Lecture : Better Learning through Neuroscience (Paula Tallal)

NOTES
Sci learning-systems (Merzenich) /Merz-nick/
How we use letters (small sounds inside words)
Is lang learned?
If so, what about signal is learned? [40 ms difference]
Point of development when sound/letter occupies whole attention

(We're 18 yrs too late)

Motherese (parentese) - expanding & inc. amplitude of signal
=> Motherese necessary? Helping baby process signal
Social/emotional feedback of baby

Critically diff parts of syllables brief and rapid

Rat brain maps -- tonotopic rep
"Critical Period"

=> Zhang, Nature Neuroscience (2001)
=> Chang, Science (2003)
=> Bao (Behavioral experiences)

Are we going to find out this is a sham?

Falsifying
Magno-cellular theory of deficit
Extrapolate to visual processing

research in visual processing?

Dyslexia/oral lang impairment connection? No studies.
Receptive lang.(?) - "The Silent Killer"

7.5 enter school lang-imp'd
only 29% diagnosed
culprit always id'd as reading because schools teach reading; not how to talk

The Neural Plasticity Approach
Babies show you what they know by looking
Rapid Auditory Processing (Baby Testing)

Test control vs. LI -> genetic
Develop. lang. delay
Results: much variation
Hx - highly yoked to verbal intelligence

=> Reasons not known (raised by an A/C)

20/80 ms break - the lang divide

Holes in collander (metaphor)
Are holes big enough for peas and carrots?
Phonology, grammar

When does it come to haunt you?
Where taught diff. between bat and cat

Technologies caught up with theories over the years => PET activation

Pinker innate module - not acoustically processed

Tests: ba/da vs. bark/hum (?)
-> not asking the question

Belin(?) came up with non-linguistic signals
similar to bat/cat but not the same

Studies done w/ college students - can't ask ideology questions w/ these studies

GOAL: change slow child to quick child

Need to train LI kids to master all the auditory skills
"Glasses for the ears"
G;asses help you w/ signal, not to read

Simplest phonology --> Grammar

z-scores
results -> Science '96 (Tellal)
Temple 2000 PNAS

FastForward Program -> 350,000 kids in US!
(Effects?)

Good for ESL
Better approach for ESL (hmmm...)
Any behavioral indices that can be correlated to this

How much training?
100 min/day -> 5 days/wk -> 8 wks
50 min/day -> 12 weeks --> comparable results
60-70% success rate

Gets children out of special ed (emotional impact)
A search for the gene: chromosome 13



ANNOUNCEMENT
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
2:00 pm

Paula Tallal, Rutgers University

Better Learning Through Neuroscience: From the Laboratory to the Classroom
Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neurobiology seminar

THE SALK INSTITUTE
Trustees Room

Host: Dr. Terrence Sejnowski

Lecture : A Framework for Thinking About Consciousness (Christof Koch)

NCC - Neural Correlate of Consciousness
Central Dogma : DNA -> RNA -> Protein
Computational Biology - essential to the brain

What can single neurons computer? => 1999 book

Different levels of consciousness
how is a physical system? (Descartes)

ACC - Anterior Cingulate Cortex (removed for chronic pain)

Zombie Agents
- don't access working memory -> highly trained sensory mortor actors bypass consciousness [Gladwell article on tennis player, JFK, Jr.]
- complemented by general purpose system => compact representation functional consciousness => planning stages of brain (prefrontal cortex)
- V1 not conn. to frontal lobe, NCC is not found in V1

Coalition of Neurons
- humans don't think well in terms of large networks
- neuronal assemblies competing for dominance
- NCC minimal neuronal mechanism for any percept
- isomorphism between NCC & subjective states
- from correlation to causation (need animal models)

CLAIM : given technology, we have the tools to identify NCC
molecular techniques to manipulate neurons
a conscious perception -> discrete, all or none
=> Oliver Sacks, NY Review of Books - condition ("I'm a novice, too slow")

BATESON 1916 review of the Mech of Mend Heresity by TH Morgan (1914)
[G] chromatin, gen

Patent categories
Ex. Qualcomm signal packagine
Ex. Gladwell barcode
PCR -> new

ATTENTION & BINDING
- bottom-up, saliency driven
- William James
Synchronization & oscillatory firing - mech to influence competition among neurons

EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
- empirical problem
- practical tests : defy texts
- dev. perturbation/interventionist protocols

Attentional misdirections -> magicians (Ex. Jasper John's flag)

UCLA Experiment : node in head for epilepsy patients -> wires in tubes
Beatles, Bill Clinton, Simpsons neurons
population histogram

=> None of these S1 selective neurons responded to a perceptually suppressed image

How simple an animal can have phenomenol states (consciousness)?

Distract people's attention -> defy cond. but not trace and auby(?)

STRATEGIES
1. identify coalition of specified forebrain neurons to specific NCC
2. search for random mutations that interfere w/ trace but don't delay conditioning => zombie mice


- ANNOUNCEMENT -

Wednesday, March 10, 2004
4:00 pm
Christof Koch, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology
"A Framework for Thinking About Consciousness"
The Francis Crick Nobel Lecture
THE SALK INSTITUTE
Frederic de Hoffmann Auditorium
Host: Dr. Terrence Sejnowski