full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Elliot Krane: The mystery of chronic pain

Unscramble the Blue Letters

But the situation, of course, in the human body is far more complicated than that. Instead of it being the case that that jucntoin box in the spinal cord is just simple where one nerve connects with the next nerve by relsianeg these little borwn packets of chemical information called nriermsntatoreuts in a lniear one-on-one fosahin, in fact, what happens is the neurotransmitters spill out in three dimensions — laterally, vertically, up and down in the spinal cord — and they start interacting with other adjacent cells. These clles, called glial cells, were once thought to be unimportant structural elements of the spinal cord that did nothing more than hold all the important things together, like the nerves. But it turns out the glial cells have a vital role in the modulation, amplification and, in the case of pain, the distortion of sensory experiences. These glial cells become acevtiatd. Their DNA starts to sznsheytie new proteins, which spill out and interact with adjacent nerves, and they srtat releasing their neurotransmitters, and those neurotransmitters spill out and activate adjacent glial cells, and so on and so forth, until what we have is a positive feedback loop.

Open Cloze

But the situation, of course, in the human body is far more complicated than that. Instead of it being the case that that ________ box in the spinal cord is just simple where one nerve connects with the next nerve by _________ these little _____ packets of chemical information called _________________ in a ______ one-on-one _______, in fact, what happens is the neurotransmitters spill out in three dimensions — laterally, vertically, up and down in the spinal cord — and they start interacting with other adjacent cells. These _____, called glial cells, were once thought to be unimportant structural elements of the spinal cord that did nothing more than hold all the important things together, like the nerves. But it turns out the glial cells have a vital role in the modulation, amplification and, in the case of pain, the distortion of sensory experiences. These glial cells become _________. Their DNA starts to __________ new proteins, which spill out and interact with adjacent nerves, and they _____ releasing their neurotransmitters, and those neurotransmitters spill out and activate adjacent glial cells, and so on and so forth, until what we have is a positive feedback loop.

Solution

  1. activated
  2. fashion
  3. junction
  4. cells
  5. releasing
  6. start
  7. brown
  8. neurotransmitters
  9. linear
  10. synthesize

Original Text

But the situation, of course, in the human body is far more complicated than that. Instead of it being the case that that junction box in the spinal cord is just simple where one nerve connects with the next nerve by releasing these little brown packets of chemical information called neurotransmitters in a linear one-on-one fashion, in fact, what happens is the neurotransmitters spill out in three dimensions — laterally, vertically, up and down in the spinal cord — and they start interacting with other adjacent cells. These cells, called glial cells, were once thought to be unimportant structural elements of the spinal cord that did nothing more than hold all the important things together, like the nerves. But it turns out the glial cells have a vital role in the modulation, amplification and, in the case of pain, the distortion of sensory experiences. These glial cells become activated. Their DNA starts to synthesize new proteins, which spill out and interact with adjacent nerves, and they start releasing their neurotransmitters, and those neurotransmitters spill out and activate adjacent glial cells, and so on and so forth, until what we have is a positive feedback loop.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
nervous system 7
junction box 4
spinal cord 4
chronic pain 3
glial cells 3
worst part 2
neurotransmitters spill 2
sensory experiences 2

Important Words

  1. activate
  2. activated
  3. adjacent
  4. amplification
  5. body
  6. box
  7. brown
  8. called
  9. case
  10. cells
  11. chemical
  12. complicated
  13. connects
  14. cord
  15. dimensions
  16. distortion
  17. dna
  18. elements
  19. experiences
  20. fact
  21. fashion
  22. feedback
  23. glial
  24. hold
  25. human
  26. important
  27. information
  28. interact
  29. interacting
  30. junction
  31. laterally
  32. linear
  33. loop
  34. modulation
  35. nerve
  36. nerves
  37. neurotransmitters
  38. packets
  39. pain
  40. positive
  41. proteins
  42. releasing
  43. role
  44. sensory
  45. simple
  46. situation
  47. spill
  48. spinal
  49. start
  50. starts
  51. structural
  52. synthesize
  53. thought
  54. turns
  55. unimportant
  56. vertically
  57. vital