Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Brain Electric 20160116

Complete Television Schedule vit booktv. Org. Booktv, 48 hours, and this weekend even more hours of nonfiction books and authors. Television for serious readers. Next, heres malcolm gay. His week, the brain electric. And now i am very thrilled to introduce malcolm gay to left bankbooks. Malcolm is an arts reporter for the boston globe. He priestly worked as a contributing writer at the New York Times and the critic at large for our very own river front times. His writing has also appeared in wired, the atlantic and time among other publications. In 2004 the society of professional journalists, norb norb Northern California chapter, named gay outstanding journalist. His work has since received other National Accolades including top honors in 2008 from the association of alternative news weeklies, and in 2009 from the National Association of black journalists. In 2010 gay was awarded the woodwardbernstein award for the missouri [inaudible] gay studied philosophy and art at the Colorado College where he studied narrative nonfiction. The brain electric, which details the race among top neurosurgeons to merge the mind with machines, is his first book. The author of americas great debate calls the brain electric a masterpiece of reporting and science writing at its best. Tonight malcolm will be discussing his book, answering questions from you and signing copies of his book that we have available for sale at the desk. Please help me in welcoming malcolm gay to left bankbooks. [applause] hello. I actually know many of you, so you all have heard a lot about this book, i think, over the years and months, and it seems like decades sometimes. But anyway, thank you all for coming. You know, i think weve all had conversations about the brain electric in some way or another, and one thing that people ask me again and again, you know, knowing me and knowing my history and my interests, how did somebody like me become interested in a question like this . Its the one question that people reliably ask me. A lot of people hear about the brain, and they think this is absolutely the last place id like to go. Its too complicated, too crazy, its inside the head. But there are a lott of things that contributed to my interest in this, and the first person, probably if there were one place to put it, my interest, is at the feet of a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, expert right up the street. And hes, you know, in his 40s. I think he had more than 800 patents to his name. He had a robust neurosurgery practice. Hed written a Science Fiction novel, he was an abstract painter, he had a research lab. Hes one of these guys that makes the rest of us crazy, hes just incredible. And so i started talking to eric after hearing about his work, and the first thing i was planning to do was a magazine story. I was going to do kind of a quick thing. I was writing journalism everywhere, and it seemed like a great magazine topic. And eric brought me into he was very generous and brought me into a surgery immediately. And eric is an end lendtology, so what he works with are recessions of the brain to find the bad brain, the root of any epileptic seizure. And what he started doing and this case, actually, was not an epilepsy case, it was a tumor. And it wasnt a well defined tumor. It was one of these tumors that kind of grows throughout the brain. And so at the surgery, you know, the patient goes down, the guy goes down, and hes anesthetized. Eric opens his head. And in the middle of the surgery, eric wakes him up. And the guy is kind of, you know, dazed and wondering where he is, and then he, and then erics, the surgical assistant ising asking eric or asking e guy about the most mundane things. Hes asking him about his job and how the cardinals are doing and what they like to do on their weekends and things like this. He wanted the man to keep talking, because as eric was pulling away at the tumor, as he was taking out this cancer, he wanted to make sure that he wasnt encroaching on any of the Language Centers in the brain. And so as the guy was talking about, you know, stocking the shelves at snooks and he couldnt remember the name for peas, eric thought, no, i need to back off this section. I think i had some kind of illformed notions of what makes a personality and what makes us who we are and how we communicate. But here we was kind of working with the he was working with the biological matter of what we are, and he was able to manipulate that, talk about that. And not only was he able to work with the absolutely substance the actual substance of the brain itself, but he was able to pull, using electrodes, thoughts out of the brain. And that, to me, all of a sudden all these philosophical questions, biological questions come rushing to the fore. And i pretty quickly realized that the magazine piece had to be scrapped and that this was a much bigger piece, you know . And, i mean, one of the things that i think, you know, youre looking at Something Like the brain, and youre looking at this kind of poorly understood, mysterious object, you know, its really kind of a difficult thing to say, well, where do you get a story about this . I mean, a lot of the questions are really interesting, but how do you keep it, how do you make it into a story . How do you make it into a book that somebody like me would want to read . How do you get it to, you know, whats the narrative setting that youre really looking for here . You know, because i mean its well and good to go to surgeries and talk about these intellectualish shies, but issues, but the brain is really a black box. I started calling around and started speaking with people that were deem in this field deep in this field. Among them, ted berger, neuroscientist out of ucla. And ted all of these guys are always the smartest guy in the room, but ted works with memory, and hes building a digital prosthesis for memory. Basically, what he will do is hes disable the hippocampus which is kind of an older brain structure which is critical to the formation of memories, and hell be able to disable that, and then he will, using electrodes, read the neural signals that are coming into the hippocampus, and hell then ferry those out to a computer. And ted is a mathematician and neuroscientist, but what hell end up doing is hes crafted what he believes to be kind of a master algorithm of memory. And so what he can do is bring these incoming signals into his algorithm, and that will actually spit out outgoing signals that mimic the same signals that the hippocampus would create. And hell offload those in area ares of the brain to form networks. Other people were working in visual prosthetics, so visuals of the optics, some directly on the cortex as opposed to simply in the eye. One person was working with a pallete that youd place on the tongue, what it would basically be would be a video camera that would scan the area and send small signals to the tongue which is this warm, moist, you know, highly sensitive area, and the brain is plastic enough that it will actually take those signals and interpret them after time as visual information. And so people are able to rock climb and hike and play soccer, blind people, with this. So theres just a tremendous, you know, all of these things are wonderful and really interesting. But what you, what you come up against is, you know, how do you avoid this becoming just this, you know, huge catalog of heres this, you know, heres this interesting research, and heres this interesting research. I wanted a story, and i wanted something that really kind of brought the stakes of whats happening home. And thats about the time that i met miguel who is one of the top guys in the field. He works all over the field in terms of motor and, you know, other sensory areas. But miguel at the time was whispering about this new neural prosthetic that would bind the brains of multiple animals and create what he called a braintobrain interface. So this kind of multiorganism creation that would be a cyborg network. He was also working with bringing in infrared visual information and allowing animals to to see areas of the spectrum they otherwise would not be able to see. So, i mean, he was doing really edgy, really i mean, a lot of people would say Science Fiction crazy stuff. But he also said that everybody in the field was an amateur and that he was really the only guy really that had, you know, the straight dope on bci. [laughter] and that, to me, i mean, thats a telling moment, right . Because all of a sudden you realize, oh, its not one big, happy family. [laughter] and it was around that time that i ran into Andrew Schwartz. And Andrew Schwartz is another one of these top guys. And andrew was, at the time, working he still is working on motor. And he was working with, you know, trying to reproduce fluid, dexterous movement in a robotic arm that would mimic an approach, the grace of the human body. Hed had incredible, i wont say luck, results thus far. And andrew, you know, hes one of these guys that doesnt, hes unswayed by social charms, and hes interested in measurables, and hes interested in results, and hes interest in interested in science. So i really kind of kept quiet around andy a lot [laughter] but learned a tremendous amount from him. One of the things that he said was everybody in the field doesnt know what theyre talking about. So at this point i started to realize here are these two top guys, and they have these diametrically opposed ideas of well, at least each other, and they agreed on the field. All of a sudden this kind of narrative architecture of how i can tell this story and how i can enter into these, you know, kind of rich intellectual questions and biological questions and philosophical questions and evolutionary questions and some pretty, you know, high flying neuroscience along the way, that this would act as a real bridge to be able to talk about that, you know . And so, you know, what i wanted to kind of concentrate was on this, you know, fierce Competition Among these top neuroscientists for prestige, intellectual morals and, ultimately, fame. I think a lot of them would believe the ultimate prize, and thats the nobel. Of course, that makes a very difficult thing to report because all these guys have mull by Million Dollar labs, and if its thursday, theyre going to be in korea. So its just a hard way to get into it. Once you actually get into that upper rung, you know, youre never two, three, four questions away from talking with these top guys and then, you know, asking a question and them saying i have no 40 idea. We just dont know. And thats really where we are with the brain. Theres so many questions. We have so many titillating and exciting, minute windows on to this vast neural galaxy, and yet we still dont know basic, basic things. In the book at one point andrew says, you know, we want to do all of this, but we dont know the first thing about how a basic neuron fires, and thats how it all starts. But one of the kind of grand ironies of this and what i thought was an interesting way to go about it is, you know, you have this clash of titans, i mean, you have these incredibly ambitious men and they are mainly men who are working with, you know, the weakest among us. I mean, theyre working with paraplegics and lockedins and people who have had brain stem strokes. These people have, you know, theyre not really interested in these big, Science Fiction questions. Theyre interested in being able to feed themselves and, you know, take care of their daily business. Theyre interested in just getting to normal. And the truth is, is that most of these people will never actually benefit from this technology. I mean, were really in this beginning portion of this stuff, this race. And, you know, so theyre going into this with no real thought about how this is going to affect them, how its going to help them. Theyre really, theyre undergoing voluntary brain surgery with the expectation that it will help future generationses, you know . And so you get this kind of crazy juxtaposition of this, you know, multiMillion Dollar project, huge egos, incredible, you know, incredible science and then these incredibly fragile people. And theyre all working together. You know . In a sense theyre all working together for what i would say is, you know, this very kind of fundamentally human story, and thats, you know, harnessing technology to make us more of what we already are. Harnessing this technology to make us more human. And that, to me, you know, its this quest. And i think its, you know, it gets into some very, you know, heady issues, and theres lots of ways to kind of, you know, approach this question. But i think that, ultimately, you know, where this goes is this kind of quest for, you know, betterment and for bettering who we are because, i mean, its very easy to get into kind of, you know, Science Fictional questions of where, you know, where were going to have google in our brain, and were going to have neurallyimplanted cars and things like that. And that may happen. [laughter] that absolutely may happen. But, you know, one of the researchers i was speaking with said, you know, we know weve arrived when were doing the most normal, mundane things with this; brushing our teeth, combing our hair, being able to call people. Thats really what a lot of peez people are working with. And so i think that was kind of where, thats really what the storys about. Its about neuroscience, and its about all of these other questions, but its also about, you know, kind of, you know, the people that are engaged, you know, deeply, deeply engaged in these questions, you know, out of this fundamental human need. So in any case, thats kind of a little bit about what my thinking in terms of how i put the book together and what i wanted the book to be. You know, theres a lot of, you know, theres a lot of, you know, neuroscience in it, but what i wanted to be able to do was to write a book that, you know, that somebody like me would be able to read and want to read. And so i think ill end with that, but ill read a little bit x then we can maybe talk about the book some, and i hope you enjoy it. So im going to read the beginning, chapter six, its called the backup plan. I dont have any water. Andrew schwartz knew that if he wanted to stay relevant, he needed to sink his electrodes into the cortex. Darpa had opted to go with the applied Physics Laboratory at johns hopkins. They have tons and tons of military contracts, so theyre used to dealing with these guys, he said. They have a comfort. They like to do all these 3d charts which darpa seemed to like. When darpa announces a project, it releases a list of Research Laboratories the agency is willing to fund as part of the project. Any researcher or lab that competes to administer a project can choose from that list, building a team across institutions. For schwartz, that meant working with a project manager and a select group of robotics experts to build an arm before linking it to the brain. There are less than six people in the world that really know how to build a robotic arm, and they all come from mit. All these other yahoos said, oh, we can build a robot arm, we know what theyre doing. He added both hopkins and dean caymans team talked with him about joining their proposals. So youre going to be my boss, he said . Needless to say, i didnt want get on any of those i didnt get on any of those teams. Darpa funders were far from cutting him off. They wanted him to keep working with monkeys and awarded him a 2 Million Contract for a study that would not only catapult schwartzs research onto 60 minutes and into the pages of the New York Times, but would eventually give him a shot at the human motor cortex. They had people doing the same kind of thing i was doing, a lot more people with a lot more money, and they didnt great anywhere, he said. They kept me as a backup plan. Other researchers were circling around the problem of how to link the brain to a prosthetic limb, but few researchers closed the loop with a robot arm. Earlier work had taken place in either virtual environment or a computer screen or at a safe distance as with matthew neigh el. Nagel. Mental control of a cursor would be a boon to quadriplegics, but darpa wants a limb you could use wanted a limb you could use to brush your teeth or comb your hair. Elegant neural control of a dexterous, multijointed limb. It turned out to be great, he said. I didnt have to report to apl or anybody, i just did my own work. With electrodes in happened, schwartz and his colleagues began to work with two monkeys and a pair of robot arms. Training the Research Monkey palls somewhere between art falls somewhere between art and science. Researchers must devise ingenious ways to familiarize the animals with the physical essence of a task. Schwartz began by training his monkeys to control the arms using a joystick. The animals learned they could extend their limb to a various fixed point in space, grab a marshmallow from a skewer and pull back on the joystick to bring it to their mouth. As the monkey brought the marshmallow back, researchers impaled the next food reward in one of four positions for the animal to grab. Once the monkeys were familiar with the task, researchers removed the joystick, immobilizing the animals arms. Mean while, they recorded their neural activity while placing the arm under automatic control, giving researchers command over the arm as they brought the food to the monkeys mouth. One of the great discoveries of the 20th century happened at a lab where a scientist had implanted electrodes on monkeys hoping to listen in on neurons he believed associated with hand and mouth movements. A monkey reached for a peanut, tracing the cells firing pattern before, during and after the movement. By that measure, his experiment did not differ tremendously from the neural recordings his fellow researchers were making in other labs. What set his work apart, however, occurred by accident. During a break between tasks, the monkey sat idly in its chair. The monkey wasnt moving at all, but when one of the researchers snatched a spare peanut and popped it in his mouth, the neuron erupted as if the monkey had grabbed the peanut itself. The brain, or at least a specific class of cells, seemed not only to seemed not to distinguish between an action performed and an action observed. Here was a class of neurons that was involved in motor planning but that was also interested in the physical actions of others. Much has been written about mirror neurons, and brain researchers at the university of Californialos Angeles have proposed that mirror neuron systems play a Critical Role in recognizing the needs of others. We flinch when we see someone injured on the street, and we feel deep sympathy for the trials of characters in film and theater. Why . Because our brain physically recreates the experience as though it were our own. Mirror neurons not only are the fundamental mechanism by which we feel empathy, but also play a role in socalled theory of mind, enabling us to recognize that other people have ideas and desires distinct from our own. The brains penchant to recreate observed actions helps researchers. As the monkey watched the arm grab a piece of food, the animals motor neurons began firing as though it were grabbing the food. Meanwhile, schwartz and his colleagues used the information to build the computer algorithm that associates specific neural firing patterns with particular movements. The algorithmic association grew stronger. Eventually, they began to dial down their control of the arm, blending automatic control with signals from the animals motor cortex. The monkey had partial command of the arm, but the scientists could still correct its movements. If the arm began to go wildly off course, they had effectively given the monkey training wheels, encouraging it to move the arm but constricting the Arms Movement from side to side. It was a synergy between animal and algorithm. The computer was learning to better interpret the monkeys neural cold. Code. Resulting paper published in 2008 was a watershed moment for the lab. Cbs 60 minutes came calling, the story landed on the front page of the New York Times and was picked up by countless other news organizations. Schwartz had clearly knocked it out of the park, and his lab was inundated with interview requests. It was a gratifying moment for schwartz but not a comfortable one. I hated it, i could never express what i wanted to express. All i could say is selffeeding, yeah, they can grasp pieces of food and bring it to their mouth, he said. You end up telling the same damn thing over and over. Still schwartz, who was undeniable my proud of the work, hed shown proof of principle. Not only could a monkey gain elegant, continuous control over a robot pardon arm, but use it o perform a regular task. It was the underlying science that most excited schwartz. Brain computer interfaces were pointing to foundational principles of brain function. They were telling him things about how the brain learns, even thought itself. I always laugh when psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists who say theyre going to study thinking, i say, can you define that for me . If i i were going to poke one of my electrodes in a brain and find a thought, how would i know if i found it . They cant even define the necessary parameters of thought, so how am i supposed to find it . He could use, he could use to test the accuracy of his model. We can prove how well it works because we can look at the movement or the performance. You cant do that if you say, oh, thought takes electricity and some chemicals. Wheres your model, he said . But i can say based on my model, my hypothesis, my subject can do this. Ill stop there. [laughter] so [applause] so that is, the book has many, there are many different labs, and there are many different researchers who all kind of, you know, circle about each other like, you know, the big dogs that they are. Andy schwartz is, he plays a big role in it, and hes really done terrific work. A lot of these guys are doing terrific work. So if you guys have any questions, id be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. Mr. Garrison. Howd you get these people to give you time . You mentioned that so many of them are, you know, such big fish and have, you know, so many responsibilities and so much money, and other people are trying to interview them. How did you get them to give you that time, and was there anyone, was there any one of those, like, big fish that you couldnt get and wouldnt give you the time . Persistence, groveling, whiskey. That was [laughter] no. I mean, it was a lot of persistence. I mean, i called these guys again and again and again. And if you never get them. You always get, you know, the flunkie, or you get the secretary, or you get someone else. I stalked some of them. I would go to the conferences and, you know, grab them by the lapels and be like, we need to talk, i have these questions for you. At one point with mr. Schwartz, i drove out to pittsburgh to meet his big research subject, the one that id been promised to see, but darpa was in town. And is so when i arrived, they so when i arrived, they turned me away and said, no, you just have to go home now. So i did that. It was, i mean, it was a lot of persistence. It was a lot of emails, it was a lot of skypeing, it was a lot of traveling. Yeah, there were some people that i really wanted to speak with that, you know, some a lot of these guys, i mean, its interesting. A lot of them have these kind of archetypal personalities, and some of them are kind of the classic scientist. They dontreally want to engage with the public. Theyre very interested in their research. You know, one of the researchers whos one of thwarts counterparts schwartzs counterparts very early on repeatedly told me he just wouldnt talk to me. At a certain point, i had to respect that. Theres this kind of great sifting that happens. And, you know, at a certain point i had to say, well, ive got this story and this story and this story. You know, i mean, with eric luthhart, i would have gone much further with him, but he was taking one of his technologies, he was forming a private company around thats actually doing quite well now. And one of the funders for that company at one point in no Uncertain Terms told me to leave her life, and it was over at that point. You know, so i really had to kind of, i had to kind of in some respects, i had to follow the story and go with the story that i had. You know, i mean, eric does so many Different Things that i was able to concentrate on one area but not the other. So, you know, it was, it was persistence in a lot of ways. Well, i know theres a lot of work being done on prosthetics. I havent read your book, but is there coverage of what you might call the more cutting edge stuff . Eric alludes to this a hot in his a lot in his public lectures, in terms of physical immortality and space travel and all this stuff, the implications of the fundamental problem impacting the human brain, does your book deal with any of that kind of stuff . It sort of does. I mean, its all the in the mix, in a sense, and a lot of people like eric im sure youre familiar with miguel and that case you know, theyre futurists. And theyre as interested in, they are as interested in helping people medically and getting people kind of to normal as they are in putting google in your brain, you know . And having a neurallyimplanted, you know, car or motorcycle or what have you. Theyre very interested in that field. You know, one thing that miguels work really speaks to on a Science Fiction level is, you know, hes talking about, you know, having this braintobrain interface, you know . And at that point, you know, his Research Really presses up against our notions of biology and our notions of self, you know . So you have this, you know, we have these ideas about what makes a human and, you know, kind of the biological confines of humanity and our own personalities. You know, when miguel starts talking about linking the brains of multiple humans into a cyborg network, you know, hes very quick to say, you know, what sort of a consciousness emerges from that . What sort of computational model emerges from that . And the truth is we have no idea, and we cant know, and maybe we cant even understand it because were not smart enough. Maybe there is some other type of consciousness that emerges from, you know, these linked consciousnesses that at point we are deaf to or blind to [inaudible] eric said in one of his lectures that the google thing, which is a relatively simple project, is, like, 24 years away, thimblesized device, 24 7 access to the internet right there just by thinking about it. He said two to four years. [laughter] erics an optimistism. [laughter] optimist. I mean, hes a professional optimist. You know, i mean, what were going to be able to do, i mean, there are at this moment, and i thought of bringing one of these in, but you can buy off the shelf everything eg and, you know eeg, but eeg is always going to be a somewhat limited interface. I mean, eeg is going to have all of these various muscular artifacts, and you dont know necessarily youre getting neural information. You know, i think that the day when were lining up for outpatient implants, thats a little ways away. So, i mean, yeah, there are i mean, you can play, you can control drones with your brain today. You can control, you know, i mean, erics lab has created an app for your iphone where you can play, i think its called brain copter, you know . So its already out there in a lot of ways. You know, its utility remains unclear, i think. You know, in some ways the consumer models at this point remain kind of baubles, i would say. But, you know, its, i think that you look at where the technologys going, and, you know, i think where people really are most excited is, you know, a lot of people are interested in the Science Fiction area of it, for sure. Was it challenging to distill down all the very scientific language into a book that was more accessible for your average reader . [laughter] no. [laughter] not at all. , no i mean, you know, im not a scientist. It was a, you know, it was a steep, steep learning curve. I was reading nature articles, i was reading science articles. And to not only understand the science, but to understand the science to a point where you can actually explain it in a dramatic, interesting way. Not even, not necessarily even dramatic, but that you can explain it in simple terms that, you know, people can understand, and their eyes wont glaze over while theyre doing it. Yeah, that was a big challenge, you know . And so there was a lot of, you know, and you learn to read the articles, ask you learn to read and also, i mean, its interesting, because when you first start, theres so much hyperbole in the Science Press about bci, and, you know, these studies come out, and you really, i mean, you know, a hot of people in the press just say, oh, my, look what they did. But they dont know how to read the study. So you look at the study, and its claims, and its methodologies are much more modest than it might appear at first glance. And is so you start to actually really understand the limitations of what these people are doing as well. So it was a steep learning curve on that, for sure. In the back. So were there things that through your research that you learned or were observing that you found sort of challenged what you called to be your inner morals around the research that was happening that they were doing or anything like that . Hike what did you find like what did you find sort of challenging . Well, you know, it would be, i mean, it is, i mean, you know, when you go into the monkey labs and you see, you know, its not, it canning be challenging to see it can be challenging to see the animal models. And a lot of them are working in animal models. I found, i didnt i wasnt as concerned by that as i thought i would be. You know . Because most of these animals, i mean, granted, theyre research animals. But theyre, i mean, in that realm they are, you know, well cared for, groomed, they seem, you know, i mean, i didnt spend a lot of time i mean, i didnt spend a lot of cage time with them [laughter] but, you know, i mean, no, it is a big question, and people get very worried about it. And i think, you know, and its a legitimate debate. I mean, you know, to this day, you know, washu does not publish the address of its Animal Research house. You know . And that is challenging to me. I mean, the other thing that was challenging to me was, you know, working with one person in particular, you know, who really did believe that these technologies would help him, you know . And didnt have, you know, he didnt think that this necessarily would help him immediately, but he was doing it with the expectation that, you know, somewhere down the road he would be first in line. And that was challenging because, you know, im certain that the researchers have many long conversations with him trying to temper his expectations of what was possible. And yet it didnt completely sink in. And so theres a certain kind of shared delusion, you know, that goes on that is not entirely comfortable. Other thing that im not entirely comfortable with is the patent thing. I mean, you know, many, most of these people have i mean, theres one guy at one point everything in the book eric in the book says, you know, everything between the brain and the skulker thats me, you know . [laughter] and theres another man in the book has a patent on all bci. So when you start getting into questions of, you know, privatizing these technologies and privatizing the brain in that way, you know, it becomes, it becomes a question. And im not saying it shouldnt happen that way necessarily. But i am saying that there is, it becomes a question, for sure. Do any of them see each other . [inaudible] off the record [laughter] no, i dont think none of them have sued. There havent been any lawsuits. There have been threats of lawsuits between two top researchers, and it had to do with the formation of signer kinetics cyber kinetics which was the first, it was a bci group or company that was trying to privatize and create what they called braingate. And one of researchers felt that all of this had been in the public realm and was, and then they moved to patent it and form this company, and he threatened to sue but never did. Yeah. But you talk about the patients i assume were talking about patients who expect more than theyre going to get out of the process. I would say that was one person, but okay. Yeah, yeah. Because i got the idea that people did benefit from it. I think they, you know, i think they do. I mean, thats the other, thats the flip side of this. You know, particularly i think jan sherman and another person in the book, you know . But jan particularly. She was raised catholic, and, you know, and the idea of service and just kind of helping others was instilled in her from a very, very young age. I mean, her big cause was hunger, and she would work in soup kitchens and donate canned goods and all of this stuff. And when she and she has, she suffers a very rare disease that has, you know, deep its very slow, i mean, i guess very faction neuron death. And over the course of three years she became completely paralyzed. And became, you know, despondent. And part of that was she felt she was a burden on others, and she felt that she was, you know, completely, you know, she was a burden to her family, she couldnt help anyone anymore. Even if she wanted to volunteer, she would have to have somebody volunteer so shed have to be it would be an imp position on anyone imposition on anyone to help. So she became suicidal. And this research, and shes very clear that this research is not going to help her immediately. But the very idea that this is actually going to help future generations of the disabled, you know, has given her such spiritual solace and has really kind of reignited, i mean, shes, you know, she it has given her a renewed meaning and spiritual dimension to her life that for a long time i think that she felt that god had kind of abandoned her. And so in that respect, i mean, i dont know that thats quantifiable, but its a real benefit, i think. She lives a meaningful life. Yes. Have you thought or in your Research Found if this is some poll tibs involved politics involved in this now, especially in the more practical dimensions of, you know, being able to hook up your brain to help paraplegics with all the people who are coming back from combat now, is there more money for it . Is there more just on that . Well, i think, there are a couple things. Yes, theres more money for it. One is jeffrey ling who is kind of driving force. Hes a real force of nature. Hes in the book. He is, hes really kind of the one who spearheaded the revolutionizing prosthetics program. He was in the army for a very long time and then was recruited into darpa which is kind of rare. And served two tours in iraq, and, you know, came back and saw, you know, one in afghanistan, one in iraq, and came back and saw several people with amputations. And some of them were, you know, from leftover mines from russia. Some of them were from combat. And he came back and really felt that and he was also trained as a neurologist and came back and felt he was dutybound really to make these kids whole again. And, you know, these are one of the problems with upper limb process three cease is the lower limb is largely [inaudible] and the leg is not a simple, its not a simple prosthetic, but its much, its much easier, its a much easier engineering challenge to craft a prosthetic leg than an arm, because an arm moves in free space, and it hangs you know, it has all of these various challenges including Something Like 26 degrees of freedom versus i think nine in the leg. And, you know, the market share for upper arm prostheses is almost nonexistent because theres so many, you know, people that have amputated legs, that has moved forward. But when somebodys looking at r d to create an upper limb prosthesis, they look at the population of people that would actually benefit this, in other words, buy it, and they say, you know, its not we will not be able to get a reasonable return on our investment. And thats where darpa really stepped in. And so, you know, in that respect, and, you know, in that respect i think its politics kind of broadly spoken really did inform this. And, you know, as well, i mean, obama just in 2013 with the brain initiative, i mean, there is, theres a lot more money for brain machine interfaces than there has been in a long time these days. Yes. So this being new technology, have they decided how theyre going to regulate it yet, you know, in the sense of as it becomes, if it becomes more you ubiquitous and more people utilize it, is it going to be looked at in a different way, or, and could that be burdensome for people down the road, could it become something that people look at and it seems a little [inaudible] right. Well, right now i think, i mean, that was one so with luthharts company, for instance, most implants, most of the many implants actually puncture the brain and actually go into the brain itself. And that is a really intense regulatory process, to get the fda to approve that sort of an implant. Where eric was able to kind of sidestep that entire equation was by using a type of implant that doesnt actually pierce the brain, it sits atop the brain. And its part of a twostep epilepsy surgery procedure. So, you know, when they create they do the craniotomy, place the electrodes on the brain and then wait for the person to have seizures to localize the seizure. And during that time he creates these brain computer interfaces. So he hasnt had to really deal with that sort of Regulatory Framework in that regard. You know, Going Forward if this were to become a privatized, an actual commercial device which he has every intention to do, i think that would then become, i mean, at this point hes working with eeg, hes not working with if he were to try to get into actual brain implants that were ecog implants, i think there would be a lot more regulatory hurdles to jump before he got there. But at this point, you know, hes done a couple of studies with it, and very few of these, there are very few implants that have actually, you know, made that leap. Actually, you know, there is one thats called neuropace that is, its actually kind of debrain stimulation, but what it does is delivers a small volt of electricity to bypass epileptic seizures. And then theres deep brain timlation as well. Which, you know, which are stimulation as well. Which are, you know, it has to pass fda approval like anything else. But that would obviously be a challenge. Any be other questions . Yes, sir. Whos funding all this . A lot of it is being funded by the military. A lot of its being funded by the department of defense. You know, the National Science Foundation Funds quite a bit of it, the federal government. But a lot of it is being funded by the military. And, you know, i think in past iterations of this, of these research initiatives, you know, theyve in their statements said they want to, you know, effectively build better, stronger, faster, smarter soldiers. Thats kind of fallen by the wayside with bci particularly. Theyre really, at this point theyre really interested in kind of the basic science of getting the motor system up and running, and theyre not i mean, there have been programs in the past where they tried to, you know, neurally link Fighter Pilots to their cockpits and use bcis to help people having enhanced cognition during periods of prolonged sleep deprivation. There have been these kind of scary big brother questions. But, i mean, these days its at least with the revolution in the prosthetics program, its really about getting these guys back to normal. Yes, sir. Is it likely that Insurance Companies in ten years will be willing to pay for you to get a new arm if you get in an accident or are injured . I imagine the the stuff is fairly expensive. It will be hugely expensive. You know, i dont know. I couldnt really answer. I mean, i dont know. I mean, i dont know exactly if obamacare would cover that. Did your Research Really stay within the eyes . A lot of those within the United States . A lot of those names you were talking about theres kind of a continental divide, kind of an atlantic divide. Most of the people that are working invasively, meaning theyre actually accessing the brain directly, are in the United States. In europe its much more everything more eeg. I spoke with people in edge land. I kind of stayed away from eeg, so i didnt really talk to to too many europeans or people that are based in europe. Several europeans are, you know, working here in the United States and working, including phil kennedy who made news recently. This is one of these things where i wish that the book were coming out a little later. He went to, i believe it was belize, and had surgery done upon himself to implant electrodes in his own brain. So he could study himself. Yeah. So, i mean, it really takes all kinds. [laughter] and just to follow that up, because youre saying here its primarily defenseoriented, whatever were going to use it for eventually, thinking about stronger powers abroad, are there some that are doing it more than others . Theres a lot of interest in germany, theres a lot of interest in england and in france. I mean, those three countries have a fairly robust bci labs. You know, and the italian labs were huge in terms of, i mean, really foundational things with the entire group of researchers that came that kind of created that or uncovered this idea of mirror neurons. So [inaudible] [laughter] buy the book. [laughter] read it immediately. Yeah, yo. You know, that was, thats a great question, and it was one of the questions when i was kind of talking about how i but thinking about writing this book, one reason why i really didnt want to do a, you know, kind of, just try to kind of catalog everything is because every two weeks theres a, you know, theres a huge advance. And so i really tried to concentrate on, you know, kind of the underlying science, the core technologies, the core, you know, and the core drama. You know, in terms of incremental, in terms of incremental advancements, you know, theyre happening every day. But in terms of the broader arc of the story, i mean, the reason i wrote it the way i did and the reason i concentrated so kind of closely on the motor system is because i think, terrible pun about to come, it had legs, you know . [laughter] so that was, yeah. So my hope is that it will be germane for years to come. So, well, if there are no other questions, thank you all. Wonderful to see you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Heres a look at whats on prime time tonight. We kick off the evening at 7 15 p. M. Eastern with ryan owens. The university of wisconsin professor explains the role of the office of the solicitor general in the supreme court. Then at 7 45 Roger Lowen Steven takes a look at the creation of the federal reserve. And at 8 45, women in leadership. And at 10, mei fong sits down for booktvs after Words Program to talk about chinas recently discontinued onechild policy. And directly following after words at 11, David Bernstein argues that the Obama Administration has undermined the constitution. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. Kris paranto and mark geist were members of the Annex Security Team stationed in benghazi, libya, on september 11, 2012. Booktv interviewed the two men about their book, 13 hours, which has been made into a movie being released this weekend. What was the Security Threat at that time . Well, benghazi itself was a lawless city. I mean, it was part of a country that had a government, but the only place that government had any effective control was in tripoli. Outside of the greater tripoli area, it didnt have any control whatsoever. When i first got there, you never even saw police cars around. Everything was controlled by the militia. About 15 days before 9 11 when the attack happened, you started seeing some police cars, but even the policemen would answer to the militias. They worked for the government, but they would answer to the militia. Its high threat environment just like afghanistan, just like iraq. Its, you know, that day being 9 11 more threatening, thats a better question or an answer for it. Its always a threatening environment every day that youre there, especially in the areas like that that dont have a solid government. So, yeah, its very dangerous, but thats why were there. Thats why they bring us in. How Many American security personnel such as yourselves and, you know, Diplomatic Security, there was grs thats us. And then there were some cia folks, correct . Cia cia. Yes. Yeah. Weve got the diplomat security officers, which there were about six of them. Six. Six. And then there was us. Were the Security Team and grs stands for . Global response staff. Okay. There was six of us. And the actual cia staff personnel, nonshooters is what we call em, 18, 18, 19 of them as well. Less than 25. And was that a normal staff for a diplomatic compound such as this . For us, yeah. Like for the annex, theres never a normal staff. And, i mean, it just or varies on the location and what help they need support, things like that. The consulate now, i am, ive been in, oh, probably in my 30 years of being in the military and contracting 15, 20 different countries, and at the complexes or embassies ive been to, having five Diplomatic Security personnel only is not normal. Its not its a low number . Its a very low number. Especially with no other security on their site. I mean, they had five libyan guards that were hired, and from february 17 [inaudible] brigade, but that was it. And youre guarding eight acres. It was odd. And not, in my opinion, ive worked state department contracts prior to cia contracts, and it was very low. Very, very undermanned, especially with the high ranking ambassador like ambassador stephens. It was odd. It seemed odd to us. Watch the full interview on our web site, booktv. Org. Heres a look at some of the current best selling nonfiction books at politics prose bookstore in washington d. C. Topping the list, Jacob Weisberg looks at the career of the 40th president of the United States in ronald reagan. In getting real, Gretchen Carlson recounts the challenges shes faced as a woman in broadcast television. Former meet the press moderator David Gregory describes his spiritual journey in hows your faith . And in city of thorns, ben rollins explores the Worlds Largest refugee camp in northern kenya, hope to 500,000 people. Our look at the best selling nonfiction books at washington, d. C. s politics prose bookstore continues with taan niece city coats and a look at the current state of black america in between the world and me. In wired to create, Huffington Post Senior Writer carolyn gregoir and psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman examine the sources of creativity. Eric wiener looks at the history of regions around the world to explore the relationship between natural features and innovative ideas in the geography of genius. And in spqr, historian mary beard provides a history of ancient rome. Thats a look at some of the current nonfiction bestsellers according to politics prose bookstore in washington d. C. Many of these authors have appeared or will be appearing on booktv. You can watch them on our web site, booktv. Org