Photos: James Duncan Davidson

Daniel Reisel is here to talk about our brains. In particular, how we might change them–and how this kind of thinking might just change the tenor of society as a whole.

He introduces us to Joe, who’s 32, and a murderer. Reisel met Joe in Wormwood Scrubs, a high-security prison that houses England’s most dangerous prisoners. On a grant from the UK Department of Health, Reisel visited the jail to study inmates’ brains and try to find out what lay at the root of their behavior. “Was there a neurological cause for their condition?” he asks. “And if there was a neurological cause, could we find a cure?”

Initial research showed that psychopaths like Joe indeed had a different physiological response to emotions such as distress or sadness. “They failed to show the emotions required; they failed to show the physical response. It was as though they knew the words but not the music of empathy,” Reisel describes. MRI scans (yes, transporting psychopaths across London in rush hour to place them in a scanner, unadorned by metal objects such as, say, shackles, was a nightmare) showed an interesting phenomenon and a tentative answer: “Our population of inmates had a deficient amygdala, which likely led to their lack of empathy and their immoral behavior.”

Acquiring moral behavior is a part of growing up, like learning to speak. By 6 months, we can discriminate between animate and inanimate objects. By 10 months, we can imitate actions. By the time we’re 4, most of us are able to understand the intentions of others, a prerequisite for empathy. But that’s not to say that it’s not possible to learn such behaviors in later life.

Reisel wants to talk neurogenesis. This is the birth of new neurons in the adult brain, and Reisel is fascinated by its promise. He left his work with psychopaths to work on mice, whose brains he studied in very different environments. Some were kept in a shoebox devoid of entertainment (similar to, say, a prison cell); others lived in an “enriched environment.” Mice in the former condition lost their ability to bond with their fellow mouse; those in the latter showed the growth of new brain cells and connections. “They also perform better on a range of learning and memory tasks,” says Reisel. “Of course, these mice do not develop morality to the point of carrying the shopping bags of little old mice across the street. But their improved environment results in healthy, sociable behavior.”

Could this research influence the design of our prison systems? “When you think about it, it is ironic that our current solution for people with dysfunctional amygdalas is to place them in an environment that actually inhibits any chance of further growth,” he says. He’s not suggesting that we should pack up all our prisons. Instead, perhaps we might think of rehabilitation through programs such as Restorative Justice, which encourages perpetrators to take responsibility for their actions. “This stimulates the amygdala and may be a more effective rehabilitative practice than simple incarceration,” says Reisel. It’s a fascinating proposition. “Such programs won’t work for everyone. But for many, they could be a way to break the frozen sea within.”

It’s a charming, chilling, thought-provoking talk. Reisel leaves us with three lessons from his work over the past fifteen years. We need to change our mindset, he says. “The moment we speak about prisons, it’s like we’re back in Dickensian — if not medieval — times. For too long we’ve allowed ourselves to be persuaded of the false notion that human beings can’t change, and, as a society, it’s costing us dearly.” Next, we need to prompt and promote cross-disciplinary collaboration. “We need people from different disciplines, lab-based scientists, clinicians, social workers and policy makers, to work together.”

Finally, we need to use our own brains, our own amygdalas, and we need to rethink our view of prisoners such as Joe. After all, if we see psychopaths as irredeemable, how are they ever going to see themselves as any different? Wouldn’t it be better for Joe to spend his time in jail by training his amygdala and generating new brain cells? Reisel concludes: “Surely that would be in the interest of all of us.”

On Tuesday, December 4, Shlain sat down for a live Q&A with the TED Conversations community about the ideas in her book. Read the full discussion — and see some of the most interesting interactions below.

Robert Sagal asked:

What, in your opinion, could we each be doing to help shape a more developed internet? Is regularly going offline a part of this, or is it more in how we choose to spend our time when we are online?

Shlain responded:

I definitely think unplugging weekly is very important. Try it — I promise you will love it.

When we are online, we need to be mindful that everyone you follow is influencing the connections in your brain. So we need to be mindful of who and what ideas and which connections we are making happen. That’s all for us personally.

And our minds, of course, plug into this larger global collection of minds. On that front, I feel very strongly that we need to bridge the digital divide so we can get as many different perspectives and wisdoms participating in these global conversations.

People also need to be paying attention to policies that are happening that can reshape the global brain in the wrong way. There is a meeting happening (ITU) which is making some major decisions about information flow. You can watch this video to understand what is happening and how to get involved.

I know that’s a big list. I unpack it more clearly in the TED Book, which I think you would really enjoy reading. And it has fewer typos ;)

John Bergquist asked:

Have you seen others taking technology breaks? If so what has the response been? I am so thankful that you encouraged me to take them. Do you find it challenging to schedule those rests around your busy schedule and how technology centered your medium and craft is?

Tiffany Shlain answered:

I love that you do them too now. That has been the best part of these films — sharing that I unplug and seeing other people try it. Do I find it challenging to do … no. I just have to plan.

Now, most close friends and family know they can’t get in touch with me Friday night through Saturday at sundown. Everyone adapts and then suddenly you have this day to focus on your family or just yourself. It is good to let your mind go into a different mode one day a week. With my kids, we are pulling out all sorts of games (like a ‘70s version of Clue that I found in my garage and Scrabble.) We spend more time outside. It’s all good.

TED’s own Aja Bogdanoff asked: 

What would be your ideal future for this developing “mind” of the internet? Would it have any characteristics that it doesn’t currently have? Do any existing networks achieve the sorts of deep, meaningful thoughts and connections that you’d like to see?

Tiffany Shlain answered:

It’s been proven throughout history that innovation occurs when you get the most people from different perspectives thinking about a problem. Matt Ridley outlined this beautifully in his book The Rational Optimist, where he talked about how innovation usually happened in cities where the most folks from different backgrounds lived very close together.

The ideal future of the developing internet is when everyone who wants to be online is online, and we have collaborative tools to bring people together from all different parts of the world to solve problems. We are just at the beginning of what I feel people will look back as the “Age of Collaboration.” That’s the “thinking” part of the future I would love.

I also believe we are being awash in oxytocin (the “love/collaboration/sharing hormone” in the brain) with all these links, clicks, posts, text. I think empathy will only increase as we get more connected.

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Brain Power is part of the TED Books series. It is available for the Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

Can we draw instructive parallels between the development of the human brain and the emergence of the electronic global ‘brain’ of the Internet? New research in neuroscience suggests that, yes, we can. In the new TED ebook, Brain Power: From Neurons to Networks, filmmaker Tiffany Shlain explores the links between the two. The book also arrives concurrently with a 10-minute film of the same name, marking the first time a TED Book and film have been released together.

We recently spoke with Tiffany about her research.

In Brain Power, you draw parallels between neuroscience and tech development, and how the fields are interrelated. How did you first link the two?

The idea for Brain Power arose while I traveled to screen my feature documentary “Connected.”  I kept being asked the same question: What is all this technology doing to our brains? Around the same time, a mentor began to share research on child brain development with me. I quickly discovered that the language neuroscientists used (connections, links, overstimulation) and the strategies early childhood development specialists used to describe brain development in the early years of life are similar to the way we should be talking about the growth of the Internet, and strategies for the mindful use of technology. So my team and I started thinking about what we could learn by comparing the development of a child’s brain with the development of our “global brain.”

We’ve known for a long time that interactions during the first five years of life are critical to brain development, but a new machine at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Science (I-LABS), called MEG (a powerful brain imaging machine retrofitted specially for infants), now gives us the ability to see in real-time how connections are triggered and grow through every interaction a young child has. This new technology shows us so clearly how important a child’s environment and interactions are during these early years when the brain is most malleable.

The same can be said about the growth of the Internet. Compared with the human life cycle, the Internet is also in its metaphoric first five years when it is most malleable. Just like every interaction creates new connections in a child’s brain, every email, tweet, search or post is creating and strengthening connections in our global brain, literally changing the shape of the Internet that we, as billions of people all over the world, are developing together. And just as it’s key for all the different parts of a child’s brain to be connected to set the stage for the most insightful and creative thoughts, it’s key that all the different parts of the world are connected — to lay the foundation for worldwide empathy, innovation and human expression. The film and the book really explore these parallels, and offer insights into how we can best shape both.

What can the developing electronic brain learn from the emerging human brain?

That everything we do shapes the connections in our brain — both our individual brain and our global brain. We are — actively, daily — affecting the connections in our brains as we plug into our smartphones and tablets and laptops. And since it’s having such an impact on our minds, we need to do it mindfully, and sometimes not do it at all. Every person you follow on Twitter or friend on Facebook influences your thoughts. Sometimes they even show up in your dreams. On Twitter, people I follow almost become my stream of consciousness; they are streams of thought in my head. We need to be mindful of who and what we let into our brains. always. Then when thinking of our individual brains linking into this larger network of everyone being connected together, we need to be mindful that every time we interact with this global brain, we are affecting the way it is developing. And we need to look at the way an individual brain grows and see that it’s critical that we get all the different parts of the brain (in this case world) connected for the most insightful thoughts. There are 7 billion people on the planet and only over 2 billion people online. Just imagine the potential when we can get everyone who wants to be online, online.

You note that this endless availability of tech adds a lot of stress to brain, but it also has some positive effects as well. How does stress affect the development?

I loved learning of the research of Dr. Paul Zak who found the hormone oxytocin is released when you get a text or email. That’s often called the “love” hormone. That can only be a good thing. But I don’t need any neuroscientist to tell me that being on too much is over stressing my brain. Just as a child’s brain can’t be too overstimulated, I know when I feel that point in my brain.  I now don’t bring the cell phone into the bedroom. I need to quiet my mind before I sleep. Well, there are multiple reasons to not bring too many distractions into the bedroom.

Why did you write this book now?

I was just finishing the script for the film “Brain Power” when Jim Daly, the editor for TED Books, called and asked me to explore the possibility of writing a TED Book. I loved the idea of having this new type of book that I could embed video links and link to all the research we had done with the film we were then working on. It was a fantastic creative challenge. It many ways, it allows me to unpack and go so much deeper than the film would allow. In addition to writing out more deeply the ideas, we were able to add a lot videos and links to cutting-edge neuroscience research and reports, some of other short films and we even have a Louis C.K. comedy link. It’s a very exciting way to think about someone’s experience of ideas in this new way. I definitely think TED Books are the future of books.

How has this research affected the way you interact with your children?

Knowing how critical the first five years are, and being able to see the actual synapses forming through this new MEG technology makes the importance of healthy environments and stimulation very visceral. I find that I am doing a lot of things more consciously with our 3 year-old Blooma. I make eye contact with her longer, try to make her laugh even more, hug her longer,  teach her bigger words, all fun things to do anyway.  But perhaps I am more mindful and conscious that I am helping grow her brain.

What advice would you give people on changing their relationship to tech overload?

Two years ago, my family and I started unplugging one day a week. Starting on Friday night sundown until Saturday night. We call it our technology shabbats. It’s been life changing.  As much as I love technology, I now race towards Friday night with gusto. I highly recommend giving your mind one day to be in a different mode.  It makes time slow down. What’s the one day you want to feel long? Saturday. Then another great advantage is that by Saturday night, I eappreciate technology all over again when I go back online.

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Brain Power is part of the TED Books series. It is available for the Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

Read Montague is interested in the human dopamine system — or, as he puts it in this illuminating talk from TEDGlobal 2012, that which makes us “chase sex, food and salt” and therefore survive.

Specifically, Montague and his team at the Roanoke Brain Study are interested in how dopamine and valuation systems work when two human beings interact with each other. Twenty years ago, studying a topic like this was all but impossible because scientists relied on worms and rodents for insight into the brain. But today, in addition to animal research, neurobiologists have at their disposal functional MRI (fMRI), which allows them to make “microscopic blood flow movies” and map the activity of human brains in action.

“We have a behavioral superpower in our brain and it at least in part involves dopamine,” says Montague in this talk. “We can deny any instinct we have for survival for an idea. No other species can do that.”

So how do we assign value to ideas, process the gestures of those around us, make complicated decisions, and create informed judgments about each other? Montague’s lab hopes to discover much more about how these processes work by “eavesdropping” on the brains of 5,000 to 6,000 participants all over the world as they play negotiation games. It’s fascinating research that could tell us more about our social nature. Because as Montague says, “You often don’t know who you are until you see yourself in interaction with people who are close to you, people who are enemies to you, and people who are agnostic to you.”

To hear much more about Montague’s work, watch this talk. Below, hear insights from 11 others who are working hard to give a clearer picture of how our brains work.

 Allan Jones: A map of the brain
Curious to see what a real human brain looks like? Watch this talk from Allan Jones, the CEO of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, given at TEDGlobal 2011. In it, he describes the Institute’s work to map brain function in the same detailed way that we map cities, investigating how the 86 billion neurons in the brain work together. (Read this great article in Forbes magazine about Paul Allen, the Microsoft cofounder who spent more than $500 million creating the Allen Institute.)

Gero Miesenboeck reengineers a brain
Optogeneticist Gero Miesenboeck has a different approach for understanding the brain — rather than recording the activity of neurons, he works backwards, seeking to control them. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2010, Miesenboeck explains his work manipulating neurons in fruit flies to see what happens when the brain’s code is broken.

Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains
Why do we have brains in the first place? Neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert hypothesizes that the human brain didn’t evolve to think or to feel, but to control movement. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2011, Wolpert shows how perception creates graceful, agile human movement.

 Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight
Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor got a new view of the miraculous functioning of the brain when she had a massive stroke. In this powerful talk from TED2008, she describes feeling powerless as her brain functions shut down, and talks about her recovery.

VS Ramachandran: 3 clues to understanding your brain
The human brain may be a “three pound mass of jelly,” but it can “contemplate the meaning of infinity.” In this talk given at TED2007, neurologist VS Ramachandran explains his work to understand basic brain function, delving into three delusions that happen when brain activity goes awry.

Michael Merzenich: Growing evidence of brain plasticity
The brain is constantly able to change and adapt. In this talk from TED2004, neuroscientist Michael Merzenich describes the brain’s ability to re-wire itself, and shows why this elasticity is so meaningful.

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain
Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore studies the brains of teenagers because, rather than being fully developed, the organ continues to build through a person’s 20s and 30s. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2012, Blakemore shows why teenagers are more impulsive and more prone to feeling embarrassed than their adult counterparts.

Henry Markram: A brain in a supercomputer
There may be 100,000,000,000,000 synapses in the human brain, but their functioning can be understood. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2009, neuroscientist Henry Markam explains how a supercomputer can help model the brain.

Christopher deCharms: A look inside the brain in real time
Can you see how you feel? Yes, using fMRI. In this fast-paced talk from TED2008, neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms shows how the brain can be viewed in real time using this amazing technology.

Charles Limb: Your brain on improv
Charles Limb is a surgeon who studies creativity, and is fascinated by how people create music. In this fun talk from TEDxMidAtlantic, Limb shows his work putting jazz musicians and rappers in fMRIs to see what happens when they improvise. (Read the TED Blog’s Q&A with Limb here.)

Oliver Sacks: What hallucination reveals about our minds
When we see with our eyes, we also see with our brains. But sometimes, the two do not match up. In this talk from TED2009, neurologist Oliver Sacks describes Charles Bonnet syndrome, which leads visually impaired people to experience lucid visual hallucinations. From there, he shows what this teaches us about normal brain function.

Teenagers can sometimes feel like a different species. According to neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, who gave this fascinating talk at TEDGlobal 2012, this isn’t a coincidence. While 15 years ago it was assumed that brain development was completed in childhood, scientists now know that the brain continues to develop through a person’s 20s and 30s. The adolescent brain is still a work in progress.

“Teenagers are often parodied, sometimes even demonized, in the media for their typical teenage behavior — they take risks, they’re moody, they’re very self-conscious,” Blakemore says in her talk. Even Shakespeare, she says, made jabs at teens. “But what’s sometimes seen as the problem of adolescence shouldn’t be stigmatized. It actually reflects changes in the brain that provide an excellent opportunity for education and social development.”

So what exactly is different between the teenage and adult brain?

For starters, the limbic system — which gives a person a rewarding feeling after taking a risk — has been found to be hypersensitive in adolescents. At the same time, MRI studies show that teenagers experience a dip in the level of gray matter in the pre-frontal cortex — the part of the brain involved in decision-making, self-awareness, planning for the future and inhibiting inappropriate behavior.

“That might sound bad, but this is a really important developmental process,” says Blakemore, the head of the Developmental Group at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. “The synapses that are being used are strengthened, the synapses that aren’t being used are pruned away. You can think of it a bit like pruning a rose bush … this process fine-tunes brain tissue.”

While adults are generally adept at reading gestures and facial behavior to understand what people are feeling — functioning that occurs in the medial pre-frontal cortex — this area of the brain is still developing in adolescence too. “So if you have a teenage daughter or son and think they have trouble taking other people’s perspectives — you’re right, they do,” says Blakemore.

Listening to Blakemore’s talk definitely makes my own teenage years make a lot more sense. When I was a teenager, I needed a lot of attention, which meant having bright blue hair and wearing the most outlandish things I could find — perhaps a hypersensitive limbic system at work? This got me curious — what were other TEDsters like when they were teenagers? Below, see what people had to say in this TED Conversation about the topic.

“As a teenager I thought adults were dumb and boring; I argued with my parents almost every day. I thought, ‘I’ve got the world all figured out.’ My thoughts of love were shaped by the lyrics of Westlife, The Spice Girls, Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion. I read philosophy books, wrote short stories, and loved the piano. I was sure that I would be in the film/media industry; but I had an exaggerated impression of my talent and underestimated the hard work and persistence that would be needed.” —Feyisayo Anjorio

“The world was just opening up to me. I was a nerd and athlete, and thought teachers were the greatest people. I tried to fit in with (what I thought) was the cool group. Overall, high school was great — now I like to take walks and have talks with my kids to find out who they are and where they are at in their thoughts on social issues.” —Antoinette Carvajal

“I’m only just a teenager now, but you can say I’m an obsessive computer/math nerd with rarely any need for social aspects in life.” —Patrick Quinn

“I wore the then-ubiquitous outfit of tie-dye and jeans, very long hair, bare feet, rock ‘n roll and oldies. Youth at that time embraced the comfortable and casual. My hair is shorter now but anyone would recognize me, as my current choices are not so different. There were physical risks I took then of various kinds that I would no longer take once I had children who were dependent on me to be safe and in one piece. I was wary of some but not all adults, specifically those with big and irrational tempers that seemed to consume them. I remain wary of the same sorts of people. I was independent minded both then and now.” —Fritzie Reisner

“I had no idea how brain worked — all I wanted to know was how I could influence others and their decisions to sell my stuff to them. This means I was a salesperson since I was quite young. The older I got, the more things widened up for me. I started to study Behavioural and Influential Psychology to find out more about power and flexibility of human capacity and its vulnerability.”—Edwin Nazarian

What were you like as a teenager? Chime in by adding to this ongoing TED Conversation. I’ll be adding responses to this post throughout the day.