Human: The World Within (2021) s01e06 Episode Script

1
- The human body
is full of systems.
Some protect us
others nourish us
or keep us moving
But there's one system
that controls all the others
and it might be the one
that truly makes you
you
the nervous system.
To put it simply,
it perceives the world
and tells you
how to react to it.
Should you jump
run eat
shiver cry?
It makes all of those
split-second decisions.
And it also creates emotions,
ideas, and memories.
Altogether, it's one
incredible machine
that never stops reacting.
We're about to take a trip
through an astonishing universe
that lives right inside
our bodies
to uncover the systems
that make us human.
It sits inside the skull
in total darkness
three pounds of
grayish-white matter,
the consistency of tofu.
It's more than 80% water
with a little fat
and a little protein.
The brain.
Mission control
of the human body
and the nervous system.
It's in charge of how
we react to everything.
The brain is pure
processing power,
connected to a giant network
of nerves and fibers
that work in perfect synergy
to turn data to action.
Especially
when life comes at you fast.
-My name is Iman James.
I'm 29 years old,
and I am an amateur boxer.
-There are few sports that
challenge your nervous system
quite like boxing.
I mean, think about it.
In a fraction of a second,
you got to process
your opponent's move
and react to it.
If you're not quick enough
you definitely feel it.
But as furious
as the action seems
outside the body
an even more high-speed dance
is occurring every moment
on the inside.
See, the nervous system
is made up of highly specialized
cells called neurons
that send signals
at hundreds of miles per hour.
-Neurons are the building blocks
of the brain.
They are the parts
that actually make you think
decide
imagine
see things or listen to things.
-Neurons don't look
like other cells.
Most cells are compact
and round,
but neurons, they look more like
the roots of a flower
with strands that branch out
in every direction
to connect to other neurons
so that they can pass
information back and forth.
There are 100 billion of them
inside the brain,
with millions more snaked
throughout the body.
But what really makes
them ingenious
is that we can train these cells
to do almost anything
and in the process, completely
transform who we are.
-Everyone can box.
You have to kind of push aside
that self-doubt at some point,
and once you accept that,
you're like,
"Oh, what I become
is entirely up to me."
I am a teacher.
I teach middle school
and high school math and health.
I became a teacher because
I wanted to fulfill
some sort of need in kids' lives
to push them to be better.
I want my students to know
they can do anything they want.
A lot of people
make the assumption
that boxers come from, like,
the hard knocks of life,
that you have to be
really rough, maybe even angry.
I never got into a single
physical fight as a kid.
I started boxing to lose weight
in college.
I just totally fell in love
with the sport.
Anytime I was hitting something,
I was like, "Oh!"
It was like endorphins
all the time.
That's what makes boxing
so intoxicating.
-Being a boxer isn't just
about landing a punch.
It requires
extreme mental agility.
And it all begins with sight.
Everything we see starts
- light.
When light particles enter
the eye
through that black hole
at the center
they make their way to the back
wall of the eyeball
where they hit
a thin piece of tissue
called the retina.
The retina has millions of tiny
receptors called rods and cones,
which absorb the light particles
coming in
and send them back as something
the brain can use:
electricity.
These electrical signals travel
to the optic nerve
and onto the brain.
Impulses are kind of
like Morse Code,
and the brain takes that code
and turns it into your reality.
-The amount of compression
of data
that happens between the retina
and the optic nerve
is the biggest amount
of data compression
that we've really
witnessed in biology,
and it's right here in our eyes.
-Every second, the eye transmits
10 million pulses to the brain
at a speed of
270 miles per hour.
Then just as quickly,
the brain has to react.
So a boxer sees a punch coming.
That info zips to the brain,
then a conversation happens.
Should I duck or knock her out?
Like any decision, it's about
weighing the options.
Maybe the boxer has a memory
of being punched before
or maybe this is
a brand-new experience.
Either way, in an instant
the brain makes a call,
and a host of neurons
begin firing.
-Neurons in the brain
communicate through electricity
and through releasing chemicals.
At the end of a cell
is a synapse
and it's the small space
between neurons.
So the first neuron releases
a chemical substance
that's detected
by the second neuron
which then continues
that electrical activity.
You can say it's a mixture
of a lighting storm
and a chemical storm.
-Our brain sends new impulses
across our body
triggering
just the right muscles
to react.
-The first time I sparred,
I almost, I swear to God, died.
We did three 2-minute rounds.
It was the longest six minutes
of my life
and it was hard
and I got hit a lot,
but I knew what I needed
to work on,
and that's what
this sport is about.
-One of the most remarkable
things about the brain
is how adaptable it is
with a little practice.
-So a boxer, like most athletes,
carry out the same movements
repeatedly over and over.
And the more and more you do it,
the brain learns,
and it gets encoded
into muscle memory.
-PJ has been my coach
since 2015.
Hitting the pads with PJ
does a lot to help me prepare.
Helps me to work on timing,
on defense,
on footwork, combinations.
What we're trying to get to
is perfection.
Obviously that doesn't
really exist,
but if you're not striving
for it, then what's the point?
-The more you practice
something,
the more somehow
your brain changes.
This is called neuroplasticity.
-This system is pretty flexible.
Every single neuron in the brain
can form up to 10,000
connections with other neurons.
And those links change
based on the things
that we do most.
When a boxer learns
a new move
the pathway is temporary,
forged by chemicals
surrounding the neuron.
But as she practices
day in
day out
those chemical changes
become structural.
Over time, neurons will actually
change shape
and shift their position.
And as the pathway
gets more fixed
connections between different
brain regions strengthen.
-Since I first started fighting,
I've definitely gotten calmer
in the ring.
Punches come to me
and I'm not overreacting.
When I'm fighting,
time disappears.
I don't even have to think,
but instinctively I'm moving
and evading those punches,
and it takes no effort
when the mind and body are one.
-It's astonishing to me
just how adaptable
our brain can be.
By practicing things we want to
get good at, we do get better.
We do lay down the neural
frameworks
to be able to improve
ourselves at certain tasks.
That mechanism of transmitting
those, what we call
actual potentials,
from one neuron to another
is the basis of how information
is transmitted in our body,
is the basis of computation,
and is the basis of memory
in our minds.
-A memory is just a group
of neurons
having a familiar conversation.
So as we learn a new skill,
we're forming a stronger
and stronger memory
of how to accomplish that task.
Skills that require us
to use our muscles
like sinking a basket,
playing the piano,
or tying a shoe, can be
locked into our memories
for a lifetime.
Hence the saying,
"It's like riding a bike."
But other memories,
like faces and names,
can fade over time
as we need them less.
Our neurons forget
how to make those connections.
There is one way a memory
tends to stick around
and that's when there's a
strong emotion attached to it.
In fact, emotions and the
nervous system go hand in hand.
The nervous system is in charge
not only of processing
our emotions,
but deciding
how we react to them.
But sometimes, emotions
are so strong
that they overload the system
with life threatening
consequences.
-
-We are following the path
of Hurricane Maria
now battering Puerto Rico.
-The hurricane is doing
incredible damage
to a country that really is not
in any shape to withstand it.
-In September 2017,
a category 5 hurricane
descended upon Puerto Rico.
Magaly Rodriguez lived
with her two daughters
on a remote stretch
of the island.
She was about to live
through two kinds of hell
The storm itself,
and fear shutting down her body.
-
-Fear is a very powerful
protective mechanism
for us as people.
It's an enormously powerful
adaptation
to helping us internalize
a threat
and then be able
to respond to it
hopefully before the threat
catches up to us.
-Inside the brain,
you find one region that really
controls the fear instinct.
It's an inch-long
almond-shaped bulb
called the amygdala.
When we're faced with
a dangerous situation,
the amygdala sounds an alarm
setting off a chain of events.
A cocktail of hormones
courses through the body.
Pupils dilate to take
in more light.
The heart begins
pumping blood faster.
And that blood is rerouted
from less essential organs
to higher priority ones
like leg muscles
that can kick or run.
That's why when you're scared,
you get butterflies.
Blood flow to your stomach
dramatically slows down.
It's also why you get
the chills,
with less blood in the skin
to keep you warm.
All of these changes
are preparing you
to react to the threat
by either standing your
ground or running for your life.
-The fight or flight
response is ancient.
In humans, it's similar to how
it is in other organisms.
It's what happens when you are
faced with a sudden danger
or something that alarms you.
-But danger is usually
more complex
than just fight or flight.
And when you're staring
at a crisis, fear,
and how your brain
interprets it,
can quickly become
the greatest threat.
-
- Sometimes during
extreme stress,
the fear response takes total
control of the mind and body.
We end up completely paralyzed
by our own emotions.
It's a phenomenon known
as the amygdala hijack.
The parts of the brain that use
logic and reason
shut down completely.
No signals can reach them.
The impulses go straight
to the amygdala,
which runs totally
on instinct and emotion.
When this happens, you might
experience an unwarranted
outburst of anger
or become frozen in fear.
-
-Magaly's fear response
left her powerless
when her daughters needed her
to be strong.
She was determined to never
let that happen again.
-When fear goes too far,
if fear becomes
the dominant sensation
that we experience as humans,
that can prevent us
from taking on new challenges
and potentially growing.
-But how our brains react
is actually up to us.
We can learn to control fear
by making it more familiar.
That's why now
Magaly is training
to become a first responder.
She's about to take part
in a disaster rescue drill
that will put her fear tolerance
to the test
so she can learn to quiet
her amygdala's alarm bells.
-We can train different parts
of our brain to turn on and off.
There's a huge component
of biofeedback, of thinking,
of breathing
that can really help us.
-
-
- Blood
smoke
screams.
-All meant to flood the brain
with stress.
But that's the whole point.
It's mental boot camp.
Just like how we can improve
our muscles' speed
and strength with practice
we can do the same
with our emotions.
-When we expose ourselves
in small, controlled doses
to the things
that make us stressed,
we can build resistance.
Our anxiety tolerance goes up,
and the amygdala can work
to our advantage.
-The amygdala is a beautiful,
beautiful structure
because that's where
a lot of memories,
especially emotional memories
are stored.
It stores not only negative,
but also positive memories.
-If we can train our brains
to remember
how we handled
the stressful situation,
the amygdala will recall
that stored memory
in a future moment of fear
and allow logic and reason
to stick around.
-Your nervous system actually
has all the tools it needs
to keep you calm
during stressful situations
You just need to know
how to activate them.
- We essentially
have two branches
of our autonomic nervous system,
the sympathetic nervous system
and the parasympathetic.
Now, sympathetic nervous system
is our fight or flight response.
Too much of this stress response
is not a good thing,
and that's when we need a kick
in our parasympathetic
nervous system.
This is the part of your body
that's going to help you
basically do all the maintenance
things such as digesting food.
Being able to activate your
parasympathetic nervous system
a little bit more
is a good thing,
and people can do this when
they're in a stressful situation
that might fire
their sympathetic nervous system
by taking a step back,
calming their anxiety,
calming their stress,
taking a deep breath.
And trying to get a little bit
more in tune
to what the situation is.
-The types of stimuli
that we expose ourselves to
repeatedly
become the kinds of stimuli
that we become masters
eventually at dealing with.
-We're still discovering day
by day how the brain works.
The brain is made up of so many
complex pieces
working all the time
all together
to achieve the things
that you want to do.
The most interesting part for me
happens in the brain
and its communication
with the spinal cord.
-The spinal cord is like
a super highway
that connects the brain
to the rest of the body.
This thick bundle of cables
has 31 pairs of nerve fibers
that branch out
to our extremities
The way it's laid out allows
the brain to interact
with every organ,
muscle, and cell.
-All these neurons are
all interconnected
so they can all talk
to each other
and through this
very important network
we are able to constantly sense
what is going on
in the outside world.
-From our little pinky toe
to our brain,
our body uses a system of
communication in our nerves
that's a lot like digital data.
We store information as almost
like ones and zeros,
pulses of voltage
that represent information.
- Together,
the brain and spinal cord
form the body's main
electrical hub.
The wiring they contain
is extremely delicate,
so they nestle inside the solid
bone layers
of the skull and vertebrae.
They're also suspended in a
clear fluid that absorbs shock.
No other piece of our biology
has this level of protection.
And for good reason.
Just like when the electrical
grids that power cities go dark,
a damaged nervous system
wreak havoc.
And for the body,
a blackout means pain.
-My name is Andy Haldane.
I'm a cell tower engineer.
The carrier reported
a signal loss,
so we're here today
to assess the situation
and make sure
we can bring the signal back up.
Ready to get this done?
- Let's do it.
-Today we're going to climb
a 120-foot tower.
Working on towers has
historically been
one of the most hazardous jobs
out there.
It's physically demanding.
Physically reaching and pulling
yourself up over and over again.
I don't care how in shape
you are,
you can only do
so many pull ups.
The longer I climb,
different fatigue
starts setting
in different places.
At some point you can't go on
without taking a breather.
- Hold, Mike.
- Yup.
- I do suffer from
lower back pain.
-Man, you gotta give me
a minute, Mike.
Needs a little aerial yoga,
getting this thing worked out.
-Tower climbing is not
for everybody.
I think it's a unique skill
set to be smart enough
to be an engineer and dumb
enough to climb a tower.
-One of the strongest lines
of evidence for evolution
is the fact
that we're not perfect.
When we look at our own bodies,
there are things
that don't make sense.
Like the fact that back pain
is so common in humans.
And that's because
our spinal column
is a structure that was based
on a quadrupedal design
because our ancestors
were quadrupeds and not bipeds.
So we've taken this quadrupedal
design and modified it
so that we can be upright,
which means
that our spine
have curvatures and shapes
that are not found
in other organisms.
-This design flaw means that
nerves often get sandwiched
between the very bones
meant to protect them
And when that happens, a whole
new neural sensation can occur:
pain.
In other words,
evolution kind of hurts.
-We have pain fibers
all throughout our body.
Now, these fibers can send
a specific signal
right to our brain, and our
brain can process this as pain.
And it also tells
what to do about it.
It then sends a signal back down
through a separate tract
on our spinal cord,
which then controls
the motor function
where the pain originated from.
This is why when you grab
a hot cup of water,
you immediately retract
your hand from it
without even thinking.
It's instantaneous.
- Pain is actually
a really good thing.
It's the nervous system's way
of telling you
that something is wrong,
so you can fix it.
But when that pain is caused
by a pinched nerve,
the effects can last much longer
because the thing that usually
tells us about damage
is itself in need of repair.
If you experience something
that feels like a burning,
stabbing, or shooting pain,
especially if there's numbness
or tingling,
it's likely to be a nerve pain.
And one of the most debilitating
forms of nerve pain
is sciatica.
-Hi, Andy, how are you doing?
Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
If you want to lay
on your left side,
facing me, we'll work
through your hips.
-Sciatica is a symptom
of compression
of one of the largest nerves
in the body.
The sciatic nerve starts
separate nerve roots
in the lower back.
They converge together
in the back of the hip
and then travel down the leg
as a single sciatic nerve
and then splits in the lower leg
and to separate nerves.
The majority of people have
inflammation around the discs
and their spine or herniation
or disc bulge
due to physical overuse.
It can happen at the hip
where the nerve comes out
of the pelvis into the leg.
It can basically happen anywhere
along the course of the nerve.
With Andy, with what he's doing
with climbing,
he's wearing harnesses,
his compression's
occurring actually
in the back of the hip
with some of those
muscles tightening
and sitting directly
on the nerve.
Nerves
don't like pressure on them
and they don't like
to be stretched,
so when you have
compression of the nerve
or if the nerves
are overstretched,
you're going to start to have
pain along the nerve
or you may present as numbness.
-Numbness is a clear sign
of system malfunction.
It means that neural connections
to the brain
have been compromised.
When a nerve is injured,
instead of going dark,
it starts firing even harder,
causing sensations
like pins and needles.
That's why when you hit
your elbow,
you feel a tingling
down your whole arm.
Your funny bone isn't a bone
at all.
It's a cluster of nerves.
Hit it just right, and you're
pinching those nerves,
sending confused signals
up and down your arm.
The same thing happens
when your foot falls asleep.
It's not really asleep,
and it has nothing to do
with blood flow.
It's a compressed nerve.
In both cases, the feeling
goes away after about a minute.
But the pain of sciatica
can last much longer.
Fortunately, the nervous system
is resilient,
and with proper treatment,
our bodies can bounce back.
-Okay. We'll do the same thing
on the other side.
I just want to keep you
balanced.
I know this leg doesn't have
too many issues.
-To treat sciatica,
I do a technique
called the active
release technique.
That's where I work the muscles
around the nerve
and try to get the nerve
to glide
better through those muscles.
We're just trying to free up
along the whole course
of the nerve so the nerve roots
come out here
and your lower back.
A lot of your restrictions
here behind your hip,
that's going to tighten up
a lot as you're climbing.
I think the workouts
have been helping you,
so I'd keep up with that.
-To help prevent future
sciatica pain,
Andy works on building strength
in his core and back.
Strong muscles
help stabilize the body.
And the act of building muscles
is in many ways
a neural activity.
-I'm big into physical fitness.
It helps me stay
in climbing shape.
You know, it's up to me to keep
myself in shape
mentally and physically in order
to maintain my ability
to do my job.
-You probably associate exercise
with your muscles or heart.
But recent studies have shown
that when we lift weights,
our nervous system actually
get stronger before our biceps.
Working out increases neurons
in certain parts of the brain.
That might be why when we train
to do a pull up,
we often achieve the feat
before we see any growth
in the muscles being used.
- Ready to finish this thing?
- Let's do it, man.
-Alright, let's rock and roll.
- I think it's
a personal challenge
to climb each structure.
It's something that's important
to me
to make sure the communications
system is intact
and able to function properly.
- Good here, here.
-There's definitely a feeling
of accomplishment
when you reach the top.
And the view is spectacular.
The stuff that I'm able to see
on a day-to-day basis
is pretty special.
I feel pretty lucky to be able
to do what I do for a living.
-The world around us
is always changing.
So as a species, we are
constantly finding ways
to react and adjust.
-The human body is such
an adaptable,
living system.
We often hear the adage
that our bodies
are like an exquisite machine.
It's interesting that throughout
so much of human history,
we tend to view our bodies
in a very similar way
to the dominant technology
of the day.
So around the same time that we
were learning
about interchangeable parts
on the assembly line
we started to view our bodies
in similar manners,
as a kind of accumulation
of parts.
But what I think is interesting
is that each of those parts
is comprised of many
other smaller functional units,
and that each of
those functional units
have their own intelligence.
-When I think about the
difference between humans
and other mammals,
I think about our brains.
Mentally we are extremely fit,
we have this incredible ability
to adapt to our circumstances
and persevere.
But what really grips me
is when I learn
about the ways
people are helping others.
The research scientists,
the biomedical engineers,
people out there who are making
these crazy advancements
in medical technology,
and somehow it always
comes back to neuroscience.
- Okay.
The next object is ready.
Ready?
- Ready.
-Try to tell us what it is.
- Okay.
-My name is Ranu Jung.
I'm a professor and chair
of the Department of Biomedical
Engineering
at Florida International
University.
My lab is called
the Adaptive Neural Systems lab,
and the idea is, can we do
something with engineering,
with technology, to restore
lost function inside the body?
How might we be able to restore
the sense of touch
to somebody that
has lost their hand?
-People are usually curious
about the cause.
How did you lose your arm?
What happened?
Sometimes
I'll say it was a gator.
Sometimes it was
a group of ninjas
'cause, you know, "car accident"
is a pretty boring story.
Losing an appendage, they say
it's like losing a loved one.
You go through mourning.
You really grieve the loss.
-I remember early on every day
was something
tying a trash bag, tying shoes.
He had a motorcycle at the time.
He no longer has a left hand
to pull in the clutch.
-If we brought an infant
into the world,
would I be able to care
for that infant?
Would I be able to to play
catch with my boy
in the front yard?
That really struck home to me,
and it really made me concerned
that this would be something
that would negatively affect me
for the rest of my life.
What would life be like
with just one hand?
-Our hands transmit a lot
of information to our brain
about the physical world.
So what happens when there's
an interruption
of all of that
input to the brain?
-You know how the first stage
of grief is denial.
That's kind of what happens
in the brain
when you lose a limb,
or so we think.
Our best guess is that
the information
traveling to the brain
comes to a screeching halt.
The brain thinks, "Well,
something must be really wrong.
The cells are dead,
but they can't be gone."
So it keeps trying to reach
a part of us
that's no longer there.
The strange phenomenon
of phantom pain.
And the brain
never really gives up.
The neurons that knew that hand
for your entire life
are kind of waiting
for a comeback.
-Shortly after the accident,
we were at the beach
and someone
threw a Frisbee at me
and I wasn't wearing
a prosthetic or anything.
I stuck my phantom limb
out to grab that Frisbee
and it went right by
and if my hand was there,
I would have caught it.
Even though it's not there,
my brain still thinks it is.
I feel tingling
and kind of numbness.
It never really goes away.
-We don't quite know why it is
that the mind
has a self-conception
of what signals are going
to be coming to it,
but what's really interesting
is that now
with certain bionic limbs,
we can create technology
that can speak
to the electrical signals
that are still being generated
in that healthy part
of the body.
-At Dr. Ranu Jung's lab
in Miami, Florida,
researchers
have created a neural interface
for Jason's prosthetic arm
that can tap into
the body's nervous system
and rekindle those
lost connections.
-When somebody loses an arm,
you can imagine that the nerves
that were communicating
back and forth are cut.
However, the rest of
the nerves are still intact.
So if there was a way
to communicate to those nerves,
then you could still perhaps
reach the spinal cord
or the brain.
That's what my lab is all about.
Can we make an advanced
prosthetic hand system
to restore the sense of touch?
-The first person in the world
to test this new,
experimental technology
is Jason Little.
- Hey, Jason, how are you doing?
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
How are things?
-Very good, very good.
-If you look at this
prosthetic arm,
he can open and close it.
But when a person opens
and closes a prosthetic hand,
they can't feel anything.
So if I were to put
my finger in there
and it could be squished hard,
but you know
this is a very special hand
because this has got sensors
in the prosthetic hand
and this sensor information
is being conveyed to Jason.
-The sensors in the hand
can actually send information
back to the brain
and how the brain interprets
that new sensation
is astonishing.
Something called
a neurostimulator
was implanted into Jason's arm.
Connected to this device
are fine wires like human hair,
which were threaded into
Jason's existing nerves
the ones that have been sitting
around in his upper arm
waiting for a signal.
-Right here inside Jason's arm
is a little radio receiver,
and there's a little magnet
in that
and this has a little magnet.
And so if you put it here,
see it links together.
So the information from the
outside goes to the fine wires
into the nerves
that are inside the arm.
These are the same nerves
that are there in all of us
that take information
from the hands
and then go into the brain.
- An unbroken line
of communication
from Jason's prosthetic
fingertips
all the way up
to his very human brain
But will Jason's brain accept,
and even more importantly,
understand, this new signal?
- Hey, Jason.
- Hey, how's it going, Andres?
- How are you?
- Good.
-Alright, let me have your hand.
-Jason is the first person
to have this implant system.
- Ready to play with some blocks?
- Yeah, let's do it.
-And is providing us
with very needed data
to tell us how safe,
how efficacious is the system.
- So in this test,
what we want to know
is what is Jason's capability to
figure out the sense of touch.
So we want to isolate him
from anything
that may give him a clue.
We have separated out
the prosthetic arm
so he cannot feel
the vibrations of the motors
so that he can purely rely on
the sensation that he's getting.
-We're going to try to see
if you can detect the difference
between a hard block
or a soft block,
that they should deliver
sensation that you will get.
And just tell me
what you think the block is.
Let's start by taking
the stimulation off.
So will you remove your coil
please?
Okay.
-By removing the transmitter,
Jason's preventing
any information
coming from his hand
from reaching his brain.
-The block is ready.
-I have no stimulation
to give me feedback.
So this is completely a guess
in the dark to say
that this is a soft object.
-So that was incorrect.
-Next, Jason connects
the transmitter to his arm,
creating a continuous
neural path from hand
to brain.
-I'll turn it on for you.
Let me know
if you start feeling it.
Ah!
-He's giving you a heart attack.
- Could you open
and close the hand?
Good to go?
- Yep.
Are you getting stimulation,
getting sensation?
- Yes.
- Perfect.
Jason, next block is ready,
you can close the hand.
-Um, I feel this sensation
come on very slowly
rather than abruptly.
So this block is soft,
and it's large soft.
-You are 100% correct.
-I can actually feel
a little vibrating tingling
sensation
in my phantom limb
telling me that I am making
contact with an object.
-How is the brain adapting?
Will this process
of neurostimulation
over weeks, months, years
actually change
the organization in the brain?
-Putting my arm on,
it immediately becomes
part of me.
It's no longer
this foreign object.
It's It's my left arm.
-For years, Jason's brain
was left wondering
what happened to his hand,
still trying to speak to it,
trying to reach it.
Then one day, strange new
messages started coming back.
They weren't like the old ones,
but they're familiar enough,
speaking a language
the brain could understand.
This technology gives the brain
the chance
to do what it's best at
adapt.
-Our brains are very plastic,
so they're always changing.
The adult brain has much more
capacity for hacking itself
Being able to rewire in ways
that we didn't
anticipate before.
-You know, having that touch
sensation come back
was something that I never
thought I would have.
That confidence that
I've gained now
has been a game changer for me.
It's allowed me to regain
a little bit
of my old self back again.
Since I get sensory feedback,
I know how hard I'm holding
this egg,
so, um, I know
that if I push down any further,
I'm going to
completely crush it.
The first time I felt
the sensation,
we had Krystal
put her hand in mine.
I closed my eyes and I slowly
closed the hand down
on her hand, and I let her know
that I was able
to feel her holding my hand.
- Just Just,
it was a realization
that this is as much as this
is research to other people,
this is our real lives.
-The longer this has gone on,
the more I realized,
this has nothing to do with me.
This is all about the people
that this is going to impact
years from now,
decades from now.
It's really given me a sense
of purpose
that losing my arm
wasn't in vain.
-Today it is for communicating
with the prosthetic hand.
Tomorrow it could be for people
who've lost both hands,
they've lost a foot.
Down the road by stimulating
the nerves
that control the spleen,
that control the stomach,
that impact your immune system,
we make cure a disease one day.
-It's astonishing to me just
how adaptable
our living systems are
to environments
that are so diverse.
-The brain is evolving,
that's for sure.
We know it because
our nervous system
allows us to interact
with the environment.
So as long as the environment
changes,
also the brain
will keep changing.
-By managing everything
that's going on inside the body
and keeping us in touch
with what's outside,
the nervous system
is at the core of who we are.
-What makes me realize
that we have a lot more to learn
about human potential
is what human beings
are able to adapt to.
The crazy ways people
are breaking world records,
simply by learning to be more
efficient and trying harder.
The ways people are surviving
these horrific events,
the way people are able to
translate a terrible experience
into a phenomenal story.
A lot of it has to do with
the way we take information in
and we process it out
in our own artistic way.