March Special - Episode#23 Neurotechnology – Dr. Sharena Rice

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 0:08

Hello, everyone to another episode of Nerdrx podcast and I'm your host Barkha. And today is a monthly special where we are going to cover something out of the box. And for today's episode, we are focusing on neuro technology. And to talk more about it, we have Dr. Serena Reiss, welcome Serena to the show.

Dr. Sharena Rice: 0:30

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 0:32

Well, I'm so happy, you could be here. And first, before we talk about neuro technology, we would love to know more about you. And I'm guessing your journey is a little unconventional. So tell us more about that.

Dr. Sharena Rice: 0:49

Yeah, I'm come from the world of neuroscience. But before that, I'm from a small liberal arts college where we only had one neuroscience class that was even offered in the whole school, one person who even taught neuroscience. And so I had to find a way into this field partly because there was not really an option to major in neuroscience where I was or minor in it or anything like that. Rather, it was a matter of, okay, I was majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in philosophy and psychology, and found that all of these things connected with each other within matters of thought, and what better to put together matters of thoughts than pursuing further studies in neuroscience. So then, I went to the University of Michigan for a post baccalaureate research education program that the NIH funds for underrepresented minorities. And I found myself really enjoying the research there. I was like a kid in a candy shop going from a place with one neuroscience professor who only took a vote who only taught one class every year, two years to, to being in a school with over 120 faculty in it. Wow. So then there were all of these wonderful machines around and there is there was more of a green pasture. The sense of there was a lot to possibly do the latest techniques and a great place to do it. So I decided to go there for a PhD program in neuroscience, which is fantastic because they accepted me to their program. And during grad school, I was working on brain rhythms in neural circuits in Omar Achmed slab back when it was a brand new lab, where Omar when he first showed us the lab, it was empty rooms and dreams. So it was a matter of building a lot of things from scratch, looking into literature to find out what had been validated so far as processes. But also there was a sense of we can look into new things given that this was a new lab. Then we we looked into a place of the brain called the retrosplenial cortex, which is known as the in association cortex in the brain. Not that it has a particular function in the sense of the auditory cortex processes, auditory information. And the visual cortex is known very much to process visual information. And these things are broad brushstrokes, but specifically the retro Lenio cortex, one of the things that it does is it is like a bridge between the outer world and the inner world in terms of how these things are integrated. So we can't navigate around and find our place where we're moving without it. So it's essential for successful spatial navigation. We discovered and characterized a new brainwave that's called splines. And I did a lot of the mouse experiments for it. It was it was good. At the same time, there was often this sense of what are you going to do afterwards? And I always or I often thought that it would be doing something in research and development within the neuroscience space. And I eventually found a way in neurotech to do that.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 4:33

Okay, how was it working in a new lab? Like when you enter like you mentioned, it's just empty rooms and you know, you start with everything so how was that was it difficult or it was because you know, sometimes when it's a new lab, you can begin in your way as compared to you know, what things are like already established in labs, you then follow the protocols, but here you had the opportunity to make broad Calls wasn't difficult.

Dr. Sharena Rice: 5:03

Yeah, there are some ways in which it was difficult, because it's not like, there was already all the experiments set up in place. And having every machine already working and ways to debug them that are specific to that machine as it was, because people had already worked that stuff out. Rather, sometimes it was a matter of waiting for parts to come in the mail. Sometimes it was a matter of waiting for the box to be built in some ways, but also, at the same time working on building a whole nother thing. And so it has its own challenges. But at the same time, this kind of situation of being in a new place and doing something new, it excites some people. And so it really excited me. I found that building things and fixing things was it was at least as rewarding as finding the muse.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 6:01

Absolutely. A little birdie told me that you play three to four instruments?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 6:11

Yes, that is true. I started with the oboe because I heard that it was the hardest one. So if you start with that first, then well playing the saxophone and the clarinet and the English foreign, they are all substantially easier than if I started on those. So it is, I think that especially when it came to playing the oboe, a lot of the processes, they reminded me of the sense of quality control that is needed to do things like make electrodes in the lab. So then, with making an oboe Reed, you have to measure the cane, which is some bamboo that has been aged in a certain process. And Thai thing is with thread, and carved things out with a knife and a mandrel. And so with the specialization of tools to make a sound, going from that to doing things like making new small implants of very customized drives to measure from several different parts of the brain at once, in grad school, it was quite similar.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 7:20

So you did that in grad school, like you learn instruments then or when you were younger.

Dr. Sharena Rice: 7:27

They were young. That was when I was younger when I was in middle school and high school and undergrad.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 7:33

Okay. So let's talk about neuro technology. You know, I'm a neuroscientist, but as you know, there are like so many different areas of neuroscience like clinical, social and cognitive behavior, I'm into behavioral neuroscience. So what is neuro technology?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 7:54

Neuro technology is about applications of neuroscience, to create something that people can use, I would say that that is the broad brushstroke of what the field is. So then technology is about application, usability, how this stuff actually affects people's lives. And the sense of there are products that are being developed, rather than just science that is being developed.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 8:31

So how could you give us a few examples of these products that are they on the market or they're still in the trial phases?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 8:41

It depends on which one you're talking about. Okay, because some neuro technologies, they are on the market. So almost anyone, if they have the funds, they can go and buy an EuroCity crayon and measure their own EEG signals. Or they can buy some tools from breath, Backyard Brains and do some prototyping at home or do some home science experiments. Similarly, there are various other things that have measured brainwaves and allowed people to do things like levitate a little orb like the Star Wars thing that you do exist on the market. That I think neuro sky was the company that made that and so there are a lot of things that have come to exist on the consumer side, but of course there is this matter of but in a biomedical technology, how may this affect people? It does in everyday things like for Parkinson's patients, a lot of people they benefit from deep brain stimulation. So there are deep brain stimulators that are implanted into them and help them with tremors. There are a Also a lot of other devices that exist, both in development and also in people's bodies such as spinal cord stimulators that help with chronic pain. And then there are yet other applications of neuro technologies such as the development of MRI techniques or the development of EEG techniques, developments of various things that allow for neuro imaging or the ability to read out neural activity.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 10:31

Okay, so what is your role like your current role in the field of neuro technology?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 10:38

Currently, I am a research scientist. And I am not allowed to say very much about what I am doing in terms of what my company's indications are, but working on clinical trials, paperwork, having the documentation in order, communicating between people designing research studies, working with machines,

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 11:08

right, so, how was your transition? Because you did your PhD in neuroscience, but I'm assuming, like you mentioned, you did a lot of animal experiment, mouse experiments. So how did you transition to technology?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 11:22

I think that the divide between Systems Neuroscience, which is what I primarily focused on as a PhD student, at neuro technology, it is quite a similar if trajectory. For Systems Neuroscience, there are plenty of machines to set up and to determine how to work them, especially in a new lab. So in a way, it was almost like neuro technology, but more with a science focus, rather than so much of an applications focus. It's more of okay, how do we determine that this new brain wave is new and a brain wave? And what kinds of experiments can we set up in? In our lab to determine this stuff? Whereas where I am now, it's more of okay. There have been some validations, that this kind of thing can actually be done in humans, and it has been done humans before. But how do we get it to be on a wider scale, it would be really nice to be able to see that people benefit from the works of science, rather than that the science is just cool. But it's not actually benefiting anyone yet, even if it might be able to

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 12:48

like, okay, and I know I saw your posts on LinkedIn, you were at SFM. This year, right? And what is, I think, because you're in this field, I would like to know what is one piece of like, neuro technology that is being studied right now that fascinates you the most, and you would love to see it on the market?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 13:15

Well, that would be the stuff that my company is doing that I'm not allowed to talk about. Yeah. And so, of course, I think it's the most exciting, and that's why I work in it. But we're in stealth mode. This means that we can't say what we're doing. Yeah, of course, you have a bunch of patents that are written. The thing is that you can't patent science. So then for people who are working in neuroscience, they might have papers, they might have some credit for having come up with thing news, or discovered the news or published various research studies. But you can't own science, it's natural law. It's how the world the universe works. But with when it comes to technology, you can't have patents on things, you can be a company that owns that so that other people cannot also go into that and say, You know what you made that saw indicating toothbrush, I'm going to do it too, until 20 years after that patent expires, or 20 years after when that patent expires. And so this matter of being able to own something in a field and to be able to do it in a way that other people are not going to be able to because you own the patent the intellectual property and it's yours. That is somewhat of a different mindset between neuro technology and neuroscience, I think where one of them is primarily about the focus of what exists versus what can we own and what can we particularly create in this field.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 14:55

Okay. So like you mentioned previously, like there have been In neuro technology applications that have been used in Parkinson's patient, right? Do you think it is going to evolve to other neuropsychiatric diseases in the future?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 15:16

Yes. Actually, it already has been. Oh, and, yeah, Abbott, I think this year, what happened was, they determined that deep brain stimulation can be used for depression as well. And there is clinical validity to that.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 15:37

Uh huh. Okay, oh, that's exciting. If we could do something like that. And, again, then these things come onto the market that like really expensive before, it's gonna take years and years that, like, middle class or regular people can have access to those things. But do you think once it's on the market, it's something that a normal person can use it on a daily basis, or, you know, there are certain things like you have to go in patient to get treatment for.

Dr. Sharena Rice: 16:22

When it comes to neuro technology, also, there is this other piece to it, which is thinking about matters of insurance reimbursement, because, yes, middle class people, they can't afford to have a lot of these things within them. Yes, it costs a lot to have these medical devices. But if it's covered by insurance, then it's more okay. And so there are different insurance codes for how much insurance will reimburse for certain technologies that are being used. And when people are developing neuro technologies, then they have to determine what kinds of classifications that they're making within that. And also, if they're making a whole new neuro technology, then it helps if they work with regulators, and determine, Okay, how are these things possibly going to be regulated? And not to run away from the regulations, but rather to work with them? And to determine what is going to be the best way for that kind of technology to exist on the market to help people? And also, what kinds of standards should be put in place for the safety and efficacy? And should we really be concerned about the safety or how effective it is? I guess that it somewhat depends on exactly which application it's for, and what kinds of people this is for, and what the risks are and what the rewards are.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 17:49

Right? Right. Yeah. So I, you might be biased for this question, because you work in the field. So for example, if there is a device that can help with a certain disease, and then there is a pill that helps with the same disease, would you rather take the pill or use the device?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 18:11

Well, it depends on the device versus the pill. I think that if it's if the pill is not addictive, and the device is addictive, then I would probably go with the pill. But the thing is that most devices, they're not addictive, rather, with file electronic medicine, the great thing is that, okay, if the body naturally sends electrical signals, why don't we mimic the electrical signals that would get this to, to perform as we would like it to using that rather than a pharmacological intervention that might have more side effects, for instance, or it may have potential for substance abuse or something like that. So there's that matter. But also, one thing that really resonated with me from the neurotech Leaders Forum that let's see, Victor P. Cough, mentioned was Iran's law. And Erin's law is the opposite of Moore's law, where with Moore's law in computation, every few years computational power doubles. Well, with Aaron's law, when it comes to pharmacological interventions, well, over time, our entity with the money that's put into it, there seems to be diminishing returns. So if you can mitigate that kind of thing from happening with bioelectronic medicine to some extent, and, and putting some focus on there, instead of necessarily on synthesizing more kinds of drugs, which seem to have diminishing returns over time, who then wouldn't you want to invest in bio electrons like medicine?

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 20:01

Yeah. Oh, wow. So you just mentioned something about addiction. So these devices can be addictive.

Dr. Sharena Rice: 20:10

I don't know of any that are addictive, but would it be kind of a bad thing? If, let's say you can push a button and then get zapped to happiness? And then you know, oh, okay, every time I feel sad, then I'm just gonna push this button and be zapped to happiness. Well, that when it comes to the human condition, and all of the layers that that has in society, well, if, if people had no signals that of what is right and what is wrong, or that they did something in some sort of way, but they have no guilt for it, because they pushed a button, and then they feel fine. And then that would be a serious problem. So then we, it helps to think about, okay, what are the implications of the technologies that are being built? How can we promote the use of these in ways that are responsible and the development of them in the first place so that they're responsible?

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 21:10

This exactly sounds like routine self administration experiment, you know, when they push a button, and they get the drug? So do you think neurotech not anytime soon, obviously, like 50 100 deals will ever replace pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Sharena Rice: 21:32

I don't think that it would entirely unless done in a very precise way that works with the mechanism of action. So then if the root cause of something is something that is very much chemical that cannot really be targeted, by electronically, then I think that a drug is probably going to be the best way to work with that. But if the root cause is something that can be mediated with an, a biomedical device, then that might be a thing. But of course, there is this matter of what is the way to deal with it is actually behavioral, or putting the person in a different situation than they currently are. And that changes a lot of things about their life. And so they no longer have some challenges that they had before. I mean, even if you think about a lot of matters of just the human condition, a person who is a complete genius, in one sense, or in one setting, may be a complete flounder in another sense. They're just put in a different environment, let's say that there's too much noise in that environment. And they are not treated very nicely in that environment. I think that a lot of things. They, they need to be an integrated solution in order to truly work kind of like how, if you have a combination lock, and you have two out of the three things, right? For the combination? Well, the lock is not going to unlock for you. You need all three of them in order for it to work and knowing one of the combinations. Well, the numbers for the combination won't work, knowing two of the the things for it is not going to work either. And so this is quite a matter of biomedical science in general, which is that often these things are systems problems, sometimes things happen in a nonlinear way where it's goes from zero to one, a lot of times things are multifactorial to the point of you can study some things and really get the truthiness truth out of a dish. And some things you really have to look at that level of a tissue. And for some things, you really have to look at the person's life and culture and things like that, too.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 24:00

Okay. So you know, my background has completely been like, I am a medicinal chemist, my PhD was in chemistry, but drug addiction again. And then my postdoc is in neuroscience. And the things I'm doing right now, like, particularly this one experiment, the analysis aspect of this experiment requires me to learn Python, which I think I tried, but I don't think it's for me, so, you know, I'm pretty sure when it's technology related, do you have to learn certain languages? Like I'm just trying to think, what are the things that you think that Oh, I wish I knew this before for our listeners who plan to go into neuro and tech, like to give them like some advice?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 24:57

Yeah, I think that it really depends on what that person wants to do in neuro technology? A lot of people they think technology means program. Yeah, okay, that can mean programming. But the thing is that there are a lot of different roles within neuro technology, a person, they, the field, it needs people who know how to do quality control, for instance, and that might require some program and analytics to it. But there also needs to be people who work on clinical trials, which may not involve any programming at all, in which case, it may be a matter of interaction with the patient, administering things in the same way every time asking certain questions in certain ways. And generally having this environment which is consistent between patients and between sessions with the patient, then there is the matter of okay, are they designing experiments, if that's the case, then they might not need to know how to program that much either, they might need to know whether something is hard to implement in code versus easy to implement in code, or what to suggest. That might be a more efficient way of doing things, just from knowing some things about how to program but not necessarily rolling up their sleeves into code on an everyday basis. And then, of course, there are the software engineers. And I think that a lot of people who are in biomedical sciences, they don't know how to program as well as a software engineer can because they're not doing so much programming every day. Otherwise, they might as well have gone to study. So pewter science, or artificial intelligence. And also the, the market does have these kinds of people who can just be hired, especially in industry where there may be the funds to hire the best artificial intelligence people. And people who have substantial amounts of experience with that. So. So then, when it comes to, to what people should know, in order to get into the field, I think that it's the people who are working on this stuff. Because ultimately, it is a field that is a very small field, or a lot of people who have been in it for a long time they know each other because they've been in it for a long time. And because neuroscience or rather neuro technology, it is a fairly new field where a lot of the people who are the early pioneers, they're still alive, or they're still fairly young, or that a lot of things are still emerging. But also with neuro technology, it's not a get rich, quick scheme to the slightest, because people will quite quickly determine whether this is something that is a real technology, versus if it's just a gimmick. I think that it's not quite like just a software product. And you just hope that because you create something that it's going to necessarily work in the same way that that just building an app. But I think that it's important for people in this field in general to know, okay, how does the FDA tend to think about these things? How does the National Institutes of Health, think about the use the news? How do you? How do you create some sort of value, specifically with something that you can particularly do that you have some kind of expertise in, because people who might want to come into this from the outside, they may not know the little details of how to do the science, and how to make it happen. They may think, Oh, of course, you can just put this on this idea into this. But they might find themselves creating a complete pseudo Tech because that doesn't actually solve the problem. Or it, it may solve the problem, or it may seem like a decent idea to solve the problem, but it's not actually compatible with how the body works at all.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 29:21

Right. Wow. Okay, so how about connections? How do you started meeting people in neuro technology? And how did you move ahead from just LinkedIn connections?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 29:36

I think that it wasn't just LinkedIn connections. I think that there were a lot of elements of getting myself into the same rooms as people who are in the neuro tech field. I would say that this really started when I was in the middle of grad school and I received this email that said that IEEE brain was having a neuro tech entrepreneurs were shot. And then I go, Okay, well, I'm a neuroscientist, but I'm going to apply to this thing. Because at the time, I was also an entrepreneur. And I was the co founder and chief scientific officer of info, which was a company that used computer vision to predict pedestrian behavior. And although that's not neuro technology, because we weren't measuring from the nervous system at all, I figured I might as well apply because I am, I am a lot of things that are very immediately adjacent to this neurotech field. All right, I go to this thing I've accepted. I'm one of the 30 people accepted out of the 100 or so that applied, and I just have the best time ever at this workshop. I tried to sit at every table and to talk with every single attendee, there were 30 people who are trainees in the room, and about 30 people who are leaders and professionals and people who work in all kinds of sectors in neuro technology. There were people from DARPA in the room, there were people from big pharmaceutical companies in the room, there were people who had been leading neuro technology companies for years in the room, some consultants, some people who are focused more on leadership, in terms of how to train people in this field, but yes, I, I went into this thing, our team, we, we won first place in the neurotech challenge as well. And I think that it was great, in some senses to be the only neuroscientist I think, who was a trainee in that it seemed that everyone else was an engineer. But that is fine. Because Systems Neuroscience is close enough. Yeah. And having these connections, it was very useful. I connected with every single one of them, who accepted the LinkedIn invite afterwards, but it was almost everyone. And then from that, I could see what what were they paying attention to for years after? What kinds of other opportunities exist? What kinds of things are they going to what kinds of conferences and what kinds of developments have been happening in this field, who earned a patent, who gotten a lawsuit, who was building what and what seemed to be the up and coming things because neuro technology, it is a current that is very current. So from that, I've found myself getting involved in nonprofits. There is a nonprofit called neuro tech x, which is a huge international community of neuro technologists that I wouldn't have known about at all, if I didn't go to that IEEE brain entrepreneurs workshop, the person whom I was teamed up with for the neuro Tech Challenge, he happens to be the founder of it, or the co founder and CEO of neurotech x. And so I learned that the organization existed, I got into their slack, they asked me to give some talk sometimes. So I gave some talks with some neuro tech X events. Then I got to know people. From there. I got to meet someone, whom I eventually became the advisor of the company of who also happened to have been in neuro tech x for some reason. But generally becoming friends with the field of neuro tech. Because I think that a lot of people who are in training, they think, Oh, it's my PII who hires me or my thesis committee who hires me, or someone around here who hires me, but that's not really right, actually, is a person's field who hires them rather than necessarily a person who you might specifically target. Well, you might specifically target someone and they might hire you. But there is that question of, well, what if the funding dries up overnight? Or what if something happens, where there just happens to be a more qualified candidate who was on the market at that time, or something like that? There are a zillion things that can happen that prevent a person from relying on that one thing to take care of them. And so I like to think in terms of how can you make it so that the field hires you and that, you know, a lot of people in this field you're friends with them, you've helped them out over the years in some way, shape, or form. Maybe you advise them when they were an up and coming student and they were at And they benefited and learned things and applied that to advance themselves. But also is the sense of okay, really knowing people's characters, and who to trust for collaborations in the future, and who you might want to refer to. If someone approaches you and asks you to be their co founder, but you find that late, you already have a job. And you're not willing to be a co founder of something else, because, well, you already are very happy in your position, and don't want to move at the moment. It's nice to have someone else to point that person to so that they can possibly work together and create stuff.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 35:45

Nice. So I think this one question which I always ask my special guests is, what is that one question you would like to get answered in your lifetime?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 35:58

I think that the answer is how to best integrate between neuroscience, cybernetics, and storytelling. Because ultimately, as Oliver Sacks says, We are a combination of biology and biography. Although we can measure a lot of things with numbers, and it is useful, there is this question of how do you convert stories to numbers? How do you convert numbers to stories, and what kinds of things fall between the cracks that are really actually useful information, things that might help the individual because each person, each individual is an n of one, you can't do a sample size of 30 on one person necessarily, in order to achieve statistical significance, unless you have a specific experiment setup. But sometimes, when it comes to matters of disease, you don't have that kind of time, or you don't have more than one person to experiment on with that specific set of, of their biology and their biography.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 37:15

Great. And Shereena. Do you have any other advice for our listeners?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 37:23

Let's see. What else do I have to share with people who are emerging in neuro technology? I think that often in academic environments, this sense of expansiveness, and the sense of getting to know your field that will hopefully hire you is not talked about nearly as much as trying to please the people who are immediately adjacent to you. So I would say that as a general piece of advice, think big about the news and think big about the amount of impact that you can have, especially if you will emerge outside and compete, not with people who will, who are all thinking in one way. But think about, okay, how can you advance this field in ways that, that general people who let's say they're in user experience, but they haven't studied neuroscience? How would you approach it from your angle? What kinds of things that are characteristics that you particularly have that are going to to help advance the news? For instance, I like to make art. And you may say, Shereena, how can you possibly be an artist, almost no one gets to be an artist in their life. That's not really. But the thing is that I've found myself almost every role that I have had some way or another, I am making some kinds of infographics for them or making some sort of communication piece that will incorporate some art into it, which is quite great. But most people, they may think, Well, you just focus on that one thing that you've been trained to do, but just do what you were told. But also think about ways that you have particular characteristics that make things a bit better. For example, well, you are a podcaster, as well, as a scientist and these kinds of communications they're important to have otherwise everyone would be at their bench, being away at experiments, working on things, scheduling things that are not this, but they're not helping the next generation of neuroscientists in the field, or scientists in the field in general, to navigate quite as much even though a podcast is skills a lot more than things that are just one on one conversations. For one on One conversation that needs to be very focused almost for that particular person's particular situation so that they get the advice they need at the time that they need it. But some people are a lot better at receiving mentoring than other people. And it is kind of funny to see that, yes, I've done a lot of cringe worthy things in terms of receiving mentoring and not being prepared to collect the advice that I've been given. And so I think that a lot of preparation needs to go into going into a mentorship conversation, also, in terms of, okay, thinking through how you can help that particular person, whether it's suggesting that you help something that they're doing, because almost everyone is limited within an individual. And almost everyone wants to not be as limited as an individual that they want to see that their work has some sort of impact that is greater than their, what they can do themselves. So yeah, continue to think big. And think also about how what you do is contributing to the broader world. Another funny thing about neuro technology in some ways is that a lot of people they think about this in terms of science fiction, because a lot of science fiction is about matters of things like controlling brain activity, controlling thoughts, reading thoughts, and being able to do these kinds of feats that seem like they're very futuristic. And I guess that those kinds of things, they, to some extent, are the future of this field. But at the same time, we have a long way to go in order to get to that point, after all, we may be able to read within MRI, okay, are you thinking about faces or places, but which face which plays in particular, and getting that level of resolution to a point where it becomes useful information to a person who is just looking at the brain scan, that is going to take so much longer than any of us seem to expect it to. And so things can happen where I can, I can pick up this coffee mug, and all right, there's this coffee mug, and it may be one scene that is all stitched together very neatly, in my mind, to tell me what is going on. But at the same time, many brain areas are being activated in a certain time sequence. And so I think that in the future of neuro technology, it's going to need more neuroscience and more understanding of okay, exactly how does the brain encode this kind of information? Because if we don't know how the brain encodes the information in the first place, then how are we going to change the perception of the noose? How are we going to do things that really bend a person's reality, or create something that is inexperienced that they would not otherwise be able to have, let's say, if they want to, to remember certain things about their recent past, but they have neurodegeneration and they can't create new short term memories, what kinds of prosthetics in memory can be created, what kinds of prosthetics in terms of sensory information can be created, the motor things they've been largely figured out. And the nice thing about that is that you can objectify the data so nicely, where you can really say, Okay, we're going to correlate this amount of brain activity in, say, the somatosensory or motor cortex, specifically to this amount of speed in moving the prosthetic arm. And that's a relatively simple kind of pathway, because you can see all of the elements, but when it comes to matters of thought, and in terms of processing, it becomes much harder to see all of the points that are between inputs that you can measure, and an output that you can measure. And so I'm looking forward to where this field continues to advance as we move along. Remember, it's not all science fiction, but at the same time, it really does feel like creating the fiction if you are,

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 44:31

yeah. So is there a difference between neuro technology and AI or neuro tech falls under AI?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 44:41

I think that the two are going to play into each other more and more over time. Where, okay, when you have a machine for instance, let's say that I have my Apple watch my Apple Watch to some extent, it teaches me how to use the Apple Watch. So in a way, it's an interface between a human and the machine But I think that the line between a human and machine is going to become smaller as the machine learns about the human, and what kinds of thoughts and what kinds of behaviors and what kinds of characteristics are going to say things like, okay, this person is feeling really fed up right now. So I might as well take it easy on this person. And try to give them a little bit of leeway, and maybe speak to them more gently, versus if that person is really tired, and they need to be more energized. And what to do first situational understanding. So I think that artificial intelligence and natural intelligence, they're going to come to a more seamless kind of cooperativity.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 45:48

So you mentioned, you know, science fiction, and, you know, a lot of inspiration like you see in the movies, like, Oh, my God, like, for example, Ironman, he has such a cool system. And you know, you just hope to see all that in future. But there are also movies, which show a dark side of machines and computers. Do you? Are you ever scared of that happening?

Dr. Sharena Rice: 46:16

Well, I'm not super scared of it partly because medical devices, they are some of the most regulated things news, for example, if I wanted an implant in my brain to help with memory, well, I wouldn't be able to get that unless I had probably, a doctor prescribed me that. But also, I would have to have a surgeon to consent to doing such a procedure. Not only that, but for a device to be marketed in that way in the first place. And to say that they have FDA clearance, then they need to have jumped through a lot of hoops of validation in order to get to that point. So even for simple things like improving memory, or improving, let's say, movement of people who have a movement disorder, these kinds of things, they have to go through extensive testing first, it's not like if I had an app on my phone that had a bug to it, and and then I just couldn't use that app for the day, it would be a very different thing to not be able to use a park my brain for the day. And so the things that I am most afraid of, is if these things become very disintegrated, where a person is practically replacing their brain with a machine, and that they have no sense of, of anything actually mattering in terms of time for a computer time does not really matter a lot of the times because it's not a living organism, if you could replace your whole brain with a computer so that you're not as reliant on the biology and that you're you don't have to worry about things die dying. Well, that's kind of a good thing in some senses, but there is this matter of humanity that comes with being alive, even if our lives are relatively long. Yeah. Interesting. So I think that is part of a matter of respect for life. Also, in terms of, do you respect humans as they are? Or do we just become more of machines over time, where we say that the machine is the highest ideal, and that we should all work like machines, such that we never have disbelieved. And that just being a human just simply is not good enough. Yeah. Well, human augmentation, I think, is a fine thing, especially in terms of helping people with disability. Is there there is this sense of, of what do we lose in the process of going from being a human and being so reliant on machines? Yeah.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 49:19

That's a very, very nice perspective. Told us. Okay, I think, Serena, thank you so much for giving us a little glimpse of what neuro technology is. And honestly, I had not been exposed to neuro technology before I was talk to you or connected with you on LinkedIn again. So thank you so much for giving us your time today and just thank you.

Dr. Sharena Rice: 49:57

You're welcome. And thank you so much for having me. You It is wonderful to be able to share various knowledge and to do so without a paywall. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Barkha Yadav-Samudrala: 50:09

Yeah. Thank you so much, and listeners I will catch you next week on another episode of Nerdrx podcast. And in meantime, if you have any suggestions or if you would like to join me for an episode, please email me at Barkha at Nerdrx podcast.com. And remember, it's good to be a nerd by