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For the last century of neuroscience, lots of people have tried to control neurons using all sorts of different technologies - pharmacology (drugs), electrical pulses, and so on. But none of these technologies are precise. With optogenetics, we can aim light at a single cell, or a set of cells, and turn just that set of cells on or off.

Edward Boyden

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Edward Boyden
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: August 18
Faculty Member
Molecular Biologist
Neuroscientist
University Teacher
Plano
Texas
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Turns
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Tried
Precise
Pharmacology
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Light
Single
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Neuroscience
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Life is an adventure - Savor every instant!
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The skill-providers want to have more impact and solve problems the problem people want new tools to get their problems solved.
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One of the things that got me transitioning from physical science to brain science was asking, Why do we understand so much about the universe?
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The world is your playground - play with a sense of destiny.
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It's actually kind of weird that we can comprehend the law of gravity, or that we can understand quantum mechanics, enough at least to make computers.
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Suppose there are some things that we don't understand about the universe, but if you understand human intelligence and you understand the gaps in our abilities to think about things, maybe we can engineer in a computer more advanced intelligences that can help augment our ability to think.
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Work backward from your goal.
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It's surprising that the world is understandable to the extent that it is.
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These disorders - schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, depression, addiction - they not only steal our time to live, they change who we are.
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One thing that I've been doing for a long time is to wake up really early. I try to get up around 4 or 5 in the morning, long before most of my lab members are up, which gives me some quiet time to really think without distraction. I think that's important.
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It's not even known how many kinds of cells there are in the brain. If you were looking for a periodic table of the brain, there is no such thing. I really like to think of the brain as a computer.
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A lot of good ideas are actually bad ideas because, since they sound good, everybody's already doing them.
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A big part of my job is to remember failure, and reboot failure, when the timing is right.
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If you think backwards from a big problem, and you talk to all these other people who have skills and who think forward from their skills, it's very easy to form collaborations because everyone is incentivized to work together.
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We don't have a consciousness meter that'll tell us exactly how conscious something is. I think we might get there eventually.
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When I'm talking to somebody, I'll put a piece of paper on the table and I'll write what I call a conversation summary - notes about the conversation on the piece of paper. At the end of the conversation, I'll take a picture on my phone and give the other person the original piece of paper.
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I worry that we don't have a very good definition of consciousness yet which makes it hard to tackle.
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Behavioral economics can explain some things, but it's hard to explain a lot of the underlying processes that generate these decisions, much less some of these unconscious things that we don't have a handle on at all.
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Unlike optogenetics, where there are existing nonprofits that give away the DNA for free or at cost, expansion microscopy requires chemicals to be used, so having a company that makes the chemistry kit that anybody can use can save time.
Edward Boyden