Carl Schoonover: How to look inside the brain

Prevodilac: Mile Živković Lektor: Anja Saric

This is a thousand-year-old drawing of the brain.

Ovo je skica mozga stara hiljadu godina.

It's a diagram of the visual system.

To je šema vizuelnog sistema.

And some things look very familiar today.

Neke stvari danas izgledaju poznato.

Two eyes at the bottom, optic nerve flowing out from the back.

Dva oka pri dnu, optički živac koji se proteže od nazad.

There's a very large nose

Tu je i veoma velik nos

that doesn't seem to be connected to anything in particular.

koji naizgled nije ni sa čim posebno povezan.

And if we compare this

Ako uporedimo ovo

to more recent representations of the visual system,

sa novijim prikazima vizuelnog sistema,

you'll see that things have gotten substantially more complicated

videćete da su se stvari suštinski zakomplikovale

over the intervening thousand years.

tokom pomenutih hiljadu godina.

And that's because today we can see what's inside of the brain,

To je zbog toga što danas možemo videti ono što je unutar mozga,

rather than just looking at its overall shape.

umesto da samo gledamo njegov oblik.

Imagine you wanted to understand how a computer works

Zamislite da želite da razumete kako računar radi

and all you could see was a keyboard, a mouse, a screen.

i sve što možete da vidite jesu tastatura, miš i ekran.

You really would be kind of out of luck.

Ne biste imali sreće.

You want to be able to open it up, crack it open,

Želite da ga otvorite, rasklopite,

look at the wiring inside.

pogledate žice koje su unutra.

And up until a little more than a century ago,

Sve do pre manje od jednog veka,

nobody was able to do that with the brain.

niko nije mogao to da uradi sa mozgom.

Nobody had had a glimpse of the brain's wiring.

NIko nije bacio pogled na veze u mozgu.

And that's because if you take a brain out of the skull

To je zbog toga što, ako izvadite mozak iz lobanje,

and you cut a thin slice of it,

i ako isečete tanko parče,

put it under even a very powerful microscope,

stavite ga pod i najmoćniji mikroskop,

there's nothing there.

ništa nećete videti.

It's gray, formless.

Sivo je, bez oblika.

There's no structure. It won't tell you anything.

Ne postoji struktura. Ništa vam neće otkriti.

And this all changed in the late 19th century.

Ovo se sve promenilo krajem 19-og veka.

Suddenly, new chemical stains for brain tissue were developed

Iznenada, razvijene su nove hemijske boje za moždano tkivo

and they gave us our first glimpses at brain wiring.

i one su nam dale prve uvide u veze unutar mozga.

The computer was cracked open.

Računar je bio rasklopljen.

So what really launched modern neuroscience

Ono što je zaista pokrenulo modenu neuronauku

was a stain called the Golgi stain.

jeste boja, takozvana Goldžijeva boja.

And it works in a very particular way.

Ona funkcioniše na veoma specifičan način.

Instead of staining all of the cells inside of a tissue,

Umesto da oboji sve ćelije unutar tkiva,

it somehow only stains about one percent of them.

ona nekako boji otprilike jedan procenat ćelija.

It clears the forest, reveals the trees inside.

Krči šumu, otkriva drveće.

If everything had been labeled, nothing would have been visible.

Da je sve bilo obeleženo, ništa ne bi bilo vidljivo.

So somehow it shows what's there.

Stoga, nekako, pokazuje šta je tamo.

Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal,

Španski stručnjak za neuroanatomiju Santjago Ramon i Kahal,

who's widely considered the father of modern neuroscience,

koji se smatra ocem moderne neuronauke,

applied this Golgi stain, which yields data which looks like this,

primenio je Goldžijev metod i dobio podatke koji izgledaju ovako,

and really gave us the modern notion of the nerve cell, the neuron.

i zaista nam dao moderno viđenje moždane ćelije, neurona.

And if you're thinking of the brain as a computer,

Ako zamišljate mozak kao računar,

this is the transistor.

ovo je tranzistor.

And very quickly Cajal realized

Kahal je ubrzo shvatio

that neurons don't operate alone,

da neuroni ne funkcionišu sami,

but rather make connections with others

već se povezuju sa ostalima

that form circuits just like in a computer.

i formiraju kolo kao i u računaru.

Today, a century later, when researchers want to visualize neurons,

Danas, jedan vek kasnije, kada istraživači žele da prikažu neurone,

they light them up from the inside rather than darkening them.

oni ih osvetle iznutra umesto da ih zatamnjuju.

And there's several ways of doing this.

Postoji nekoliko načina da se ovo uradi.

But one of the most popular ones

Jedan od najpopularnijih

involves green fluorescent protein.

uključuje zeleni fluorescentni protein.

Now green fluorescent protein,

Zeleni fluorescentni protein,

which oddly enough comes from a bioluminescent jellyfish,

koji potiče od bioluminiscentne meduze, od svih stvari,

is very useful.

veoma je koristan.

Because if you can get the gene for green fluorescent protein

Ako možete iz zelenog fluorescentnog proteina da dobijete gen

and deliver it to a cell,

i sprovedete ga u ćeliju,

that cell will glow green --

ta ćelija će svetleti zeleno -

or any of the many variants now of green fluorescent protein,

ili u nekoj od mnogih varijanata zelenog fluorescentnog proteina,

you get a cell to glow many different colors.

ćelija može da svetli u raznim bojama.

And so coming back to the brain,

Vraćamo se na mozak,

this is from a genetically engineered mouse called "Brainbow."

ovo je sa genetski modifikovanog miša koji se zove Mozduga.

And it's so called, of course,

Naravno, tako se zove

because all of these neurons are glowing different colors.

zato što svi ovi neuroni svetle različitim bojama.

Now sometimes neuroscientists need to identify

Ponekad neuroistraživači moraju da identifikuju

individual molecular components of neurons, molecules,

pojedinačne molekularne komponente neurona, molekule,

rather than the entire cell.

umesto celih ćelija.

And there's several ways of doing this,

Postoji nekoliko načina da se ovo uradi,

but one of the most popular ones

ali jedan od najpopularnijih

involves using antibodies.

uključuje antitela.

And you're familiar, of course,

Naravno, poznata su vam antitela

with antibodies as the henchmen of the immune system.

kao telohranitelji imunog sistema.

But it turns out that they're so useful to the immune system

Ispostavlja se da su tako korisna imunom sistemu

because they can recognize specific molecules,

zato što mogu da prepoznaju određene molekule,

like, for example, the coat protein

na primer, kodni protein

of a virus that's invading the body.

virusa koji napada telo.

And researchers have used this fact

Istraživači su koristili ovu činjenicu

in order to recognize specific molecules inside of the brain,

kako bi prepoznali pojedinačne molekule unutar mozga,

recognize specific substructures of the cell

pojedinačne supstrukture ćelije

and identify them individually.

i identifikovali ih pojedinačno.

And a lot of the images I've been showing you here are very beautiful,

Dosta slika koje vam pokazujem su prelepe,

but they're also very powerful.

ali su i veoma moćne.

They have great explanatory power.

Imaju veliku moć objašnjavanja.

This, for example, is an antibody staining

Ovo je na primer, bojenje antitelima

against serotonin transporters in a slice of mouse brain.

nasuprot prenosioca serotonina u delu mozga miša.

And you've heard of serotonin, of course,

Naravno, čuli ste za serotonin

in the context of diseases like depression and anxiety.

u kontekstu bolesti poput depresije ili anskioznosti.

Čuli ste za selektivne inhibitore preuzimanja serotonina,

You've heard of SSRIs,

which are drugs that are used to treat these diseases.

što su lekovi koji se koriste protiv ovih bolesti.

And in order to understand how serotonin works,

Kako bismo razumeli kako funkcioniše serotonin,

it's critical to understand where the serontonin machinery is.

ključno je da razumemo gde se nalazi ono što ga pokreće.

And antibody stainings like this one

Bojenje antitelima nalik na ovo

can be used to understand that sort of question.

može se koristiti da bi se razumela pitanja poput ovog.

I'd like to leave you with the following thought:

Želeo bih da vas ostavim sa ovom idejom:

Green fluorescent protein and antibodies

zeleni fluorescentni protein i antitela

are both totally natural products at the get-go.

su potpuno prirodni proizvodi u osnovi.

They were evolved by nature

Razvila ih je priroda

in order to get a jellyfish to glow green for whatever reason,

kako bi meduza bila zelena iz kog god razloga,

or in order to detect the coat protein of an invading virus, for example.

ili da bi se otkrio kodni protein virusa koji napada, na primer.

And only much later did scientists come onto the scene

Tek kasnije su stupili naučnici i rekli:

and say, "Hey, these are tools,

"Hej, ovo su alati,

these are functions that we could use

ovo su funkcije koje bismo mogli koristiti

in our own research tool palette."

u našoj paleti alata za istraživanje."

And instead of applying feeble human minds

Umesto da primene svoje slabašne ljudske umove

to designing these tools from scratch,

da izmisle ove alate iz osnova,

there were these ready-made solutions right out there in nature

ovo su gotova rešenja iz prirode,

developed and refined steadily for millions of years

koja je milionima godina

razvijao i usavršavao najbolji inženjer na svetu.

by the greatest engineer of all.

Thank you.

Hvala vam.

(Applause)

(Aplauz)