I'm a PhD student in neuroscience and genetics here in Canada, originally from Brazil, and for that reason PhD for me here is much more challenging than for a normal Canadian student. TH-cam videos and channels like yours however, are the help we sometimes don't even know we needed. Thank you for your videos,I've just found your channel and I'll for sure be following your postings =)
+Hellen Chris Weinschutz Thanks for watching and commenting! I'm so glad you found this useful. If there are ever other related topics you think would be helpful, let me know. And best of luck with your studies!
3:45 yeah. More synaptic connections (as a result of less pruning) certainly makes me less efficient at functioning in most circumstances. But it makes me a formidable critical thinker, when I can control my sensory environment enough to really harness those connections. That rare moment when I can think clearly in fractals is what I call “inhabiting my corpus collosum.” Recent research is linking less synaptic pruning between birth and adolescence with autism. If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m an Aspergian. And when I’m really in the zone, I can visualize with crystal clarity the various thought streams as interconnecting branches, which of course very closely resemble dendritic forms. Branches. Be they trees, the veins in the tree’s leaves, neuronal networks, or rivers. Same-same. Fractals. They’re what make up the universe (including me, down to the neuron) and I love them.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment - this is really fascinating to read about your experience of being in the zone! It's pretty interesting how so much of our understanding of ourselves and the world around us is represented in the interconnectedness of nature.
Raquel Cowell Yay! Glad it's helpful. I'll be doing more things like this for all those instructors like you who are preparing lectures for this fall, so if there are particular topics, send 'em my way! And of course feel free to share these videos far and wide with your colleagues who might also benefit from them! (shameless plug... ;)
Absolutely great vid! xD. I couldn't help but think of all children around you learning neurology. You could cover the myelination and prunning processes and link it to learning experiences you had. I'd watch it ^^
I have a question about synaptic pruning. What about synapses that continue to "fire" but that are unwanted and the subject wishes they could be pruned? I'm speaking of negative, self-deprecating thoughts (voices?) that recur "on their own". Why aren't they pruned? Or alternatively, what keeps those synaptic firings going since pruning would benefit the subject's well-being? (Your presentation is way above average, by the way.)
I wonder how synaptic running autistic children is disrupted. How that links in with too much inputs, too little neurotransmitters? How localisation this ties in with the localisation of the brain vs plasticity? Loved your video!!!
Hmm, this is a great question I don't have an answer to. I know there's some great emerging research about brain development of those on the Autism Spectrum, but I'm not super familiar with it. Thanks for watching!
When you learn something new, does the neuronal network associated with those new ideas begin as a bunch of inefficient synaptic connections? It would seem that this is why conscious attention is required when exercising new skills. Then, as the skill has been sufficiently practiced successfully, this would relate to synaptic pruning creating an efficient neuronal response. This would manifest as “muscle memory” or subconscious attention to applying mastered skills. For example, when learning to drive a manual transmission, you have to consciously monitor the tachometer, pay close attention to the gear shifter position, depress the clutch while releasing the accelerator, AND make sure you don’t miss your exit. During the learning phase of acquiring this skill, extraneous synaptic connections are created decreasing the amount of electrochemical energy that travels down each redundant pathway. This redundancy lowers the probability of each neuron achieving its individual activation potential, but because of the redundancy, the signal will still make it through. Conscious effort provides the higher electrochemical energy required to activate redundant neural pathways. As these pathways are activated more often, certain pathways will naturally draw a larger share of the energy allotment from conscious attention thereby increasing dendritic and axon terminal densities. This growth lowers that particular pathway’s activation potential lowering energy requirements from conscious attention. Lower conscious attention leads to lower electrochemical energy supplies to this pathway which is drawn by the pathway with the lower activation potential. The most active neurons grow the most dendrites and axon terminals resulting in lower activation potentials which deprives the other pathways of electrochemical energy which results in synaptic pruning by way of dendritic and axon terminal recession. This means that skill mastery is a result of the most successful neuronal pathway achieving maximal dendritic and axonal terminal growth providing the lowest activation potential. With such a low activation potential, sufficient electrochemical energy can be provided by parallel circuits part of the same skill that control different aspect of the skill. This means that parallel circuits negate the need for direct energy provisioning from the frontal cortex: conscious attention. Back to the manual transmission example. After a few years, you no longer need to consciously direct yourself to accomplish all the actions necessary to shift gears. Instead of going through each step, you only require enough conscious attention to trigger the first step in the process. Normally, this was registering your tachometer reaching 3-4k rpm, BUT, this is the really cool thing...even though you consciously attend various aspects of shifting gears when you are first learning, your subconscious is still processing all the other ambient information that you are NOT consciously aware of. Because seeing the tachometer reaching 3-4k rpm is your conscious trigger initially, your auditory center also associates the pitch of the engine to that particular rpm. So, now when you subconsciously register a particular pitch coming from the engine, those auditory synapses ALSO activate which sends a signal parallel to the one your visual center WOULD have sent had you looked at the tachometer. Now that you have consciously conditioned all the proper neuronal networks to activate one after the other, you can now carry on a conversation about synaptic growth and pruning while watching for your exit. Furthermore, your subconscious did you a solid by attaching ancillary neuronal networks parallel to your initial triggering network so that you will unconsciously shift gears seamlessly if your ears pick up the correct pitch, or your visual field calculates your speed based on relative motion of objects in the peripheral field and compares that to the value of the gear you are currently in, or if you happen to see the tachometer. I had been wondering what the mechanism was that determined conscious execution diverting to subconscious execution for a few months. This seems to fit the bill pretty well. I would love to hear any critiques on my conclusions.
Also, +1 Like and +1 Subscribe Thanks for the entertaining video. I would also like to mention that when I explain neurons to my friends, I use my hair (it’s been growing for over 10 years) as dendrites; my head as the soma; my torso and legs as axons, and my toes as axon terminals. After seeing this video, I’m thinking I will vary how much hair I pull away from my head to simulate dendritic growth, and, maybe add my arms as axons and fingers as terminals. This way, I can illustrate how neurons will connect to many other neurons, and I can simulate axon growth by extending more fingers. Using my manual transmission example, I can simulate a couple different neuronal networks by exploiting volunteers. I can take the role of “shift gears” network; one voluntold friend can be the “visual check of the tachometer” network, and a second voluntold friend can be the ancillary “Audio Slaved” network associated to the engine pitch. Expanding from that, you could create name tags for different neuronal networks for middle school kids to wear so that can participate in building neuronal connections pertaining to learning about neuronal connections. Class: Neuronal Connection Inception
How do we help our brains become better at connecting ideas together? Like realizing how things we learn in chemistry relate to topics we learn in biology and physics.
+SciJoy Ooh, good question. I'd have to do some serious digging into the cognitive science literature to really answer this properly, but my (somewhat limited) understanding is that there are some theories about how the brain chunks information and creates cognitive associations between those chunks. So a lot of the challenge is in figuring out how to may two seemingly distinct chunks (chemistry and biology in your example) relate to one another. I would say this is one of the biggest challenges that educators face. Now only how do you make things interesting, but also you have to figure out how to connect new information to existing information structures so that knowledge becomes more memorable and integrated.
Neuton is so cute! I love your use of a plushie to explain stuff. Cute and engaging! Are we born we all the neurons we will ever have? Or is our brain constantly growing new ones?
+ARTiculations Ooh, great question - and there's new research all the time about this. I'll give the short answer here, and maybe do a more systematic review of the research on this in a future video. The belief used to be that you were born with all the neurons you'd ever have and that they perpetually die off throughout your life and aren't replaced. However, some emerging work suggests that in certain areas of the brain new neurons are actually created. But there isn't substantial evidence to suggest this happens everywhere in the brain (which is something that gets thrown around in popular media a lot). Basically, the bulk of the neurons you'll ever have are with you at birth. But growing new ones is possible, sort of. ;)
+This Poor Life Ahahaha! Great analogy. I don't know that it's as conscious as that for the rest of us "normal" people, but yeah, that's not a bad way to think about it. ;) Oh Sherlock.
Terrible at everything totally felt like a Hank Green moment. Every neuron can't connect too every other one. It's like neuron prioritization. It's the inverted u-curve. Being on the hill and not in either trough. I just saw Inside Out and now I'm all enthusiastic about the brain. VIDCONNNNNNNNN! I'll be there too.
Matt Palka I haven't seen Inside Out yet. Which is terrible because all my psych colleagues are like "YOU NEED TO SEE THIS MOVIE." I will make it happen soon. Yay VidCon! It'd be great to meet you, so send me a message on Twitter (@DrLangworthy) if you're interested! :)
so in autism does that mean the brain have to many synapses and die to quickly or dont die at all (pruning) or build up too much causing the nervous system to become overwhelmed? and unbalanced ? .
Great question! In many ways we don't know a ton about what's happening in the brain's of children on the autism spectrum. There's been some research to suggest differences in the way different areas of the brain are connected to one another in children with autism as compared to typically developing children. So it's not so much overwhelmed or unbalanced, but more atypical connectivity between different areas than we would normally see. But again, the research on autism is still fairly new and we don't have definitive answers to this question yet.
Brilliantly put!!! I work with children who are Diagnosed with ASD. I read a study where they said that children with ASD do not have this "pruning". Do you know anythig about that? Is pruning something that naturally occurs chemically in the brain--- or is it something that is environmental?
Thanks for watching and for your comment. I'm less familiar on the literature with ASD, but I do know there have been a variety of research studies looking at how the development of the brain might be altered early on in children on the spectrum. As to the chemical/environmental question: a bit of both. Pruning depends on input from the environment, but the actual changes in the brain are based on neurochemical transmissions of signals. A baby's brain is born expecting input from the environment: so for example, in the case of visual development, if a baby is born with cataracts, and they go uncorrected, even if cataracts are removed when they are children, they will never recover to typical vision because they lacked that early visual input while their brain was establishing connections in the visual system. Their brains effectively pruned those visual pathways away because of the lack of input from the environment. (This is why babies with cataracts will often undergo corrective surgery very early in life.)
wow thank you for sharing! Because of all you have shared is why I personally believe in early intervention for children who have developemental disorders/delays!! If I could do it all over again, I probably would have been a neuroscientist
I've heard in the past, I think from Bill Nye, that having a smaller brain means that your brain was able to take everything it should have and condense it to not take up as much space, thus making you smarter by having a smaller brain. But I didn't know if that was really true. Is this what is meant by synaptic pruning? The pruning makes it smaller and more efficient?
+JakeHasAnApple Great question! It turns out it's less about size, and more about speed and efficiency. So for example, children exposed to extreme sensory neglect have physically smaller brains, and they are also less efficient and communicating important information across the brain. because of the lack of necessary input from their environments. However, when your brain takes the wealth of input from the world around you, and is able, over time, to learn how to communicate that information quickly and efficiently across the brain, (through processes like neural pruning), you become more able to understand and effectively operate in the world around you. So in short, efficiency is not necessarily related to size. Thanks for watching!
I'm a PhD student in neuroscience and genetics here in Canada, originally from Brazil, and for that reason PhD for me here is much more challenging than for a normal Canadian student. TH-cam videos and channels like yours however, are the help we sometimes don't even know we needed. Thank you for your videos,I've just found your channel and I'll for sure be following your postings =)
+Hellen Chris Weinschutz Thanks for watching and commenting! I'm so glad you found this useful. If there are ever other related topics you think would be helpful, let me know. And best of luck with your studies!
How about different cells in the brain and their function? Or, neurodegenerative diseases? Or, Early brain development? :)
woah, youre amaziiiiiiing!!!
I'm going to show this video to my whole family!
3:45 yeah. More synaptic connections (as a result of less pruning) certainly makes me less efficient at functioning in most circumstances. But it makes me a formidable critical thinker, when I can control my sensory environment enough to really harness those connections. That rare moment when I can think clearly in fractals is what I call “inhabiting my corpus collosum.” Recent research is linking less synaptic pruning between birth and adolescence with autism. If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m an Aspergian. And when I’m really in the zone, I can visualize with crystal clarity the various thought streams as interconnecting branches, which of course very closely resemble dendritic forms. Branches. Be they trees, the veins in the tree’s leaves, neuronal networks, or rivers. Same-same. Fractals. They’re what make up the universe (including me, down to the neuron) and I love them.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment - this is really fascinating to read about your experience of being in the zone! It's pretty interesting how so much of our understanding of ourselves and the world around us is represented in the interconnectedness of nature.
This was fantastic! I liked Neuton as he wandered around onscreen. I will be using this.
Raquel Cowell Yay! Glad it's helpful. I'll be doing more things like this for all those instructors like you who are preparing lectures for this fall, so if there are particular topics, send 'em my way! And of course feel free to share these videos far and wide with your colleagues who might also benefit from them! (shameless plug... ;)
Really enjoyed this. I am doing my PhD in epigenetics and this really helped in starting with learning about synaptic activity.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I've always found epigenetics fascinating - best of luck with your studies!
Awesome thanks! This clarified my question on synaptic pruning.
+Nasty Nate Oh good! I'm glad you found it helpful. Thanks for watching!
Absolutely great vid! xD. I couldn't help but think of all children around you learning neurology. You could cover the myelination and prunning processes and link it to learning experiences you had. I'd watch it ^^
Thanks for watching and commenting. Great ideas!
Great video! I wasn’t quite sure what synaptic pruning was but now I definitely know!
Thanks! Glad you found it useful!
Thank you!
this video is perfect, I could understand everything and I acctually had fun watching it!!!! You're amazing...kisses from Brasil
I have a question about synaptic pruning. What about synapses that continue to "fire" but that are unwanted and the subject wishes they could be pruned? I'm speaking of negative, self-deprecating thoughts (voices?) that recur "on their own". Why aren't they pruned? Or alternatively, what keeps those synaptic firings going since pruning would benefit the subject's well-being? (Your presentation is way above average, by the way.)
I wonder how synaptic running autistic children is disrupted. How that links in with too much inputs, too little neurotransmitters? How localisation this ties in with the localisation of the brain vs plasticity? Loved your video!!!
Hmm, this is a great question I don't have an answer to. I know there's some great emerging research about brain development of those on the Autism Spectrum, but I'm not super familiar with it. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for this helpful video
You're welcome! Thanks for watching and commenting!
When you learn something new, does the neuronal network associated with those new ideas begin as a bunch of inefficient synaptic connections? It would seem that this is why conscious attention is required when exercising new skills.
Then, as the skill has been sufficiently practiced successfully, this would relate to synaptic pruning creating an efficient neuronal response. This would manifest as “muscle memory” or subconscious attention to applying mastered skills.
For example, when learning to drive a manual transmission, you have to consciously monitor the tachometer, pay close attention to the gear shifter position, depress the clutch while releasing the accelerator, AND make sure you don’t miss your exit.
During the learning phase of acquiring this skill, extraneous synaptic connections are created decreasing the amount of electrochemical energy that travels down each redundant pathway. This redundancy lowers the probability of each neuron achieving its individual activation potential, but because of the redundancy, the signal will still make it through. Conscious effort provides the higher electrochemical energy required to activate redundant neural pathways.
As these pathways are activated more often, certain pathways will naturally draw a larger share of the energy allotment from conscious attention thereby increasing dendritic and axon terminal densities. This growth lowers that particular pathway’s activation potential lowering energy requirements from conscious attention. Lower conscious attention leads to lower electrochemical energy supplies to this pathway which is drawn by the pathway with the lower activation potential.
The most active neurons grow the most dendrites and axon terminals resulting in lower activation potentials which deprives the other pathways of electrochemical energy which results in synaptic pruning by way of dendritic and axon terminal recession.
This means that skill mastery is a result of the most successful neuronal pathway achieving maximal dendritic and axonal terminal growth providing the lowest activation potential. With such a low activation potential, sufficient electrochemical energy can be provided by parallel circuits part of the same skill that control different aspect of the skill. This means that parallel circuits negate the need for direct energy provisioning from the frontal cortex: conscious attention.
Back to the manual transmission example. After a few years, you no longer need to consciously direct yourself to accomplish all the actions necessary to shift gears. Instead of going through each step, you only require enough conscious attention to trigger the first step in the process. Normally, this was registering your tachometer reaching 3-4k rpm, BUT, this is the really cool thing...even though you consciously attend various aspects of shifting gears when you are first learning, your subconscious is still processing all the other ambient information that you are NOT consciously aware of. Because seeing the tachometer reaching 3-4k rpm is your conscious trigger initially, your auditory center also associates the pitch of the engine to that particular rpm. So, now when you subconsciously register a particular pitch coming from the engine, those auditory synapses ALSO activate which sends a signal parallel to the one your visual center WOULD have sent had you looked at the tachometer.
Now that you have consciously conditioned all the proper neuronal networks to activate one after the other, you can now carry on a conversation about synaptic growth and pruning while watching for your exit. Furthermore, your subconscious did you a solid by attaching ancillary neuronal networks parallel to your initial triggering network so that you will unconsciously shift gears seamlessly if your ears pick up the correct pitch, or your visual field calculates your speed based on relative motion of objects in the peripheral field and compares that to the value of the gear you are currently in, or if you happen to see the tachometer.
I had been wondering what the mechanism was that determined conscious execution diverting to subconscious execution for a few months. This seems to fit the bill pretty well.
I would love to hear any critiques on my conclusions.
Also, +1 Like and +1 Subscribe
Thanks for the entertaining video.
I would also like to mention that when I explain neurons to my friends, I use my hair (it’s been growing for over 10 years) as dendrites; my head as the soma; my torso and legs as axons, and my toes as axon terminals.
After seeing this video, I’m thinking I will vary how much hair I pull away from my head to simulate dendritic growth, and, maybe add my arms as axons and fingers as terminals. This way, I can illustrate how neurons will connect to many other neurons, and I can simulate axon growth by extending more fingers.
Using my manual transmission example, I can simulate a couple different neuronal networks by exploiting volunteers. I can take the role of “shift gears” network; one voluntold friend can be the “visual check of the tachometer” network, and a second voluntold friend can be the ancillary “Audio Slaved” network associated to the engine pitch.
Expanding from that, you could create name tags for different neuronal networks for middle school kids to wear so that can participate in building neuronal connections pertaining to learning about neuronal connections.
Class: Neuronal Connection Inception
How do we help our brains become better at connecting ideas together? Like realizing how things we learn in chemistry relate to topics we learn in biology and physics.
+SciJoy Ooh, good question. I'd have to do some serious digging into the cognitive science literature to really answer this properly, but my (somewhat limited) understanding is that there are some theories about how the brain chunks information and creates cognitive associations between those chunks. So a lot of the challenge is in figuring out how to may two seemingly distinct chunks (chemistry and biology in your example) relate to one another. I would say this is one of the biggest challenges that educators face. Now only how do you make things interesting, but also you have to figure out how to connect new information to existing information structures so that knowledge becomes more memorable and integrated.
Neuton is so cute! I love your use of a plushie to explain stuff. Cute and engaging!
Are we born we all the neurons we will ever have? Or is our brain constantly growing new ones?
+ARTiculations Ooh, great question - and there's new research all the time about this. I'll give the short answer here, and maybe do a more systematic review of the research on this in a future video.
The belief used to be that you were born with all the neurons you'd ever have and that they perpetually die off throughout your life and aren't replaced. However, some emerging work suggests that in certain areas of the brain new neurons are actually created. But there isn't substantial evidence to suggest this happens everywhere in the brain (which is something that gets thrown around in popular media a lot). Basically, the bulk of the neurons you'll ever have are with you at birth. But growing new ones is possible, sort of. ;)
Good information but the links in the comments do not work.
haaaa you're cool! love how you explained this. you go girl
Thanks!
More videos like this please!! =D
Thanks for the comment - it's great to know others find this format useful...I'll work on doing more like this!
So is synaptic pruning like when Sherlock deletes stuff from his mind palace? ;)
+This Poor Life Ahahaha! Great analogy. I don't know that it's as conscious as that for the rest of us "normal" people, but yeah, that's not a bad way to think about it. ;)
Oh Sherlock.
Terrible at everything totally felt like a Hank Green moment. Every neuron can't connect too every other one. It's like neuron prioritization. It's the inverted u-curve. Being on the hill and not in either trough. I just saw Inside Out and now I'm all enthusiastic about the brain. VIDCONNNNNNNNN! I'll be there too.
Matt Palka I haven't seen Inside Out yet. Which is terrible because all my psych colleagues are like "YOU NEED TO SEE THIS MOVIE." I will make it happen soon.
Yay VidCon! It'd be great to meet you, so send me a message on Twitter (@DrLangworthy) if you're interested! :)
Great! Definitely will be volunteering in certain areas of the conference for awhile, so it will be easy when I tweet out where to find me.
so in autism does that mean the brain have to many synapses and die to quickly or dont die at all (pruning) or build up too much causing the nervous system to become overwhelmed? and unbalanced ? .
Great question! In many ways we don't know a ton about what's happening in the brain's of children on the autism spectrum. There's been some research to suggest differences in the way different areas of the brain are connected to one another in children with autism as compared to typically developing children. So it's not so much overwhelmed or unbalanced, but more atypical connectivity between different areas than we would normally see. But again, the research on autism is still fairly new and we don't have definitive answers to this question yet.
Brilliantly put!!! I work with children who are Diagnosed with ASD. I read a study where they said that children with ASD do not have this "pruning". Do you know anythig about that? Is pruning something that naturally occurs chemically in the brain--- or is it something that is environmental?
Thanks for watching and for your comment. I'm less familiar on the literature with ASD, but I do know there have been a variety of research studies looking at how the development of the brain might be altered early on in children on the spectrum.
As to the chemical/environmental question: a bit of both. Pruning depends on input from the environment, but the actual changes in the brain are based on neurochemical transmissions of signals. A baby's brain is born expecting input from the environment: so for example, in the case of visual development, if a baby is born with cataracts, and they go uncorrected, even if cataracts are removed when they are children, they will never recover to typical vision because they lacked that early visual input while their brain was establishing connections in the visual system. Their brains effectively pruned those visual pathways away because of the lack of input from the environment. (This is why babies with cataracts will often undergo corrective surgery very early in life.)
wow thank you for sharing! Because of all you have shared is why I personally believe in early intervention for children who have developemental disorders/delays!! If I could do it all over again, I probably would have been a neuroscientist
Sarah Shanahan sgfguki
you dropped my brain :( found you on the creators playlist thing :)
good explanation
+Toaden K Thanks for watching and commenting!
I've heard in the past, I think from Bill Nye, that having a smaller brain means that your brain was able to take everything it should have and condense it to not take up as much space, thus making you smarter by having a smaller brain. But I didn't know if that was really true. Is this what is meant by synaptic pruning? The pruning makes it smaller and more efficient?
+JakeHasAnApple Great question! It turns out it's less about size, and more about speed and efficiency. So for example, children exposed to extreme sensory neglect have physically smaller brains, and they are also less efficient and communicating important information across the brain. because of the lack of necessary input from their environments. However, when your brain takes the wealth of input from the world around you, and is able, over time, to learn how to communicate that information quickly and efficiently across the brain, (through processes like neural pruning), you become more able to understand and effectively operate in the world around you. So in short, efficiency is not necessarily related to size. Thanks for watching!
Most clear and basic explanation of neuron😊....thank you for sharing this......love from India🙏
I'll love to know about neuroplasticity .
Thanks for watching and commenting! I'm glad this was helpful!