:14:50.710 it you know obviously the universe is also very 00:14:50.710 --> 00:14:53.370 complex and the mind is only you know one part 00:14:53.370 --> 00:14:56.190 of it but I think complexity matters and also 00:14:56.190 --> 00:14:59.649 the fact that yeah the mind is still I would 00:14:59.649 --> 00:15:02.110 say the biggest you know mystery in the universe 00:15:02.110 --> 00:15:04.730 still so I'm looking forward to things getting 00:15:04.730 --> 00:15:06.929 really crazy you know so and I think you said 00:15:06.929 --> 00:15:08.750 that you know how do we avoid cul -de -sacs I 00:15:08.750 --> 00:15:10.649 think the other thing is you know one thing are 00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:13.220 psychology has been really good at is kind of 00:15:13.220 --> 00:15:15.679 revealing to us what social animals we are. So, 00:15:15.700 --> 00:15:18.320 you know, everything we do is social, political, 00:15:18.460 --> 00:15:22.340 you know, and we work as kind of tribes, you 00:15:22.340 --> 00:15:23.980 know, our labs and things. So I say, oh, look, 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:25.559 John Fox is doing this. Oh, I don't think he 00:15:25.559 --> 00:15:27.460 used the right interval. I'm going to do it right. 00:15:27.539 --> 00:15:29.980 So we end up kind of, you know, creating little 00:15:29.980 --> 00:15:33.519 cottage industries of working on, we're working 00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:35.679 on these, you know, there's a big territory. 00:15:35.679 --> 00:15:37.919 It can get a little esoteric sometimes. Yeah, 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:40.669 it gets esoteric. We build like very, crowded 00:15:40.669 --> 00:15:42.830 neighborhoods of research and then other vast 00:15:42.830 --> 00:15:45.710 interesting landscapes are left open. So the 00:15:45.710 --> 00:15:48.889 thing I try to do is just always like know your 00:15:48.889 --> 00:15:50.769 stuff, you know, like bring some scholarship 00:15:50.769 --> 00:15:55.330 along, but just look at it with really open eyes, 00:15:55.409 --> 00:15:57.950 you know, curiosity, look at it for what's out 00:15:57.950 --> 00:16:00.049 there, you know, is this question everything. 00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:02.950 So I think, you know, I don't, it doesn't always 00:16:02.950 --> 00:16:05.769 work, but it kind of helps you getting, you know, 00:16:05.769 --> 00:16:09.220 stuck in, in like, you know. fashion corners 00:16:09.220 --> 00:16:11.899 of the field i think absolutely so and then projecting 00:16:11.899 --> 00:16:14.500 out like if you were giving some advice to the 00:16:14.500 --> 00:16:16.500 younger obviously you do this all the time with 00:16:16.500 --> 00:16:18.620 your graduate students and trainees and that 00:16:18.620 --> 00:16:20.700 you know what do you say to them about that like 00:16:20.700 --> 00:16:24.399 getting on stock or or framing out the questions 00:16:24.399 --> 00:16:26.720 in a way that that will make them meaningful 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:31.220 and important yeah i i sometimes uh feel for 00:16:31.220 --> 00:16:33.360 people in my lab because uh you know i i really 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:38.059 push them hard to um to To make their own decisions 00:16:38.059 --> 00:16:40.440 and really to think, like, is this really interesting 00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:42.980 to you? Do you care about this? Do you, you know, 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:44.519 what do you think is going to, you know, how 00:16:44.519 --> 00:16:46.159 is this going to change the way you think about 00:16:46.159 --> 00:16:48.419 things? Is this going to change our understanding 00:16:48.419 --> 00:16:50.919 of things? I really try to operate at that very 00:16:50.919 --> 00:16:54.759 basic low level where I think things are really 00:16:54.759 --> 00:16:58.440 important. So I really try, and I think, you 00:16:58.440 --> 00:17:01.460 know, there are many ways to be a successful 00:17:01.460 --> 00:17:06.099 mentor, but sort of my approach is really to, 00:17:06.809 --> 00:17:10.690 try to help each individual find meaning and 00:17:10.690 --> 00:17:15.730 joy and their own you know pathway of the balance 00:17:15.730 --> 00:17:18.829 of productivity for themselves so i i try not 00:17:18.829 --> 00:17:20.650 you know i'm not one of those things like everyone 00:17:20.650 --> 00:17:22.690 has to do this every month and here we do you 00:17:22.690 --> 00:17:24.730 know it's all very more organic it's kind of 00:17:24.730 --> 00:17:29.289 intense and organic yeah uh working on personhood 00:17:29.289 --> 00:17:31.509 as well as just Like, you know, this is a great 00:17:31.509 --> 00:17:33.430 project. And not just the person as a scientist, 00:17:33.470 --> 00:17:35.650 but the whole person, you know, like, I mean, 00:17:35.670 --> 00:17:37.329 I think you're only going to do great science 00:17:37.329 --> 00:17:39.890 if you're really happy and if it fits in your 00:17:39.890 --> 00:17:42.890 life. So, yeah, that's very good. And of course, 00:17:42.890 --> 00:17:46.990 you had some extraordinary mentors. I had the 00:17:46.990 --> 00:17:48.769 great privilege of knowing two of your foundational 00:17:48.769 --> 00:17:51.690 mentors, Greg McCarthy and Truett Allison. Can 00:17:51.690 --> 00:17:53.250 we talk a bit about that, like the mentorship 00:17:53.250 --> 00:17:55.970 in your life and maybe some people that lifted 00:17:55.970 --> 00:17:58.470 you up and framed the way you approach things? 00:17:59.039 --> 00:18:02.579 Absolutely. I mean, I think I've been so lucky. 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:09.220 I've had pretty much only support and championing 00:18:09.220 --> 00:18:11.720 and enthusiasm from people I've worked with. 00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:15.539 Of course, everybody's weird and quirky from 00:18:15.539 --> 00:18:18.140 close up, and you have to embrace the quirks 00:18:18.140 --> 00:18:20.500 of your mentor. Especially in our business. Yeah, 00:18:20.500 --> 00:18:25.059 absolutely. I just always try to take the best 00:18:25.059 --> 00:18:28.599 out of people. So Truett Allison, who, as you 00:18:28.599 --> 00:18:30.880 know, has now passed, I mean, he was one of the... 00:18:31.849 --> 00:18:34.349 very modest giants in the field. You know, I 00:18:34.349 --> 00:18:36.710 remember him singing, you know, country music 00:18:36.710 --> 00:18:39.970 and I can't actually sing some of the songs because 00:18:39.970 --> 00:18:42.509 they're not repeatable in public. He was a super 00:18:42.509 --> 00:18:45.809 funny guy and he was part of the beatnik generation, 00:18:46.190 --> 00:18:48.329 you know, traveling around in his convertible 00:18:48.329 --> 00:18:53.289 in the 50s. But yeah, you know, his mentor and 00:18:53.289 --> 00:18:55.609 he were the people who turned squiggly lines 00:18:55.609 --> 00:18:59.390 into ERPs, event -related potentials. And then, 00:18:59.490 --> 00:19:03.109 you know, Greg. super methodical, brilliant. 00:19:03.210 --> 00:19:06.670 He really cared about the big conceptual questions 00:19:06.670 --> 00:19:10.170 and trying to get the best out of the methods 00:19:10.170 --> 00:19:12.390 and really always pushing the methods. He was 00:19:12.390 --> 00:19:16.289 at Yale at the time when there was the rumblings 00:19:16.289 --> 00:19:19.990 of the big MR revolution. He was the one who 00:19:19.990 --> 00:19:23.839 really... initiated the first cognitive study 00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:26.900 with using non -invasive MRI. And he had made 00:19:26.900 --> 00:19:29.700 all the connections with all the biophysics and 00:19:29.700 --> 00:19:32.500 the biochemistry and the physics guys and brought 00:19:32.500 --> 00:19:35.519 the monkey people together. And he had that kind 00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:38.259 of entrepreneurship and methodological initiative, 00:19:38.500 --> 00:19:41.299 which he still has. So actually, one of the best 00:19:41.299 --> 00:19:42.779 things, so it's a bit of a tangent, but going 00:19:42.779 --> 00:19:46.500 back to Yale after 30 years at Oxford is reuniting 00:19:46.500 --> 00:19:48.380 with Greg, because Greg also had left and now 00:19:48.380 --> 00:19:50.900 he's back there. The other thing that Truett, 00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:54.920 was amazing about is is i mean he didn't do this 00:19:54.920 --> 00:19:58.380 um explicitly it was just him he just created 00:19:58.380 --> 00:20:01.759 such an amazing culture so we all had lunch together 00:20:01.759 --> 00:20:05.099 all the time and he had funny championships that 00:20:05.099 --> 00:20:07.200 he would put up and competitions you know all 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:09.599 about you know non -scientific things sometimes 00:20:09.599 --> 00:20:13.740 um and then he had he had the the secret santa 00:20:13.740 --> 00:20:16.259 party which he had we all gave each other silly 00:20:16.259 --> 00:20:20.029 anonymous gifts and teased each other He created 00:20:20.029 --> 00:20:22.390 diplomas for people who left the lab, which were 00:20:22.390 --> 00:20:24.650 kind of based on people's features and traits, 00:20:24.730 --> 00:20:27.190 which I still do. I still carry those traditions 00:20:27.190 --> 00:20:29.869 till now. And so like, yeah, so actually when 00:20:29.869 --> 00:20:32.910 I left Oxford, now my whole lab gave me my Oxford 00:20:32.910 --> 00:20:35.190 diploma. And they're all just poking fun at each 00:20:35.190 --> 00:20:37.890 other and not taking ourselves too seriously. 00:20:37.910 --> 00:20:40.250 All about that sort of generating a culture in 00:20:40.250 --> 00:20:42.390 the lab that makes people, I know there's a lot 00:20:42.390 --> 00:20:45.769 of buzzwords these days, like safe and secure. 00:20:47.549 --> 00:20:50.269 But a culture that doesn't make people feel like 00:20:50.269 --> 00:20:53.849 they have to produce something positive, positive 00:20:53.849 --> 00:20:56.230 results we talk about in that. But that you're 00:20:56.230 --> 00:20:59.490 there to be part of an adventure to get to the 00:20:59.490 --> 00:21:01.950 truth, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's 00:21:01.950 --> 00:21:04.670 one thing that was the most scary thing for me 00:21:04.670 --> 00:21:08.670 moving over after, you know, 30 years at Oxford 00:21:08.670 --> 00:21:12.960 is whether I would be able to reestablish. the 00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:15.759 kind of lab that i i still have you know some 00:21:15.759 --> 00:21:19.480 people are still in oxford now the lab that i 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:22.940 have is like amazing and it's every you know 00:21:22.940 --> 00:21:25.200 first of all it's flat it's everybody counts 00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:28.890 everybody is you know as valuable as anybody 00:21:28.890 --> 00:21:31.069 else in the lab obviously everyone will have 00:21:31.069 --> 00:21:34.009 different contributions different levels of knowledge 00:21:34.009 --> 00:21:37.630 different skills so we kind of respect each other's 00:21:37.630 --> 00:21:40.950 qualities and also our defects we all have defects 00:21:40.950 --> 00:21:43.890 as well but it is a lab where i try to create 00:21:43.890 --> 00:21:46.890 a space where we can be honest scientists we 00:21:46.890 --> 00:21:49.849 can kind of you know tell each other like when 00:21:49.849 --> 00:21:52.690 something is amazing when something is not quite 00:21:52.690 --> 00:21:55.890 there yet and just be open and when you know 00:21:55.890 --> 00:21:59.869 we're I always celebrate like... unexpected results 00:21:59.869 --> 00:22:02.170 and mistakes because that's where we learn from. 00:22:02.309 --> 00:22:06.009 And we have a very safe lab, but safe in a very 00:22:06.009 --> 00:22:07.970 different way, I think, than how people tend 00:22:07.970 --> 00:22:09.990 to use it now. It's not like we're not challenged. 00:22:10.170 --> 00:22:12.529 We challenge ourselves all the time, but we challenge 00:22:12.529 --> 00:22:16.329 ourselves in a supportive, honest environment 00:22:16.329 --> 00:22:18.750 where we're all just trying to be the best we 00:22:18.750 --> 00:22:21.470 can. You're an electrophysiologist first, right? 00:22:21.509 --> 00:22:24.450 And so you're squiggly lines and high temporal 00:22:24.450 --> 00:22:27.750 precision. And then along came fMRI and you and 00:22:27.750 --> 00:22:29.609 I both had the great good fortune of being right 00:22:29.609 --> 00:22:33.170 there when this all happened so um i often wonder 00:22:33.170 --> 00:22:35.609 actually about our youngsters you know are they 00:22:35.609 --> 00:22:37.410 going to have the same opportunity you know there 00:22:37.410 --> 00:22:40.230 is a big happenstance component to it yeah but 00:22:40.230 --> 00:22:44.490 um when you see all this uh work now using functional 00:22:44.490 --> 00:22:46.029 imaging where they're talking about temporal 00:22:46.029 --> 00:22:49.250 correlations between areas and we're really still 00:22:49.250 --> 00:22:51.750 looking at the brain plumbing do you think about 00:22:51.750 --> 00:22:55.029 this you know uh you know the the tension between 00:22:55.819 --> 00:22:57.819 what you know about timing, given that time is 00:22:57.819 --> 00:22:59.980 so important to you, from electrophysiology and 00:22:59.980 --> 00:23:01.579 the way this is talked about with the functional 00:23:01.579 --> 00:23:04.680 imaging folks. Absolutely, and I think I touched 00:23:04.680 --> 00:23:07.240 on that in that Kavli lecture, and that was one 00:23:07.240 --> 00:23:10.039 of the things I was hesitant to mention. I tried 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:16.480 to couch it in a friendly way. But, yeah, I think, 00:23:16.500 --> 00:23:19.420 you know, ultimately the brain is working at 00:23:19.420 --> 00:23:22.640 a very... maybe not super fast way because it's 00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:24.799 still biology, not compared to electricity and 00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:27.119 stuff, but things are happening in the tens and 00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:31.000 hundreds of milliseconds scales. The MR -based 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:34.299 and PET -based imaging are much, much slower. 00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:37.880 They're kind of looking at the multiple downstream 00:23:37.880 --> 00:23:40.539 consequences of that neural activity and not 00:23:40.539 --> 00:23:43.019 even in a necessarily one -to -one way, right? 00:23:43.079 --> 00:23:45.180 So we don't even know exactly what's all contributing 00:23:45.180 --> 00:23:50.269 to the hemodynamic response. The thing that baffles 00:23:50.269 --> 00:23:53.910 me is that people actually use imaging to say, 00:23:53.930 --> 00:23:56.190 like, what is this area doing? You can't ask 00:23:56.190 --> 00:23:58.089 that question. That's right. Because, you know, 00:23:58.109 --> 00:24:01.829 what you're going to see in an MR image is all 00:24:01.829 --> 00:24:04.809 the activity that's going through that area as 00:24:04.809 --> 00:24:07.150 part of the network that this area is in. And 00:24:07.150 --> 00:24:08.710 you don't know what the contribution of that 00:24:08.710 --> 00:24:10.869 area is or what's the feedback to that area, 00:24:10.990 --> 00:24:12.730 what's the reentrant stuff, what's the lateral 00:24:12.730 --> 00:24:16.890 connection. Right. So that really... you know, 00:24:16.890 --> 00:24:20.549 worries me. And I've actually, and that's, I 00:24:20.549 --> 00:24:23.470 would say, now I think people are using MR also 00:24:23.470 --> 00:24:26.849 for many other different types of questions, 00:24:26.950 --> 00:24:29.079 which some of which I think are. great and fine. 00:24:29.500 --> 00:24:32.660 But I think the bulk of the MR work is still 00:24:32.660 --> 00:24:34.779 about, you know, what's this area doing? And 00:24:34.779 --> 00:24:37.819 not only do we now do, you know, just look at 00:24:37.819 --> 00:24:41.460 an activation, we also like throw in really complex, 00:24:41.579 --> 00:24:43.640 you know, computational equations to understand 00:24:43.640 --> 00:24:46.779 exactly what factor of this process is. And I 00:24:46.779 --> 00:24:49.220 think that's even more crazy because, you know, 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:51.579 I think, so I actually worry that, you know, 00:24:51.619 --> 00:24:54.660 we are creating a... sort of a hallucinogenic 00:24:54.660 --> 00:24:57.640 kind of view of what the brain is doing based 00:24:57.640 --> 00:24:59.380 on MR. Precisely the same way, because in the 00:24:59.380 --> 00:25:01.539 end of the day, when you go back to first principles, 00:25:01.759 --> 00:25:06.700 we're looking at fluid dynamics in a tissue system, 00:25:07.059 --> 00:25:09.900 you know, compartmentalized tissue system. But 00:25:09.900 --> 00:25:11.940 they, by definition, are slower than the actual 00:25:11.940 --> 00:25:14.680 events of interest to us. And there is no amount 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:17.259 of speeding up of the capture of the data that's 00:25:17.259 --> 00:25:19.019 going to change that fact. The signal is the 00:25:19.019 --> 00:25:21.720 signal. Yeah. Yeah, so that does worry me. I 00:25:21.720 --> 00:25:23.680 mean, I still... think there are lots of amazing 00:25:23.680 --> 00:25:26.200 things that MR can do so I think you know if 00:25:26.200 --> 00:25:29.680 you're just trying to understand in general are 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:32.039 areas correlated with each other that's good 00:25:32.039 --> 00:25:33.980 because it doesn't really matter the fine grain 00:25:33.980 --> 00:25:37.119 so you can kind of get the broad networks maybe 00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:40.819 I think if you want to say you know if you want 00:25:40.819 --> 00:25:43.559 to like say I can measure I can see that the 00:25:43.559 --> 00:25:46.079 brain is coding this kind of information or some 00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:48.980 area has that kind of information by using decoding 00:25:48.980 --> 00:25:52.519 methods or compare this kind of representation 00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:55.160 versus that representation or the transformations 00:25:55.160 --> 00:25:57.640 of representation. I think that's okay as long 00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:00.279 as you're not trying to pin it down to a specific. 00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:02.099 So I think there are lots of good questions that 00:26:02.099 --> 00:26:05.920 people can ask. But I think, as usual, you know, 00:26:05.920 --> 00:26:10.480 having that respect for the limitations of the 00:26:10.480 --> 00:26:12.859 methods often falls short. It also falls short 00:26:12.859 --> 00:26:15.700 in our area. I mean, to be honest, I think, you 00:26:15.700 --> 00:26:18.119 know, when I, I remember when I went to Oxford 00:26:18.119 --> 00:26:20.400 initially, I was trying to set up the sort of 00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:23.980 first, EEG and ERP lab there. And what everybody 00:26:23.980 --> 00:26:25.799 wanted to do is like, oh, I want to know what 00:26:25.799 --> 00:26:28.200 this area is doing at what point in time. I said, 00:26:28.200 --> 00:26:30.000 well, you can't really ask that question with 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:31.779 EEG, you know, because we don't have that kind 00:26:31.779 --> 00:26:35.400 of spatial resolution or pinpointing. So again, 00:26:35.559 --> 00:26:37.400 like we can ask lots of interesting questions, 00:26:37.519 --> 00:26:40.359 but there are some that are not as well answered. 00:26:40.460 --> 00:26:43.039 Beyond the resolution of the technique. And those, 00:26:43.140 --> 00:26:46.940 for some reason, because I guess ultimately humans 00:26:46.940 --> 00:26:49.500 are phrenologists at heart, maybe phrenology 00:26:49.500 --> 00:26:51.599 in space and time. Those are the things that 00:26:51.599 --> 00:26:54.900 they want to ask, and the methods don't really 00:26:54.900 --> 00:26:56.759 allow us to ask those things. Yeah, exactly, 00:26:57.000 --> 00:27:00.880 yeah. So let's go back a bit then. Let's go way 00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:03.440 back. You're not from these shores. You were 00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:07.359 born in Brazil. There's a couple of things I 00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:09.640 want to ask about that. So how does a girl from 00:27:09.640 --> 00:27:14.259 Brazil end up in the U .S.? And how does a girl 00:27:14.259 --> 00:27:17.599 growing up the way you did end up thinking, I 00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:20.650 want to be? a neuroscientist? Yeah, so I think, 00:27:20.650 --> 00:27:24.930 you know, life is full of coincidences and circumstances, 00:27:25.029 --> 00:27:29.329 and I think those make a huge difference to people's 00:27:29.329 --> 00:27:36.630 lives. I was a small kid in Rio, in Rio de Janeiro, 00:27:36.750 --> 00:27:40.430 in Brazil, and my parents were very young, so 00:27:40.430 --> 00:27:42.730 they were sort of in their early 20s when they 00:27:42.730 --> 00:27:45.710 had me, and my mom convinced my dad that he should 00:27:45.710 --> 00:27:48.799 go and do a course. Let's go and travel abroad. 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:51.579 And, you know, why don't you go and do a course 00:27:51.579 --> 00:27:55.619 in the States? So, you know, so that was kind 00:27:55.619 --> 00:27:57.660 of unheard of at that time in Rio and stuff. 00:27:57.779 --> 00:28:00.079 And, you know, they didn't come from very, you 00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:03.079 know, rich families or anything. So my dad was 00:28:03.079 --> 00:28:05.500 a very good student and he got a fellowship and 00:28:05.500 --> 00:28:07.940 we ended up, he spent a little bit of time at 00:28:07.940 --> 00:28:10.799 Princeton, NYU doing some, he was doing law. 00:28:11.559 --> 00:28:14.099 And that's when I was like in my real formative 00:28:14.099 --> 00:28:17.779 years, I was four, four to six. So, you know, 00:28:17.779 --> 00:28:19.539 that's kind of where all my... So you were put 00:28:19.539 --> 00:28:22.500 into school then? Yeah, I went into an international 00:28:22.500 --> 00:28:24.740 school, like the United Nations School, which 00:28:24.740 --> 00:28:27.039 was amazing because I met, you know, friends 00:28:27.039 --> 00:28:29.519 from all over the world. I had like my best friends 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:33.480 were from Kenya and Peru and Canada. So we all 00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:35.400 had our little flags, you know, in our different 00:28:35.400 --> 00:28:37.720 countries. That was... blast that was amazing 00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:40.160 it was also during you know the hippie year so 00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:42.720 you go outside everyone's like dropping LSD and 00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:44.920 you know there was the Black Panther movement 00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:47.259 it was a really interesting crazy time in New 00:28:47.259 --> 00:28:50.359 York City so those were very vivid memories when 00:28:50.359 --> 00:28:52.559 I when I went back when we went back to Brazil 00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:57.160 my parents realized that I had this great gift 00:28:57.160 --> 00:29:01.890 that I spoke English you know and they thought 00:29:01.890 --> 00:29:03.470 that this would be a good thing for me. So they 00:29:03.470 --> 00:29:07.049 kind of convinced the then American school there 00:29:07.049 --> 00:29:11.769 to let me in on a scholarship to continue studying 00:29:11.769 --> 00:29:14.490 and being able to speak English. And then that 00:29:14.490 --> 00:29:19.210 school was a great school, again, with people 00:29:19.210 --> 00:29:21.509 from all over the world landed in Rio. You can 00:29:21.509 --> 00:29:24.970 imagine people from all kinds of corners, from 00:29:24.970 --> 00:29:27.490 the Netherlands and Cape Town and everywhere. 00:29:29.380 --> 00:29:31.759 And so I grew up in this very international community, 00:29:31.940 --> 00:29:34.559 but the school was very good at sort of preparing 00:29:34.559 --> 00:29:37.900 us, and their aim was to get us to the... American, 00:29:37.900 --> 00:29:40.779 you know, Ivy Leagues kind of thing. And at that 00:29:40.779 --> 00:29:43.599 point, I had a really big young life crisis, 00:29:43.720 --> 00:29:45.640 you know, because I wanted to go to the States. 00:29:45.720 --> 00:29:48.519 My dad was like, you can't do this. If you leave 00:29:48.519 --> 00:29:50.099 Brazil now, you're never going to come back. 00:29:50.259 --> 00:29:53.240 And we'd have these, like, you know, many hours 00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:56.059 long, everyday discussions about this and stuff. 00:29:56.640 --> 00:29:59.099 And in the end, I had decided that I wasn't going 00:29:59.099 --> 00:30:01.619 to come to the States. And like, I, you know, 00:30:01.619 --> 00:30:04.460 didn't actually, I threw out a lot of my... college 00:30:04.460 --> 00:30:06.440 applications but i had applied to some places 00:30:06.440 --> 00:30:09.519 still so i got into those places and then i ended 00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:12.880 up in the most bizarre place for me which was 00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:15.099 a wonderful place but i ended up in williams 00:30:15.099 --> 00:30:17.500 college which is probably the other side of the 00:30:17.500 --> 00:30:21.039 universe from rio de janeiro which is very you 00:30:21.039 --> 00:30:24.259 know at the time very homogeneous very conservative 00:30:24.259 --> 00:30:27.880 very small right so coming from you know the 00:30:28.490 --> 00:30:31.230 the whole world on the Rio Beach to Williamstown, 00:30:31.250 --> 00:30:34.950 and the snow was a bit like a mind bend. But 00:30:34.950 --> 00:30:37.390 good education and a good experience. Yeah, the 00:30:37.390 --> 00:30:39.529 education was amazing. Actually, I think because 00:30:39.529 --> 00:30:43.289 I was a bit of a misfit there, you know, it was 00:30:43.289 --> 00:30:46.569 good in that sense. I did a lot of soul searching, 00:30:46.630 --> 00:30:50.680 and I studied. Like hell, you know, like I just, 00:30:50.859 --> 00:30:52.859 like I know I'm supposed to take like four courses. 00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:54.759 I was always taking six courses at a time just 00:30:54.759 --> 00:30:57.559 to keep myself from trying to, you know, cope 00:30:57.559 --> 00:31:00.480 with a bigger growing up issues or something. 00:31:00.500 --> 00:31:02.220 Right, right, right. And then what happened? 00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:05.220 After Williams, did you go straight into PhD 00:31:05.220 --> 00:31:08.099 studies? No, I took a year back in Brazil after 00:31:08.099 --> 00:31:11.460 that. I wanted to go back. There were just stuff 00:31:11.460 --> 00:31:13.299 going on with family and things. I also wanted 00:31:13.299 --> 00:31:15.960 to be there for some difficult times in the family. 00:31:16.039 --> 00:31:19.519 So I spent a year there. At that point, I had 00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:22.339 applied to graduate school and I just deferred 00:31:22.339 --> 00:31:25.779 for a year. And then I went to Yale. The jump 00:31:25.779 --> 00:31:32.099 from here to Oxford, 1994, just a couple of years 00:31:32.099 --> 00:31:35.039 back, that was a big jump as well, right? And 00:31:35.039 --> 00:31:38.380 what was your experience with England and Britain 00:31:38.380 --> 00:31:41.799 before that? I mean, I had visited Europe, but 00:31:41.799 --> 00:31:44.019 I mean, I really was, you know, I'm very much 00:31:44.019 --> 00:31:48.680 a New World girl from Rio. And so, you know, 00:31:48.680 --> 00:31:52.339 it wasn't really part of my DNA in any way. I 00:31:52.339 --> 00:31:56.680 ended up in England again for, you know, vagaries 00:31:56.680 --> 00:31:59.680 of happenstance in life. You know, I had a boyfriend 00:31:59.680 --> 00:32:02.420 at the time who was English and from London and 00:32:02.420 --> 00:32:06.519 wanted to go back. And so I thought, like, oh, 00:32:06.519 --> 00:32:09.599 it'd be fun to do a, you know. a fellowship there 00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:12.259 for a while and i'll see how it goes so i i ended 00:32:12.259 --> 00:32:14.500 up in oxford broke up with a boyfriend within 00:32:14.500 --> 00:32:18.940 the month you know and uh and yeah and then life 00:32:18.940 --> 00:32:23.160 is peculiar like that and uh divergences and 00:32:23.160 --> 00:32:26.259 yeah and it was it was you know i think the thing 00:32:26.259 --> 00:32:28.980 that i one of the things that i most love in 00:32:28.980 --> 00:32:32.269 life is just learning new things, obviously in 00:32:32.269 --> 00:32:35.990 science, but also in terms of meaning of life 00:32:35.990 --> 00:32:39.089 and why are we here and perspectives. And so 00:32:39.089 --> 00:32:42.950 England was so different in many ways. And also 00:32:42.950 --> 00:32:45.309 the tone of the science was different. I think 00:32:45.309 --> 00:32:47.490 people were, at that time, more interested in 00:32:47.490 --> 00:32:49.849 some of the theoretical questions rather than 00:32:49.849 --> 00:32:54.130 the data, productivity. And that resonated with 00:32:54.130 --> 00:32:57.150 me. So it was like it's been forever a trajectory 00:32:57.150 --> 00:33:00.150 of learning and change. And I've really enjoyed 00:33:00.150 --> 00:33:02.869 it there. And I can't really say I lived in England 00:33:02.869 --> 00:33:04.529 because I lived in Oxford. Oxford is another 00:33:04.529 --> 00:33:09.009 small crucible of the universe. And I love that 00:33:09.009 --> 00:33:11.970 place. So going back home to Yale, a kind of 00:33:11.970 --> 00:33:15.049 a home, it's been a good experience. And navigating 00:33:15.049 --> 00:33:19.150 the re -entry into the U .S. system. Yeah, I 00:33:19.150 --> 00:33:22.529 was very much like Oxford establishment. as you 00:33:22.529 --> 00:33:25.769 were kind of implying, and I have all my great 00:33:25.769 --> 00:33:28.410 friends there, and I kind of gave my blood and 00:33:28.410 --> 00:33:31.569 soul to that institution, and I still love it 00:33:31.569 --> 00:33:36.309 dearly. So I think when we decided to move, my 00:33:36.309 --> 00:33:39.750 husband and I, it was kind of a shock to everyone. 00:33:39.990 --> 00:33:44.009 It was like, what? But it was really interesting 00:33:44.009 --> 00:33:48.240 because I'd been there for 30 years, and... I 00:33:48.240 --> 00:33:51.279 loved it. But I knew what was ahead, you know. 00:33:51.319 --> 00:33:53.839 And as I said, I'm like a voracious learner and 00:33:53.839 --> 00:33:56.099 stuff. And when this opportunity came, I mean, 00:33:56.119 --> 00:33:57.660 other opportunities had come back and forth. 00:33:57.660 --> 00:34:00.000 But it was either something that maybe was interesting 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:01.920 for me, maybe was interesting for my husband. 00:34:01.980 --> 00:34:03.839 But, you know, we always kind of said, no, we're 00:34:03.839 --> 00:34:06.279 happy where we are. But when Yale called, I was 00:34:06.279 --> 00:34:08.800 like, you know, this was a special place for 00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:12.300 me. These are, I'm the scientist I am because 00:34:12.300 --> 00:34:16.039 they really invested me at those graduate. student 00:34:16.039 --> 00:34:18.079 years you know those such important years and 00:34:18.079 --> 00:34:22.039 I had that loyalty to the institution and then 00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:24.739 Luciano my husband who's a digital ethicist you 00:34:24.739 --> 00:34:27.800 know he was like I don't know Yale not really 00:34:27.800 --> 00:34:30.539 in the on the planet in my area but it turns 00:34:30.539 --> 00:34:32.739 out that this was a huge priority area for them 00:34:32.739 --> 00:34:36.059 so he was able to build all the stuff you know 00:34:36.059 --> 00:34:39.039 and lead so it was a really interesting opportunity 00:34:39.039 --> 00:34:41.300 for both of us and we kind of thought about it 00:34:41.300 --> 00:34:43.280 well you know we're a little bit past our prime 00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:45.619 year are we really gonna do this and we're like 00:34:45.619 --> 00:34:49.480 let's do it let's just do something new and adventurous 00:34:49.480 --> 00:34:51.960 and then getting there has been amazing you know 00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:54.579 but it's i try to say to people because everybody 00:34:55.360 --> 00:34:56.860 who knows i've been there it's like oh you've 00:34:56.860 --> 00:34:58.880 been here before and i was like it's not like 00:34:58.880 --> 00:35:02.300 that yeah it's like i was walking around in oxford 00:35:02.300 --> 00:35:04.940 and i opened the portal and i ended up in some 00:35:04.940 --> 00:35:09.050 other you know, parallel future in a slightly 00:35:09.050 --> 00:35:11.190 weird New Haven that wasn't the same as the one 00:35:11.190 --> 00:35:13.610 I left. Right. You had quite some amount of time 00:35:13.610 --> 00:35:15.409 in the past. Yeah, I think it's been 30 years. 00:35:15.409 --> 00:35:17.750 And you were young. Yeah, I was a different person. 00:35:17.769 --> 00:35:19.929 New Haven, you know, has been much gentrified. 00:35:20.349 --> 00:35:22.389 Luckily, it still has some rough edges, but it 00:35:22.389 --> 00:35:24.190 was like, you know, it's a very different place 00:35:24.190 --> 00:35:27.369 than it used to be. So it feels, in a way, familiar, 00:35:27.409 --> 00:35:29.969 in another way, really eerie and different, you 00:35:29.969 --> 00:35:32.949 know. But the colleagues have been amazing. People 00:35:32.949 --> 00:35:37.369 have been, like, so... welcoming and generous 00:35:37.369 --> 00:35:40.230 and collaborative. It's been really fun. I mean, 00:35:40.250 --> 00:35:42.250 maybe again, this might be a little unfair. Do 00:35:42.250 --> 00:35:45.889 you see a difference now, 30 years later, between 00:35:45.889 --> 00:35:49.349 the system in Europe or in Britain particularly 00:35:49.349 --> 00:35:52.690 and what you've come back to or emerged back 00:35:52.690 --> 00:35:56.789 in, re -entered here in the US? Are the systems 00:35:56.789 --> 00:35:58.570 set up different? Are the motivations different? 00:35:58.929 --> 00:36:02.639 Are there good and bad components to that? Yeah, 00:36:02.719 --> 00:36:05.320 I think they're, you know, they're in a way academia 00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:07.860 is the same everywhere. You know, we're a bit 00:36:07.860 --> 00:36:11.860 conservative, a bit entrenched. You know, we 00:36:11.860 --> 00:36:15.000 we kind of have creative and whatever souls, 00:36:15.099 --> 00:36:17.360 but we kind of get stuck in the academic machinery. 00:36:17.480 --> 00:36:19.659 And that's kind of the same everywhere. Yeah. 00:36:19.719 --> 00:36:21.420 But of course, there are like a lot of really 00:36:21.420 --> 00:36:25.889 interesting differences as well. Yeah, I think 00:36:25.889 --> 00:36:29.869 one of the things that's very similar between 00:36:29.869 --> 00:36:33.309 Oxford and Yale, which I like, is that there 00:36:33.309 --> 00:36:37.769 is kind of a collaborative spirit. So people 00:36:37.769 --> 00:36:39.769 across, they're very loyal to the institution, 00:36:39.909 --> 00:36:41.730 and there's this idea of doing things together 00:36:41.730 --> 00:36:44.530 and doing it as a team. It's a little bit... 00:36:44.989 --> 00:36:47.429 I think Yale has that reputation among the Ivies, 00:36:47.429 --> 00:36:49.449 or at least Yale thinks it has that reputation, 00:36:49.610 --> 00:36:52.110 I don't know, from the outside, compared to some 00:36:52.110 --> 00:36:55.789 other institutions of really doing things for 00:36:55.789 --> 00:36:57.949 each other together as a team and collaboratively. 00:36:58.010 --> 00:37:01.940 And I think Oxford... also has that. People don't 00:37:01.940 --> 00:37:05.119 see it because everything is so distributed in 00:37:05.119 --> 00:37:06.920 all the colleges, the institutes, the centers, 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:09.099 the things. But ultimately, if you ask anyone, 00:37:09.199 --> 00:37:10.699 hey, do you want to work on this project? They're 00:37:10.699 --> 00:37:13.300 like, yes. If you manage to get the connections 00:37:13.300 --> 00:37:16.059 going, things really synergize. And I think that's 00:37:16.059 --> 00:37:19.360 true in both places. But then I think the institutions 00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:21.820 are conservative in really different ways. The 00:37:21.820 --> 00:37:26.440 thing that has struck me in the U .S. is the 00:37:27.789 --> 00:37:31.809 Yeah, the agony that people put into the recruitment, 00:37:32.090 --> 00:37:37.050 promotion of faculty. It's just so cutthroat, 00:37:37.090 --> 00:37:41.090 so involved to an extent that it's probably beyond 00:37:41.090 --> 00:37:46.289 what's necessary or even optimal. And I think 00:37:46.289 --> 00:37:50.010 it causes a lot of angst and work for everybody. 00:37:50.349 --> 00:37:51.730 It sets up an incentive structure that's a little 00:37:51.730 --> 00:37:53.769 anti -science maybe or a little anti -intellectual. 00:37:53.949 --> 00:37:55.889 Well, yeah, I think that's one of the things 00:37:55.889 --> 00:37:59.079 that... was exciting to me about coming to this 00:37:59.079 --> 00:38:01.219 particular institute at Yale. It's an institute 00:38:01.219 --> 00:38:05.099 that sits, you know, outside of any of the schools 00:38:05.099 --> 00:38:07.239 or any of the departments. So it's kind of a 00:38:07.239 --> 00:38:09.539 free -floating institute right under the provost's 00:38:09.539 --> 00:38:11.940 office. So it has a lot of freedom there. And 00:38:11.940 --> 00:38:14.079 I think one of the things that I would love to 00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:17.760 do is kind of, you know, obviously push gently 00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:20.159 and nudge, see if we can change some of these 00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:25.199 academic incentives and help link our science. 00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:29.519 to the world better. We do a lot of cool science 00:38:29.519 --> 00:38:32.460 in our labs, but if we think about the science 00:38:32.460 --> 00:38:34.760 of human behavior and science of the human mind, 00:38:34.860 --> 00:38:37.760 a lot of it is happening in industry and companies 00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:39.820 and tech companies and car companies collecting 00:38:39.820 --> 00:38:42.460 all these data and stuff. We need to find ways 00:38:42.460 --> 00:38:45.000 to partner and work together across academia 00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:48.559 and non -academic sectors. So that's one of the 00:38:48.559 --> 00:38:51.900 things that I think is... kind of pushing against 00:38:51.900 --> 00:38:54.199 that conservatism is going to be hard, but it's 00:38:54.199 --> 00:38:56.059 something I'm really determined to try to do. 00:38:56.139 --> 00:38:57.340 So that's the next challenge. Yeah, I'll just 00:38:57.340 --> 00:38:58.920 be annoying people that way. Well, I'm going 00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:01.239 to ask you one more question. I really appreciate 00:39:01.239 --> 00:39:03.159 all the time you've taken with us. I mean, you 00:39:03.159 --> 00:39:06.619 brought up Luciano, your husband, and I wouldn't 00:39:06.619 --> 00:39:08.880 normally ask about somebody's significant other, 00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:11.219 but it's very meaningful in this case because 00:39:11.219 --> 00:39:13.239 he's also an academic and he's a philosopher 00:39:13.239 --> 00:39:18.510 working in this... digital ethics um and i mean 00:39:18.510 --> 00:39:20.730 certainly i have a sort of fascination about 00:39:20.730 --> 00:39:22.389 like you know what what's the conversation at 00:39:22.389 --> 00:39:25.170 the dinner table like you know have you found 00:39:25.170 --> 00:39:27.170 that you know being married to a philosopher 00:39:27.170 --> 00:39:29.489 or has he found being married to a neuroscientist 00:39:29.489 --> 00:39:31.610 that this there's been cross infection of the 00:39:31.610 --> 00:39:33.730 way you guys think about things totally yeah 00:39:33.730 --> 00:39:38.179 i think that's been so mutually enriching both 00:39:38.179 --> 00:39:41.719 ways you know I mean first we kind of like we 00:39:41.719 --> 00:39:44.179 were a bit at loggerheads that coming you know 00:39:44.179 --> 00:39:45.920 at things from really different perspectives 00:39:45.920 --> 00:39:53.239 but yeah I think Luciano has I mean first of 00:39:53.239 --> 00:39:55.360 all he has kind of a really deep knowledge of 00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:57.440 like you know history of science but also history 00:39:57.440 --> 00:39:59.400 of thought and philosophy and stuff and that's 00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:02.460 this it's a great great to have like a a gold 00:40:02.460 --> 00:40:05.159 mine like that where you can bounce ideas off. 00:40:05.239 --> 00:40:06.960 I usually have a great idea and he says, oh, 00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:09.559 you know, Epiteto said that. And I'm like, oh, 00:40:09.579 --> 00:40:11.579 okay, of course. There's always someone who's... 00:40:11.579 --> 00:40:15.619 But that's just really fun and useful. But I 00:40:15.619 --> 00:40:19.940 think we have... we've converged and changed 00:40:19.940 --> 00:40:23.360 a lot together. That sounds wonderful. The usual, 00:40:23.460 --> 00:40:25.860 the morning conversation, I'm not a morning person, 00:40:25.960 --> 00:40:28.320 so the morning conversation usually goes that 00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:30.380 Luciano brings me coffee, he brings me coffee 00:40:30.380 --> 00:40:33.179 in bed, and he knows that for about 30 minutes 00:40:33.179 --> 00:40:35.420 he can just, you know, say all these like heavy 00:40:35.420 --> 00:40:38.099 philosophical things because I'm not ready yet 00:40:38.099 --> 00:40:41.400 to fight back. So he would wake up and says, 00:40:41.500 --> 00:40:44.500 Kia, you know, I think... I think I finally figured 00:40:44.500 --> 00:40:48.980 out a way to separate meaning from truth. And 00:40:48.980 --> 00:40:53.420 I'll go, oh, okay. Where's the coffee? Where's 00:40:53.420 --> 00:40:57.639 the coffee? But yeah, so the conversations are, 00:40:57.699 --> 00:41:00.880 they go all over the place and it's been, but 00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:03.460 you know, I know that this is not like the most 00:41:03.460 --> 00:41:07.039 important contribution, but as scientists, we're 00:41:07.039 --> 00:41:09.260 sometimes quite sloppy at how we use concepts 00:41:09.260 --> 00:41:12.909 and words and things. And I think having, someone 00:41:12.909 --> 00:41:15.769 who thinks about high degree of precision yeah 00:41:15.769 --> 00:41:18.510 he used words as like very very sharp tools and 00:41:18.510 --> 00:41:20.869 things really helps the thinking as well so it's 00:41:20.869 --> 00:41:22.750 been yeah and we actually just published our 00:41:22.750 --> 00:41:25.940 first paper together Very good, right? I don't 00:41:25.940 --> 00:41:27.340 know. I think it's just out two weeks ago or 00:41:27.340 --> 00:41:29.900 something. Excellent. On everybody's reading 00:41:29.900 --> 00:41:31.619 this. Now, I said I had one more question, but 00:41:31.619 --> 00:41:34.019 I do have one more burning question, which I 00:41:34.019 --> 00:41:36.920 happen to know is the question that the cognitive 00:41:36.920 --> 00:41:39.099 neuroscience community wants to know the answer 00:41:39.099 --> 00:41:42.059 to. Oh, dear. You are Anna -Christina Nobre. 00:41:42.559 --> 00:41:44.420 Where the hell does Kia come from? Oh, okay. 00:41:44.519 --> 00:41:48.079 Yeah, that's easy. So in Brazil, you know, maybe 00:41:48.079 --> 00:41:50.000 like in Ireland, everybody is Anna something 00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:52.940 or Mary something. Yes, indeed. Including the 00:41:52.940 --> 00:41:57.400 boys. Yeah, exactly. So the Anna didn't really 00:41:57.400 --> 00:42:01.000 count. So it was like Christina. And then Christina 00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:04.760 in... in Portuguese is Cristina. It's quite hard 00:42:04.760 --> 00:42:07.860 to pronounce. And so it's like, it's not a word 00:42:07.860 --> 00:42:09.880 like... So it has a hard K on the front. Well, 00:42:09.880 --> 00:42:11.360 Cristina, you know, it's like, so I think it 00:42:11.360 --> 00:42:14.219 was like the first child who was born after me 00:42:14.219 --> 00:42:16.280 couldn't, like, would just call me Kia, Kia, 00:42:16.340 --> 00:42:18.159 Kia. And so there was just like a family name. 00:42:18.179 --> 00:42:20.300 So that's where it came from. Okay, so now we 00:42:20.300 --> 00:42:22.940 know. Now we know the origin of it. But yeah, 00:42:23.019 --> 00:42:26.420 my name causes endless problems with Anna, Cristina. 00:42:26.780 --> 00:42:29.500 Do you think I should change my name to Kia Nobre? 00:42:30.069 --> 00:42:33.969 No, I think you've got the mystique of the Anna 00:42:33.969 --> 00:42:37.349 Christina and Kia. It's very important. Thank 00:42:37.349 --> 00:42:39.550 you so much for being here. We really appreciate 00:42:39.550 --> 00:42:41.010 it. Thanks for all the hard questions.