Posts Tagged ‘Centre de Documentació i Debat’

Ruth de Diego: “Previously we were trying to discover which part of the brain carried out such and such a function, but now we think about networks”

March 26th, 2014 No Comments

The ICREA-CCCB debates on “The Brain” end on Tuesday 1 April with the lecture titled “Lessons from Brain Lesions”, which is to be given by the University of Barcelona researcher Ruth de Diego. We have asked her to explain in advance why study of behaviour patterns and deficits caused by these lesions is useful in neuroscientific research.

The ICREA researcher Ruth de Diego

You are a specialist in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience. Could you tell us what is studied in these two disciplines?

First of all, I am interested in psycholinguistics, by which I mean knowing how we come to understand language. While I was writing my thesis I was attracted to the neurobiological aspects of language and, in particular, how brain lesions can affect our understanding and speaking skills. When we come into contact with a new language, our brain gets to work to extract the regularities of that language, even if we don’t understand a word of it. If we land in Japan, for example, and start hearing this strange language, our brain will start to derive all kinds of statistical information, for example which sounds are most frequent, which ones tend to make sequences, and so on. Studying language is interesting because this is what most identifies us as human beings and because language governs our social relations. Hence, a brain lesion that affects one’s ability to speak greatly limits one’s quality of life.

What is the present situation of brain research?

In the past ten years there has been a second big spike in research and the amount of information we have acquired, in this case with a lot of studies on the brain’s structure and connectedness. Previously, in the more traditional approach, the brain was studied in a way that strongly emphasised localisation so efforts were made to discover which part of the brain carried out such and such a function. However, we realised that we couldn’t talk about isolated zones of the brain performing specific functions but, rather, we had to think about networks of different parts of the brain functioning synchronically, or working together and in a coordinated fashion to perform a certain function. Moreover, we now know that the brain is much more adaptable than we previously thought and that when there is a lesion it has an incredible capacity to reorganise itself and restore connections.

Why is studying patients with brain lesions useful?

It is useful because, by comparing different situations, we can discover a lot about the brain and its functions. Imagine a person who has a brain tumour that has taken a year to develop. In that brain the functioning is not exactly the same as that in a person who has not suffered a lesion because of this adaptability I just mentioned: the patient’s brain has been undergoing a process of restructuration in order to adapt to the pathology.

We use transcranial magnetic stimulation with a device that is brought up close to the outside of the head and, by means of a very powerful magnetic field, it changes the functioning of the neurones in the region it is nearest to by inhibiting or stimulating them. This stimulation induces a lesion virtually. This only lasts a certain time, from a few seconds to a quarter of an hour and, during that time, the healthy person acts as if he or she is suffering from a lesion in that part of the brain. Comparing a simulated lesion in a healthy person, whose brain structure is maintained without alterations, with someone else who has a long-term brain lesion, and who therefore does have alterations, makes it possible for us to discover many things about brain structure and function as well as about specific disorders.

Magnetic resonance of a Huntington patient

What kinds of brain lesions have you studied?

One of the illnesses we have studied is Huntington’s disease, which is quite a rare genetic disorder with a low incidence among the population. In its early stages, Huntington’s disease quite specifically affects a particular subcortical structure, a key area of the brain that has many connections with different parts of the cortex and, accordingly, many associated functions. We also study aphasia, a disorder that affects language comprehension because of a brain lesion. People with aphasia can see the image of a pear and say “banana” for example.

What is the use of studying these diseases?

Studying the whys and wherefores of such behaviour has many uses such as the rehabilitation of patients. Imagine that there are two zones of the brain connected in two ways. As a result of the adaptability I mentioned, if you have a lesion that affects one of them the other one, the intact one, will work to recover its function as much as possible. If we know that one way is obstructed but that the other neuronal network is operating, we can use and reinforce this latter way and design a particular kind of rehabilitation. I’ll give you an example. We have a study showing that there are two main zones of language processing, one of which is more concerned with motor functions like production and speech while the other is more concerned with perception and understanding of language, which is to say it’s more auditory. These two areas are joined by a bundle of connections and it seems that this connection, this ability to transform what we are listening to into a motor sequence, is very important with regard to learning new words. By this I mean that this process of repeating new words, listening to them, hearing them and pronouncing them ourselves – or this loop – enables us to learn. If a patient’s bundle of connections is broken and he or she can’t repeat the words in order to assimilate them, we can help him or her to learn words by turning to another connection that exists, this time a more semantic one. If this other path is taken it’s not possible to repeat words in order to assimilate them but we can accede to the word by giving it sense, connecting the motor and auditory parts of the brain through the structures of meaning. If I train the patient using this method there is a better chance that he or she will understand the word this way than through the obstructed path of repetition.

Would this be similar to mnemonics or the acronyms that are used for studying purposes to assimilate concepts on the basis of unrelated ideas of phrases?

Yes, it would be similar to that. Moreover, all of this has specific uses in the treatment of these disorders because knowing about the alterations in brain structure and functions in patients with Huntington’s disease, for example, enables us to detect and understand individual differences in patients suffering from this disorder. In the case of a clinical trial, we can divide the patients up according to the connections that are affected in each one of them and, by thus grouping them, a much more specific and effective treatment can be offered than if we didn’t distinguish between the different degrees of brain lesions affecting patients.

Evgeny Morozov against the cyber-optimism

January 21st, 2014 No Comments

Evgeny Morozov during his last lecture

Evgeny Morozov is one of the foremost critical thinkers in the current debate about the role of the internet during the changing times we are immersed in. It seems quite clear and nobody argues with the fact that the technological changes of our age are extremely significant. The debate about who wins and who loses acquires even greater significance when new technologies alter long-established ways of doing things, such as manufacturing and working, policymaking and governing societies, and influence their cost-effectiveness. In spite of his youth, (he was born in 1984), Evgeny Morozov has come to the forefront of this international debate by using solid arguments to highlight the fact that the internet threatens the way democracy is run.

In a short period of time, Morozov has published two books (El desengaño de Internet. Los mitos de la libertad en la red, Destino, 2012; To Save Everything Click Here. Technology, solutionism and the urge to fix problems that don’t exist, Allen Lane, 2013),and numerous articles in the most prestigious newspapers and magazines. Morozov has sought to unmask and draw attention to what he considers to be the false promises which the internet (and the businesses who take advantage of it) have made us believe: its ability to solve problems and favour our independence and ability to produce, think and decide. He has been one of the most incisive writers against the cyber-optimism which guaranteed that the problems of freedom and democracy would be resolved through technological change. While his first book talks about the problems of new technological tools in tackling their promised aims, the second focuses more on the objectives and argues that the internet turns what should be public and collective into something private and individual. Furthermore, it affirms that the internet seeks to promise us a solution to all our concerns, when they are often part of our collective and individual modus operandi and way of life.

Whether we agree with Morozov’s views, there is no denying that he has carved out a place in the area that politicises and views as problematic the growing impact of the internet on our lives and power relationships. What better way to begin the Open City series than with this debate? Because it is precisely with subjects such as smart cities and the spread of smartphones that we take for granted the fact that there will be greater transparency, an increase in the citizens’ ability to decide and have control of public affairs as well as improvements in urban issues. A lively discussion is guaranteed.

Evgeny Morozov will be at the CCCB next Monday January 27th to start the series “Open City” giving the opening lecture ‘Democracy, Technology and City‘. You can watch the lecture live via streaming or follow the Twitter updates using the hashtag #ciutatoberta.

The Barcelona Debate: Open City

January 21st, 2014 No Comments

The Barcelona Debate is back, and with it we are inaugurating our programme of lectures for the year. With “Open City”, we resume one of the CCCB’s longest-standing traditions with a series of sessions that each year proposes reflection on a different key aspect of contemporary life through a multidisciplinary approach. In recent years our debates have placed the accent on the crisis and uncertainty about the future, civic virtues, and life in common, with thinkers such as Tzvetan Todorov, Nancy Fraser, Zygmunt Bauman, Marina Garcés, Salvador Cardús, Avishai Margalit, Saskia Sassen, Eva Illouz, Orhan Pamuk, Anna Cabré and Antonio Tabucchi.

Richard Sennett CCCB © Miquel Taverna, 2009
Sennett impartirà una de les conferències del debat “Ciutat Oberta”

Why “Open City” now? The CCCB wants to take part in commemorating the Tercentenary of the siege of Barcelona by contrasting the closed city surrounded by the enemy with the open city, whose citizens do not live under a shadow that threatens their freedom.

Since its origins, the city has been associated with democracy because of its potential for liberty, equality and pluralism. In the open city, anything that is different, ambivalent or divergent, does not remain outside its boundaries, but forms part of urban life, it is the very condition of its existence. And the truth is that cities are contradictory spaces by nature: we want them to be a home, a welcoming place for meetings and exchanges, but this openness inevitably leads to uncertainty, conflict and ambiguity. In the open city there is coexistence but also friction, novelty but also risk. It is a place where there is constant tension between the desire to control and freedom, where the contradictions of the contemporary city are made manifest. For this reason, the open city is, above all, a tool for thinking; an aspiration, a utopian state, an ideal horizon. It enables us to dream about the city as a space of emancipation and imagine other ways of coexisting and, simultaneously, it provides evidence of the logic of exclusion, survival strategies and the unavoidable disagreements that are a result of life in common.

Over a nine-week period, we will be asking what makes an open city possible today, and what endangers it. Among other issues, we will discuss the risks and potential of new technologies, cultural and linguistic diversity, the boundaries between the public space and private space and the city’s real and imaginary limits.

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