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

  1. white
  2. endogenous
  3. nerves
  4. doctors
  5. challenges
  6. patient
  7. simply
  8. damaged
  9. repair
  10. repaired
  11. 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

  1. admittedly
  2. amazing
  3. amazingly
  4. area
  5. blue
  6. bone
  7. brain
  8. cells
  9. century
  10. challenges
  11. clear
  12. crucially
  13. damage
  14. damaged
  15. direction
  16. doctors
  17. enable
  18. endogenous
  19. find
  20. highlights
  21. hope
  22. illustrates
  23. important
  24. insulation
  25. laid
  26. learnt
  27. liver
  28. masses
  29. medical
  30. myelin
  31. nerves
  32. observation
  33. occurred
  34. occurs
  35. orthodoxies
  36. pale
  37. patient
  38. promoting
  39. reasons
  40. red
  41. repair
  42. repaired
  43. ringed
  44. rocket
  45. school
  46. scientist
  47. section
  48. show
  49. simply
  50. spite
  51. spontaneous
  52. stem
  53. therapies
  54. travel
  55. ways
  56. white