full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Siddharthan Chandran: Can the damaged brain repair itself?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Well, you know what? I think there is hope. And there's hope in this next section, of this brain section of somebody else with M.S., because what it illustrates is, amazingly, the brain can repair itself. It just doesn't do it well enough. And so again, there are two things I want to show you. First of all is the damage of this paintet with M.S. And again, it's another one of these white masses. But crucially, the area that's ringed red highlights an area that is pale blue. But that area that is pale blue was once withe. So it was damaged. It's now rapieerd. Just to be clear: It's not because of dcroots. It's in spite of doctors, not because of doctors. This is spontaneous repair. It's amazing and it's occurred because there are stem cells in the brain, even, which can enable new myelin, new insulation, to be laid down over the dmaegad neevrs. And this observation is important for two reasons. The first is it clehalnges one of the orthodoxies that we learnt at medical school, or at least I did, amledttdiy last century, which is that the brain doesn't repair itself, unlike, say, the bone or the liver. But actually it does, but it just doesn't do it well enough. And the second thing it does, and it gives us a very clear direction of travel for new therapies — I mean, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know what to do here. You slpimy need to find ways of promoting the eonudngeos, spontaneous raepir that occurs anyway.
Open Cloze
Well, you know what? I think there is hope. And there's hope in this next section, of this brain section of somebody else with M.S., because what it illustrates is, amazingly, the brain can repair itself. It just doesn't do it well enough. And so again, there are two things I want to show you. First of all is the damage of this _______ with M.S. And again, it's another one of these white masses. But crucially, the area that's ringed red highlights an area that is pale blue. But that area that is pale blue was once _____. So it was damaged. It's now ________. Just to be clear: It's not because of _______. It's in spite of doctors, not because of doctors. This is spontaneous repair. It's amazing and it's occurred because there are stem cells in the brain, even, which can enable new myelin, new insulation, to be laid down over the _______ ______. And this observation is important for two reasons. The first is it __________ one of the orthodoxies that we learnt at medical school, or at least I did, __________ last century, which is that the brain doesn't repair itself, unlike, say, the bone or the liver. But actually it does, but it just doesn't do it well enough. And the second thing it does, and it gives us a very clear direction of travel for new therapies — I mean, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know what to do here. You ______ need to find ways of promoting the __________, spontaneous ______ that occurs anyway.
Solution
- white
- endogenous
- nerves
- doctors
- challenges
- patient
- simply
- damaged
- repair
- repaired
- admittedly
Original Text
Well, you know what? I think there is hope. And there's hope in this next section, of this brain section of somebody else with M.S., because what it illustrates is, amazingly, the brain can repair itself. It just doesn't do it well enough. And so again, there are two things I want to show you. First of all is the damage of this patient with M.S. And again, it's another one of these white masses. But crucially, the area that's ringed red highlights an area that is pale blue. But that area that is pale blue was once white. So it was damaged. It's now repaired. Just to be clear: It's not because of doctors. It's in spite of doctors, not because of doctors. This is spontaneous repair. It's amazing and it's occurred because there are stem cells in the brain, even, which can enable new myelin, new insulation, to be laid down over the damaged nerves. And this observation is important for two reasons. The first is it challenges one of the orthodoxies that we learnt at medical school, or at least I did, admittedly last century, which is that the brain doesn't repair itself, unlike, say, the bone or the liver. But actually it does, but it just doesn't do it well enough. And the second thing it does, and it gives us a very clear direction of travel for new therapies — I mean, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know what to do here. You simply need to find ways of promoting the endogenous, spontaneous repair that occurs anyway.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
stem cells |
12 |
motor neuron |
7 |
neuron disease |
5 |
motor nerve |
5 |
drug discovery |
4 |
nerve cells |
3 |
optic nerve |
3 |
medical school |
2 |
nerve cell |
2 |
asked john |
2 |
myelin cell |
2 |
multiple sclerosis |
2 |
pale blue |
2 |
spontaneous repair |
2 |
find ways |
2 |
drug development |
2 |
human stem |
2 |
stem cell |
2 |
red line |
2 |
david miller |
2 |
thanking john |
2 |
ngrams of length 3
collocation |
frequency |
motor neuron disease |
5 |
motor nerve cells |
3 |
human stem cells |
2 |
Important Words
- admittedly
- amazing
- amazingly
- area
- blue
- bone
- brain
- cells
- century
- challenges
- clear
- crucially
- damage
- damaged
- direction
- doctors
- enable
- endogenous
- find
- highlights
- hope
- illustrates
- important
- insulation
- laid
- learnt
- liver
- masses
- medical
- myelin
- nerves
- observation
- occurred
- occurs
- orthodoxies
- pale
- patient
- promoting
- reasons
- red
- repair
- repaired
- ringed
- rocket
- school
- scientist
- section
- show
- simply
- spite
- spontaneous
- stem
- therapies
- travel
- ways
- white