Science Series 3: Dr Lisa Gabel / Neurology / Dyslexia / Mind Controlled Drones / Music & the Brain

0:01 Welcome to another episode of Come Together. And we're live. Doctor Lisa Gabel, how are you? Welcome. So thank you so much. Oh my gosh, I ruined it already. Thank you so much for coming up. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly and just hopping on and I'm really, really excited, excited to talk to you because you study two things that I think are absolutely some of the most fascinating aspects of people, which is psychology and neurology. And I actually didn't know really the difference between them for a little bit.

0:50 I know that I'm sure neurology sounding has a little bit more of a scientific basis. I know that psychology tends to be a little bit more observation. I mean it's people described it as soft science, right? Or softer science? They do, although I think some of the colleagues in psychology would argue against. That. So, so think of psychology as like behavior, cognition and experience, right What is happening? And think of neuroscience or neurology as how something is happening. So brain structure, function, biology. Neuroscience is actually a culmination of the majority of the natural sciences. It requires an understanding of physics and chemistry and biology and psychology in order to try and understand the connection between behavior and neural function. Right, right.

1:48 So you kind of as I imagine you get a little, you definitely get a little bit of everything when you study neurology, you get a little bit of the, you get a little bit of everything like you just said. And then you'd want to just have a little more of an intensive or more concentrated perspective on the psychology side, I guess, from your end. So from my end. So my PhD is actually in Physiology and neurobiology, and I have a master's in psychology and behavioral neuroscience. So I've really, you know, gone from one end to the other. So my interest actually is, is quite broad. And I tend to study a lot of different things in a lot of different ways because I tend to just follow whatever the question is and then learn what I need to learn in order to answer that question.

2:38 So I think it's all important. I that sounds super cool. I love that, especially because I think that when you're starting with a question as opposed to starting with an answer, then it gives you a lot more space to be creative and to kind of play around with a lot more, with a lot more in the playground. You know, as opposed to just having to box yourself into trying to find one particular solution that you hope to get. Exactly. And there's, you know, there are good reasons to, you know, be an expert in one thing and focus on that because we need that. But a lot of science now is very collaborative and very interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary in order to answer like complex questions. So I like sort of jumping down different rabbit holes and seeing where it takes me.

3:21 Yeah. So, so how'd you get? So what was the first one of the first issues that you're trying to kind of get answers to or trying to understand? So actually the the students in my lab, I have like 5 different research projects going on at any one time. Some of them are related, some of them are not related. So I study brain computer interface with another professor in electrical and computer engineering. His name is Yi Chung Yu. He's phenomenal. We built that research program from the ground up. Neither one of us had done it before, but we saw a need and is a great way to bring our students from engineering and neuroscience together toward a common goal. But then I also study neurodevelopmental disorders like seizure disorder or dyslexia or autism.

4:07 Dyslexia research is a really big component of my lab right now. We do both animal and human studies. How does dyslexia manifest in an animal? Answers that question a lot, and it's a great question because mice don't read, you know? So how, how how? Dyslexia and it is, you know, sort of a human feature. But so if you take reading and you break it down into it's very complex. Reading is very complex. It requires phonological processing, visual processing, auditory processing, working memory, so on and so forth. Well, I can study each one of those things in an animal. And there are different models of dyslexia based on, from a neural perspective, either malformations in the brain that are identified in humans, animals that have those spontaneously developing, or more commonly genetics. So there are certain genes associated with dyslexia. We can modify those genes in an animal. And then if you say you modify a gene and check the behaviors between an animal that has the gene modified and that an animal that doesn't, the behavior that is altered in the animal that has the gene modified, then you start to look at the connection between that gene and that behavior or that process. And then we can translate what we see in the animal to humans. So I also work with kids.

5:30 Wow. Yeah. How how comfortable or how often or how many studies you have to do in an animal before you feel like you're ready to take, you know, to observe a kid or do take it to the next level. That isn't, that's an excellent question, and it probably depends on whatever your line of research is and and what you're doing. I've been studying dyslexia in some form with an animal model since I was a graduate student. So I've been at Lafayette College now for 20 years. So I've been doing this for quite some time. I won't tell you exactly how old. Yeah. So in my case there, I used a particular model of the disorder.

6:13 It was a particular disruption in a gene called DCDC 2 in an animal. And one of the tasks that I did, I described it to people as, you know, on the back of the cereal boxes where they have the maze and you have to get the mouse to the cheek. It's very much like that. So we saw this really interesting finding, whereas if you altered the gene, that particular gene, the animal couldn't learn the task. Wow, remember it? Or would it be able to actually carry out the function? It could carry out the function, but it wouldn't is behavior would sort of stay stable over time. So if I put you in a maze, you would probably take a considerable amount of time and you would probably make some errors because you've never been in it before, right?

6:57 But then the second time you were in the maze, you're like, OK, I've been here before and you'll be a little bit faster and you'll make fewer errors, and you get this nice little learning curve. So the mice that had this genetic mutation, it was flat. They never really learned the task. So people would always ask me the question that you just asked me. When I'd go to give talks, they'd be like, well, how can you really say that? You know, this is like human? And it's a fair enough question. So I read a paper by a scientist's name. I forgetting his first name. His last name is Shore. So Professor Shore had created a virtual version of this particular task, and he compared mice to humans, both males and females.

7:38 And I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. So we created a virtual version and we compared our college kids, 18 to 22 year olds with mice and they had similar behaviors. And I'm like, oh, OK. So then I went a little younger and I did 8 to 12. And then Long story short, after years of going back and forth, I started testing kids with and without reading impairment to see whether or not kids with reading impairment were impaired at this task. And they are, which was interesting, especially since, you know, in mice we control everything about their environment, where they live, their genetics, everything. Humans are not, you know that restricted, right? They have a lot of experiences different, there are different genes associated with dyslexia.

8:24 So it could be a whole mix. So I didn't actually expect to see anything. And the fact that I did. Hey everyone real quick if you're enjoying the show, click subscribe and rate the show. 5 stars helps a ton. Thanks so much. And I consistently do. I even went to Germany and I tested native German speaking children and children who are multilingual at an International School and I always do the same thing. If you have an impairment with reading or impaired at this particular task, now we're actually using it to identify kids with dyslexia before they can read. That's really cool. And I would imagine so are we misdiagnosing dyslexia as being a reading disorder and it's really ability to retain this kind of or at least from that gene, right, that like that mouse gene that you described earlier where it wouldn't be able to process the learning and have that learning curve, is that not?

9:18 Not necessarily reading. So as a like I was saying before, reading is very complex, right? So there's lots of processes that underlie it. So you can have a child with reading impairment and they have this set of challenges and you could have another child's completely different set of challenges. So it's not it, it's not that it's not a reading disorder, it's that we were able to create a task or use a task that could tap into the same neural circuitry that is used for reading. And then see whether see how that's operating. Exactly. I see so cool. Then what do you do if it's not?

10:00 And what are some, what are some potential treatments or some kind of breakthroughs that could respond or, or if there aren't, then how do you recommend someone with dyslexia learn, you know? That's, that's a great question because so with my, with the task that we do, we can identify kids who have a reading pair, but I still can't tell you what the specific impairment is, just that they haven't. So it's a nice way of identifying kids early so that they can go and get the additional testing, particularly if you are a non-native speaker. So a lot of our trouble is when you have somebody who is an English language learner, are they impaired at the task because of the language barrier or are they paired at the task because there's a reading deficit? So if you can take that factor out of the equation, it can be helpful.

10:51 But there are lots of interventions that have been developed that are quite successful. The the challenge seems to be getting the child help as soon as possible because the earlier that the interventions are applied, the greater the success rate. Sure, I imagine that'd be the case. That makes a lot of sense. I'm curious. And I mean, I don't expect to know the answer. I'm just, I'm just thinking off the cuff. But you know, I, I'm, I'm Orthodox Jewish and so I am, I'm fluent in reading English, obviously, and Hebrew. And the difference between English and Hebrew from a reading perspective is enormous, right. And I think there's a couple other languages that go English is, I think left to right and then Hebrews right to left and enormously context driven. And so a lot of times I don't want no definitions of words until I I'm able to identify the root or the context in which, you know, it's, you know, it's just placed and the words around it.

11:52 And then and then I get it and, and I may never even see the word again after that, you know, like it might even be like a one time use or something weird like that, as opposed to the English language, which I think requires a different part of our brain. Have you noticed any difference in terms of like you know, different languages that dyslexia manifests? Yeah, so, you know, it's really interesting and the the so in the United States we have a very non term transparent language. English is very non transparent, right. So there are exceptions to rules. And this letter has this sound in this condition, but not in that condition. But there are other languages which are are completely transparent.

12:32 So Finnish is apparently not that I know or speak Finnish. It's a very transparent language. So the letter always has the sound regardless of the context. Hopefully I am picking the right language to describe that theory, but there. So there's a continuum and then there's also Lobo graphic languages which require images as opposed to let alphabetic languages which are letters and sounds. So that is actually one of the things that I was really curious about because depending on the type of language too also correlates with the incidence of reading impairment. So and so try so when I'm studying this, one of the things that I've really wanted to do is see how that type of language. So whether you're Lobo graphic or whether you're very transparent or non transparent language has any influence on the outcome of our study as and what influence that has on on reading, which is why I went to well, not the reason I went to Germany, but why I did the study in Germany, because their language is more transparent than English. And then I wanted to look at children who come from different language backgrounds.

13:41 So, you know, multilingual children who might speak their primary language might be transparent and their and the another language that they speak might be non transparent and how that impacts Long story short, the the the task, the performance associated with reading still holds regardless of the, you know, the level of transparency of the language, which is interesting. But I'm, I'm really curious whether or not logo graphic languages which are more visual spatially needed would if the outcomes would be different because the task IU news absolutely requires visual spatial processing, right? So I'm wondering if the degree of that and the degree in which the language requires visual spatial processing, if they would correlate highly in terms of performance. So I don't have that answer yet.

14:34 That's cool. Well, when you do, we'll get back on another podcast, talk about it because yeah, I love this stuff. And, you know, and I'm always thinking about this. I grew up, you know, I might, my, my grandfather taught my mom Hebrew. My mom spoke to us, but a little bit less profusely. And we're, you know, we're a little bit less fluent and naturally really, as things kind of go. And then my kids, you know, in particular, like I'm really not speaking a lot of Hebrew to them at all. And, you know, and my wife and I went on our honeymoon to Italy or Greece. We went to both. But in Greece, they told that everyone speaks every, you know, several languages when you, when you travel.

15:14 And so we're, you know, we're hanging out talking a couple of, of local business owners just at a regular cafe or whatever, and they tell us a joke. What do you speak? Someone speaks three language, trilingual, Someone speaks 2 languages, bilingual. And someone that speaks one language is American, you know, and there has to be something to, to speaking more than one language. My brother-in-law is from Brazil. He speaks Spanish, Portuguese, English, Hebrew. The way he thinks you could see is so different than I am. And, and I'm sure that it's because your brain is working and expanding to, to, to encompass all sorts of different contexts that's required for those different skills, right?

15:57 Yeah, it's really my husband's actually. He's a native German speaker, but he also speaks English and Italian and he knows Latin and, you know, so I've and I always feel incredibly unintelligent when I go and meet all of his friends from Europe because they all speak multiple languages. It just seems to be and nothing gets Americans. I love America, but we not to, you know, push that as much. Ours are. I have 3 kids and they all take a language in in school. But it's not something and not in the same way it appears as in other countries. But yeah, it's it's really interesting to see. That was one of the reasons why I was curious about kids who are multilingual. They're living in Germany, but they're attending the school that's taught in English, and I was wondering how they would perform on these particular tasks. And although the performance was the same, there's still probably a great deal of difference in how they're processing the information as opposed to somebody who is monolingual. But unfortunately that that's one area that I haven't studied in a great.

17:08 Yeah. And I imagine that there's so it's got to be such a dense study because there's so many factors to consider and there's so many different. And again, I guess you almost need your, your neurology, you know, I guess the neurological aspect where you kind of able to understand everything from a different part, you know, piece of the playing field. And then, and then you have to collect the, the data and kind of figure out what everything has in common. And I mean, that's got to be an enormous, it's got to be an enormous amount of research. Yes, absolutely. And fascinating. Yeah, for sure. It's got to be fun, you know, but I, but I imagine, you know, I can't imagine it's going to be like a 9 or 100 person study and you're like, Oh well, we figured it out, you know, like, I mean. Anecdotally, when, you know, I took French when I was in high school and when, you know, I was living in Germany and trying to remember German words, for whatever reason, the, the word, you know, in French, French would come out before the word in and, you know, So I'm very interested in how, you know, the circuitry behind that.

18:08 I just haven't had the opportunity. I do that too, by the way, my, my, my most of the most of my Co workers for my sales job are they speak Spanish and they're, they're Dominican and I'll end up speaking instead of broken Spanish. I'll throw in a couple of Hebrew words every now because I'm not even saying the right thing and they, they look as confused as I am. But I mean, I, I, I, I'm just pulling from the right. I guess I'm just pulling from the wrong place. What are some other, what are some other, I guess reading or developmental diseases that or or yeah, I mean, do you call them diseases? How do you refer to them? Disorders? So there's actually a lot of debate about whether it should be considered a disorder or not. It's just, you know, we all have strengths and.

18:48 Weakness. Right. And you know, I believe at least because I'm a neuroscientist that it all comes down to wiring and function. But just because you have a challenge in one area does not mean that you have challenge in all areas. And I know that, you know, people. So I have three children and they all have dyslexia, you know, they've had, I know, which is really unusual. What are the odds? It's crazy. The odds are so ridiculously low, you know, and they as much as many kids went through the the same issues in school where they were. You know, you sort of doubt your intelligence when you have a learning disability, regardless of what that learning disability is.

19:30 You know, hearing it from their friends or expectations, even sometimes of teachers, although they've had phenomenal teachers, you know, and it, it, it can make you so in that I don't like to think of it as a disorder as much as it is a challenge. They have certain difficulties with learning certain types of things, but they are really exceptional in other areas. Being able to put connect different concepts together with something they could always do really rapidly and something that's very hard to teach. So, but we all have different strengths and weaknesses in different areas. Yeah, it's a great way to put it. But I have, Yeah, it's a great way to put it. I have a student of mine that he I teach high school and 9th this year is 9th, 10th and 12th, which is really fun spectrum of teenagehood. And one of my students was having a really hard time in the classroom and I always had a hard time in the classroom too. I was not a great student by any means and I put a lot of pressure on myself and whenever I take tests, my mind would just go blank no matter how much time I spent studying. What do you what do you, what do you think about that immediately?

20:35 What was that thought I? Can't diagnose so to go on, but you know, I see kids struggling because of the area that I, I work in and because I work with kids and I often talk with parents, you know, I, I have these conversations with, with parents all the time. And I have, you know, college kids who are struggling with different difficulties. And it can, you know, it can be a number of things. And I really encourage people to, you know, go and seek help and find out, you know, what are your challenges and what are your strengths and, you know, build upon those strengths as you're trying to use interventions to improve where you have challenges. And a lot of times, I think people feel shame. Parents feel shame if they feel that they're, you know, somehow their child is at a disadvantage or a child feels shame because they have a learning disability and, you know, they think that says something about their intelligence, which it doesn't. I used to argue with my mom and my mom would be like, you're smart, like Emma, I love you.

21:41 I'm your oldest son. Of course you're going to say I'm smart. There's no smart, but I don't think I'm that smart. I'm studying for bio for five hours and taking notes and I'm getting X and I don't know what to tell you. Like maybe I'm not smart, you know, And I really, and I really, really until I, until I got to college, I thought I was dumb as a doorknob. And I was like, I guess I happen to be nice and I guess I happen to like reading. But like, if I can't do these tests, I'm obviously not a smart dude, you know? Yeah. But there's there we're become sort of very rigid in, in how we assess a person, not even just yes, definitely intelligence, but just how we assess content knowledge, right? And you know, I've even done it myself where, you know, you teach a certain amount of of the topic of the content and then you give them a written test and you have so much time to complete the test.

22:31 And you know, that's a challenge there. I mean, sometimes we absolutely have to do that. But there are other ways to get at that knowledge that a person might have, you know, and test anxiety is a real thing, right? And if you're really anxious about taking that test, you might not be able to focus on what's in front of you. And in actuality, you're not really taking anything in. So then it's hard to let somebody know, you know, your level of knowledge on that particular topic. So yeah, it, it is a challenge. And that doesn't mean, you know, having anxiety and doesn't on a test doesn't mean that you're anxious. It could just be the situation.

23:13 It doesn't mean you have a learning disability. I mean, it could be anything. So the only way to really know is to to go and seek support. And yeah. Definitely. The professionals help you sort it out. Yeah, so when I so, so to that point. Exactly. So this student that I had that was having a hard time, I could see that he was brilliant. I could see, you could see when you're talking to someone with their eyes and how quickly they're processing what you're saying, that they're thinking and responding. And he just could not deal with school. You could see he was not one of these kids that sits behind a desk from from, you know, 8:00 AM to 5:00 to 6:00 PM, which is really what the hours are. And so he actually ended up leaving the school and I ran into him at a local synagogue and I said, you know, and I, and I said hi and I and I went, went up to after, after, after the services. And I said, I just want to tell you, I was like, not everyone is meant to in the classroom.

24:06 And that does not make you stupid by any means. I was like, you are clearly brilliant. I was like, and school is going to be hard for you. And then you're going to get past it and you're going to figure and you're going to realize that you have an entire world of ways that you can do things that are your method, You know, that you could figure out your way. Like, unfortunately, this system is old and unfortunately, it hasn't adapted at all to anyone that's kind of outside the box even a little bit. Because I don't think because you don't fit into a cookie cut space that you're not brilliant and keep learning, keep trying to figure out your way of learning. And you know, and I don't know whether he'll ever think about it again. And you know, I mean, maybe he will, maybe he won't. But we need, I think that we definitely need more encouragement in general. And I've found from teaching and I've only been doing it for four years now.

24:54 But that when you said, when you make it clear to the people that you're that you're talking to, that you know they're capable and you expect good things from them because you know they're capable, they will So rise to the occasion. You know, the, the the undue pressure is kind of where they say, hey, I don't want to deal with this right now, but I'll say, hey, I know that you're smart, dude. You know you're smart, right? He's like, yeah, I'm like, you think this is the best you can do is like, I don't think it's the best thing. OK, give me, give me a little bit better, you know, like that's, that's the, that's the way that we should be encouraging people. Yeah, it, you know, it's really true whether I'm working with a little kid for the my research or working with 18 to 22 year old, You know, a lot of times you do, you just need that reassurance that you can do this.

25:34 And one of the things, you know, trying to get kids over, I mean, they're not kids. If you're 18 to 22, you're an adult. But you know, I'm 52, so my kids. But to know it's OK to fail. So I've learned way more by my failures than I have from my successes. And it's necessary. And learning how to pick yourself up when you've had a failure. In high school, I didn't have to study. I could, you know, take the test. And I did really well and, and everything was fine. But my first year of college, I figured, oh, it's just the same, right? You know, you're already laughing. I could tell you already know where I'm going then.

26:15 So, you know, I played soccer and I was in choir and, you know, I took my classes and I figured I didn't need to study. And I learned the hard way that that is not how I'm going to. And I did really terrible my first semester. And my father was even starting to question whether or not I was as smart as he thought I was, which is like a huge, you know. The pain there. And, you know, so I had to pick myself up and I had to figure out how to study. And, you know, and I did. And, you know, I had to fight hard to dig myself out of the hole I got myself into. But, you know, I learned a valuable lesson from that.

26:56 And that's one of the things I'm, I'm always telling my kids. I said, you know, I know it was way more challenging for you than it was for some of your friends, you know, trying to get through school because, you know, at a certain point, you know, you go from learning to read to reading to learn. So if you're already behind on the reading, it gets really even that much more challenging to learn what everybody else is learning. You always feel like you're behind. But they learned how to work really hard and how to not give up. And that perseverance that's going to take them so much farther. Yeah. Definitely, definitely learning to learn is the most valuable skill that you could teach someone. I, you know, my students whenever they complain to me about what does history have to do with anything?

27:38 What does bio have to do with anything? Like, you know what, I'm not even going to have this stupid argument with you guys. I was like, you're right. And what I'm going to do with you. I was like, accepted the fact that your brain is actually learning a new learning process and how to you know, retain and understand and breakdown different forms of information in different ways. And I was like, even if you remember nothing, you will walk away a smarter, better person because your brain has learned how to deal with different sets, different ways of thinking. So hot is it? I actually, I'm telling my students that all the time. It's I, it's that it's about, you know, taking something complex, learning how to break it down, understanding the pieces and then putting, being able to put them back together to make sense of it and. Then they all end up making and then all end up popping back up into your life again at different points, you know, which is also really, really fun and really interesting. You know, I always thought I was bad at science until I wasn't until I was an adult and I heard a podcast with a good professor. You know, I, I, I was exposed to Angie Huberman and I listened to his episode on alcohol, which scared the life out of me. And then you know it.

28:45 But, but, but the, what I, what I realized was like when I was in high school, I don't know if I was, if my brain was ready to process that type of information. And like I am on, I'm, I'm prepared now and I'm more and I'm more ready. And I, and I, and I wrote it off for when I was 14 for the rest of my life or 15 because of the rejection for the rest of my life. And it's so stupid as a 30 year old father that, you know, I shouldn't be able to look at, by, I look at, you know, basic biology and be like, you know, how's the food that I'm eating impacting my body? What's the value of exercising, even if I, if I don't use it for anything other than be alive for longer, somebody I could see my kids grow up or my grandkids or anything like that. So everything ends up coming around full circle. You want to understand current events, learn some history, you know, like anything ends up happening. And if you're, if you're too immature in high school to see that, that's fine.

29:33 But you're learning and you're building those blocks. Yeah, absolutely. I teach statistics and you know, nobody wants to take an 8:00 AM stats class, right? It's it's usually a required course. It's not something you're choosing. Yes, how's giving the 8:00 AM is stat class? What's that? Your end? What? What's that like from your end giving the 8:00 AM stat class? Do you I? Love it. You know, can only go up, right? Nobody wants to be there. Everybody's exhausted. So if I can get them, you know, by the end of the class, if they're awake and they're taking in what I'm saying, then I have done my job. I love it. But I'm always just pointing out to them. So if you take anything away from this, I want you to be better evaluators of what you're consuming, whether you know what you're consuming in the media, what you're, you know you're purchasing, what you know statistical significance actually means. So yeah, I absolutely agree.

30:29 Even if they never use it again in the particular context in which they're learning, they will use aspects of it again later in their life. Yeah, definitely. Can you tell me? I'm curious about this the new the lab you mentioned in passing earlier that you started from the ground up about and I and I wrote down notes that I don't know if makes any sense, but the EEG and chips interface devices. A professor in engineering, Yi Chen Yu, and I started years ago now, Brain Computer Interface lab. OK. There was a call for what they had called a think tank grant and trying to connect engineering with other areas of the college.

31:14 And I had been teaching a class on brain computer interface just as part of a values in science and technology class, like a sophomore level class. And I was just thinking, you know, I think we could do this here. And I think it would be valuable. And I didn't know Yi Chiang at that point. And he got connected with me. And we're like, you know what? Let's just, let's just go for it. And then we reached out to Jonathan Walpole, who was at the Wadsworth Center at the time. And now he's at NCAN in Albany. And we said, you know, we're interested in doing this. Can you teach us? And it is so shocking. I'm always telling people, you know, just just call somebody, just ask, send an e-mail. I mean, the worst they can do is say no or ignore you. But you have, you know, you're no worse off now than you were before.

32:05 And he was the greatest guy he had, he had us up there. We brought some students with us, taught us the basics. We went down and we built our own system. We got some data and we got an NSF grant to purchase more equipment and been, we've been doing this ever since. So with that, we use EEG electrons, cyclography to detect neural activity, electrical activity from the the neurons that are inactivated in the brain. And we use it actually as a trigger rather than detecting the signals to tell us something about brain function. We use the brain function to trigger an external device to sort of bypass your motor system.

32:50 So. I'm sorry to just to clarify before you continue, just to in case it's confusing at all. Of course, just in case of why what you're saying is the opposite, how does it typically work? For example that it would be going vice versa, from your brain to the neuro to the neuro to the EEG. So do you remember how we were talking before about, you know, what something is versus how something works, right. So if I wanted to look at sort of neural function, I might use EEG to see the way the brain behaves, right? To see, you know, you might give a problem to two people, they might both get to the answer, but perhaps one has to work harder at it than the other, right?

33:36 The differences and the neural activation patterns in different areas of the brain. Another way to use it is knowing what types of neural activity occurs in response to specific behaviors or thoughts or processes. We can then detect those signals and every time a signal occurs, it's kind of like turning the light switch on and off. Every time a signal occurs or goes up to a certain level, it triggers a device. So we ultimately we've used the EEG signals to fly a drone or yeah, it's really cool. We have it on. We have like a little YouTube video. Someone's brain. Yeah. So it's just an EEG electrode cap and they're basically using, we're using the neural signals to operate the drone and they're basically flying it around the gym. Get out of here.

34:30 Yeah, that's pretty. What? How long you been doing this for? Like quite some time, I think 2010. So our big thing is trying to develop an EG system that's easy to use and affordable so it can be used outside of the lab, which is actually really challenging. Like if you have all the money in the world and all the equipment in the world, you can make some really cool things, but don't use it. So wow, you've been, you've been since 2010, you guys have been using neural networks to fly drones, to direct drones. Yeah, it's actually one of the things we really want to do is operate a wheelchair, yeah, which is harder than the drone because the drone, you know, is flying through the air, so there's not really a lot of obstacles to. Whereas when you're trying to navigate a hallway and into rooms and out of rooms, that's a little bit more challenging. So what we are aiming for is to create a device to operate a wheelchair for somebody who has a severe motor impairment, particular vigils with locked in syndrome, so that they can gain more independence.

35:41 Definitely. Well, definitely. And I mean, I was thinking, so I guess that it's something, I mean, I hate to say it like this, but Neuralink kind of sounds trivial relative to to that, right? Oh, no, no, I mean, not at all. I mean, he's doing some really cool things with that, that, you know, the brain is really, it's fascinating. I'm sorry, you're right. So the context that I meant to say it in is the people that the the guys that I've seen that you guys went on different podcasts that use that use their eyes to play a video game like. It's. Like this operating a drone to me sounds far more real world useful and applicable and helpful. I would almost imagine then playing. I mean, not to say that one's not useful, the other by getting one manifests itself differently. And I never even I never even heard people talking about it before.

36:27 I mean, how come there aren't things being commercialized in this sense? Oh, I'm sure they are. So if you're using, you know, these types of systems to play a video game, it's not that actually hard to actually take it from video game to an actual thing. So when we were training the student to operate the device to then end up flying the drone in the gym, we created essentially a video game to train how to do it in a virtual setting. And then, you know, we let them loose. I will say though, we tried first to fly the drone out on the the field, the football field, but we lost the connectivity, the Bluetooth right.

37:13 So in the gym it was a more controlled environment, so it was easier to do. So I'm making it sound like it's it's easier than it probably. But that almost sounds like a relatively trivial problem to resolve. Like we're working on that could be something with Bluetooth, that could be something, you know, I mean, like we, we that that those are issues that are advancing because that's how society advances regardless that you can kind of just take that technology and reapply it to this issue, right? Yeah, absolutely. How much would you dedicate to this to this project? Well, so all my different research projects are sort of going on all the time. We always have a team of neuroscience and engineering students working together on this project.

37:56 That's one of the reasons I like it so much, because it does bring students from different areas together to solve a problem. So one of the the cool, the coolest things, I mean, other than technology. Technology is awesome, but it requires the students to learn how to speak to each other in a way that they wouldn't normally. So you tend to create your own type of dialogue within your area of specialty, right? So you have to learn how to communicate with each other and explain things to somebody who might be a novice in one area whereas you're a novice in their area. So that's a huge learning opportunity. It actually took Yi Chung and IA while before we, you know, we're able to easily explain things to each other. Yeah, yeah, I, I picked up jiu jitsu about a year ago and have that exact issue and they're like do that I'm like, I don't know what I mean and I'm like, I understand and they're like, do that and I understand the words that are coming out of your mouth individually and put them together and how to translate that into doing something with my body. I'm like, you're going to have it's that it's that same issue. Yeah, that's why one thing I, I hope to, I, I've been, I've been working on this for a long time because I've been, you know, I, I, my, my, my family has very strong opinions. All of us are pretty different and all of us have pretty strong opinions just in general.

39:19 So one thing that we risk is fighting a lot, but one thing that we benefit or gain from is that we really do have, we have learned to see things from a lot of different perspectives over the years because all of us growing up under the same roof all saw things very differently. And one thing that I did realize is that 90 to 95% of fights or arguments that I've ever gone in was really just that we're speaking two different languages to each other and not understanding what the other person was saying instead of like actually disagreeing on an idea like. Well said. Absolutely. And in the beginning, you, Chung and IA lot of our confusion, we were both saying the exact same thing. We just didn't know it. Yeah. So, you know, it's a process.

40:01 My oldest loves to push my buttons and loves to argue with me and, and, but in all honesty, as frustrating as it is in the moment, we really understand where each other is coming from. And oftentimes we are arguing the exact same thing. We're just coming at it from different ways. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's really cool. That's awesome. I love that. So going a little bit down the sci-fi rabbit hole, does this open up the world of like cyborgs and like, I mean, this almost sounds and you know, I was kind of freaking out about a year ago. It's probably has to do with some marijuana ingestion, but I was freaking out about the drone. Now we're in New Jersey that everyone was seeing and and then and one thing that was freaking me out again was, you know, the size and it didn't look like anyone was like, you know, they're small.

40:53 It didn't look like anyone is was moving them around. And I'm like, we don't even know what that means. But I mean, if what you're saying is true and the science of this kind of stuff has been going on that we've been trying to work on this neural to neural to physical object connection for since the 2010, since the early 2 thousand 2010. I would imagine that the government and military could be developing some serious stuff with this, with this capacity, right? Yeah, as as scientists, we always have to consider, you know, what the next steps are, not just can we do it, should we do it, what the guard where rails should be. And you know, and oftentimes we don't always have control of all the aspects of that.

41:37 So, yeah, I mean, it's it's always a potential problem of, you know, how something is going to be used and why it's used and being responsible and ethical use of not only the research you're conducting, but the tools that you're making. And I completely hear you. Right, right, right. Yeah. And I, you know, because I was thinking a lot about this with, with, I don't know if you were aware of this Anthropic and Department of War feud, but anthropic was looking, you know, they basically wanted to keep the AI safeguards on. And, and the government was like, Hey, like we got to do this, to do what we got to do with this and, and topics like we're really not comfortable with that. And then ChatGPT is like, you can do it. And are you, listen, I, I'm sure you can make a case, you know what you know for both ways, But you know, these are, these are rabbit holes that are a little concerning and we can't put the genie back in the bottle, as we've learned so many times in history.

42:40 Yeah, that that's the big thing. You, you can't, you can't put it back in the bottle once you've let it out. And watching that whole discussion on unfold between anthropic and the government and, you know, and ChatGPT was kind of surreal because we don't, we don't often do our due diligence of figuring out where those safeguards need to be in place and holding to them when we're developing something. It's usually, oh, geez, we, you know, we didn't think about this. And it's not because, you know, people are inherently, you know, they're not doing their due diligence, but, you know, new thinking about every possible aspect is, you know, is a bit of a challenge.

43:23 But once we are faced with the information and the possibilities, it's our responsibility to take action. And the regulators, and almost by definition, regulation has to be a step behind because you need something to regulate. Like, you know, there's like without Avengers used to say, like if there's no, like if we didn't lose to begin with, there'd be nothing to avenge. You know, like there's like, if we don't have a problem, then there's nothing, then we wouldn't need the government to regulate it. Yeah, I absolutely agree. But I think we can also preemptively say, you know, if we keep going in this direction, this is what's going to happen. And you can see a few steps down, you may not have realized it was going to be used for X, but, you know, we need to be a little bit more anticipatory and in terms of how we regulate ourselves and, and what are the potential misuses of what we're developing.

44:20 But again, that's all that's easier said than done. It's easier to look back and say, oh, yeah, we should have noticed that it was going, you know, to go in this particular direction. But, you know, hindsight. Yeah. And the other problem is that people are so limited. We only look at things to the scope that we're used to looking at things at. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And we, you know, so I might look at it, I might look at the issue from a teaching perspective and as a dad and as a salesman and be like, oh, this is going to have a problem for me. But you're looking at it from a neuroscience perspective and being like, hey, like this is a whole nother world that we're looking at things from. And like, you didn't even realize what's even look out for. You even know what the potential consequences could be. Exactly.

45:02 I, I, I hear, and that's it's always got to be a dance. I mean, we've seen it's a dance and it's a given play. It's a give and take. And it just, and I mean, I think that as long as we just keep, encourage good minds to that want to solve problems, to keep at it, we'll be, you know, I, I hope I'm optimistic, I'm hopeful and I have to be because I have kids. But you know, I mean, we got to do, we got to do the best we can. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. This is why we need to work together across, you know, divisional boundaries. We have to talk to people about what we're doing. We have to present our research. We have to engage people in conversation because others are going to see things that we missed. Yeah, When did you say that?

45:49 And I noticed this too, but that people have become a little bit more interdisciplinary. And I've been hearing the sentiment these days, especially because this is really interesting with AI and a really interesting consequence. Anyone that used to be an expert on something, it's much better to be a generalized, you know, it's better to be a master. What was it? Jack of all trades, master of none. And I is the master of whatever thing that you want to dive into as deeply as you want to. If you want to be a very particular type of doctor, you want to study a very particular type of research. AI can help you gather and understand and understand information on a level that we've never had access to before. The example I'd like to give actually with recent government use was with Venezuela.

46:38 When they, when we, when we kidnapped or took Maduro, whatever, whatever, whatever. What do you want to use for it? One thing that did that they that the government said they used AI for was hey, we have didn't have access to classified information. We gave it a stack of, you know, someone said, hey, give me everything we have on Venezuela and someone gives you and someone drops 30 billion files into a room and says, good luck sorting through this. You know that it used to be that you get a bunch of staffers, you get a bunch of aids, you get a bunch of people to or grad students or whatever it is to sit through, get them a bunch of pizza and have them work for a week and try to figure out the best plan. Now you sift through that information in just a matter of seconds and gather the best, the best Intel. And So what we're going to have, I think what people are going to have to learn how to do is be really good adept at being general thinkers, is able to hop around from one area to the next to the next to the next, and kind of be conversational across industries and across fields in order to really be able to keep up.

47:37 Because AI has kind of taken all the specific oriented jobs and research I feel like or will be. Yeah, I mean, it's really good. So that wasn't a really good example where, you know, you have all this information and you have to coalesce this information and connect it. And it's a lot faster definitely to upload all that information into an AI engine and say here, I need you to sort this for X, summarize this for me or edit this for me. But we we definitely don't want to dismiss the ability of an individual and processing that information and finding certain keys.

48:20 Overlook it you're. Saying yes, that, you know, AI might not be able to do. And I have found that it's what you ask and how you ask it. And, you know, you have to challenge the information you're getting. And it works really well in an area that you are already an expert in so that you can evaluate the information that's coming back. But that would be a lot harder to do if you were a novice in in a particular area. You would get that information back and you would assume it's right because it knows more than you do at this point, so. You know, that's, that's a really cool point. That's a really cool point. Yeah, you're right. I, so I use, I use Grok to help me find podcast guests, right?

49:02 And I, I have it, I say, hey, check out my show. I have 100 and whatever amount of episodes and tell me I want to find 5 people that study history of New Mexico, right. And please only include people online who have their e-mail addresses available and it'll spit out five names for me. And here's some guests based on what you, what your, what your tone is like. And went, and then I've gone to and I've, and I always make a point now to Google the guests because sometimes they're dead, sometimes they're, sometimes they're convicted. Sometimes, you know, yeah, he's going to give me all this, all this context. And I'm like, I find out that this guy that it's recommending for me to, to interview is in jail for, you know, XY and Z. And I'm like, OK, well, you know, I've and, and I would have just given up. I would have just said, oh, well, you know more than I do. And I wanted five recommendations, so I'll take your word for it.

49:51 So that's a good, that's a good point. That's a good way of thinking of it. I didn't think about it like. That yeah, I mean, there are definite advantages to using it, but knowing what the limitations are are key. And humans have a level of creativity that I think is unmatched at this point. Yeah, well, for now. Forever. I would I would love to and and it's and and I'm curious and you know, I mean going down the sci-fi world, brave new world and you know, whatever it is. I mean, if we end up, I don't know what, I don't know what world our kids are going to grow up in. I don't know what's going to be normal. I don't know what right now we have our phone that I'm at that I'm addicted to.

50:32 I don't know what I don't know what happens if I never get my to turn my phone off. And it's just in my head. And I don't know how to, you know, and I and I can't separate the two. And I mean, we know that not that this isn't that the phone isn't necessarily healthy and the best for, for development and for retaining information and for general use. So by mixing our technology with our brains, I'm afraid that we won't be able to ever kind of turn it off and we just turn into something else completely. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that should we, I mean, can weigh and should weigh, right. So I worry about that too, because it's, you know, I have 3 kids and they, they all have phones because, you know, sometimes they have after school activities and I need, and in this world, I kind of want to be able to get in touch with them.

51:23 You know, processing information is very different for them now than it was for me growing up because, you know, we didn't have cell phones. I didn't, that wasn't a thing until I was really crushed with student. So that needing constant information and very short, it's seemingly very short attention spans. It's, you know, doom scrolling is not something that I had to contend with when I was younger. And a lot of people in my profession have talked about how they, you know, sort of banned phones from their classroom and they just, and put the computers away even just so that they can have a conversation and how great those conversations are. And it was really different after COVID. People sort of forgot how to actually have a conversation face to face with each other.

52:17 They were still I had students sitting right next to each other in the lecture hall, texting each other. So we have to learn how to balance how to use the technology to our advantage without letting it take over our lives. Yeah. And losing all humanity. Yeah, for sure. And that was in, I mean, when I was in minutes and I was actually, so I was born in 95 and I was growing up just as cell phones were becoming pretty much ubiquitous. And, and I went to, I went to an all boys school for middle school and, but there were girls on campus just in different classrooms. And I found out I could text a girl instead of talking to her. And instead of being 10, I was terrified. I was terrified to look at a girl and talk to her. And I remember, you know, in the feeling of 6th, 7th, 8th grade, you know, praying and wishing to talk to a girl. And then I have a cell phone and all of a sudden it's so easy to strike up a conversation and I don't have to deal with any of the potential rejection and getting shut down. And I'm not, I would be, you know, socially a little bit nervous and would I would get my name wrong. Like I'd hesitate with my name.

53:24 I'd stop there and you know, and I'd be like, oh, crap, I'm just going to give up and go home and like, I'll try again tomorrow. But I found out that I didn't have to deal with any of that discomfort. And why would why would I if I don't have to? And until I realized that I was losing out on a muscle that I really was really important to exercise. But I had to come to that conclusion myself. I had to say, I can't spend my whole life just texting girls what I'm going to do. I, you know, what am I ever going to do when it comes to having a real conversation or having a real confrontation or anything like that? Yeah, it's definitely a skill that, you know, people are starting to lose. And I also think, you know, the the anonymity of being behind the phone. And.

54:05 People feel free to say things that they would never say to you, you know, and that's, that's problematic. You know, we, we don't talk to each other anymore and we sometimes lose the positive aspects of, of human connection. And I would love to see that come back a little bit more. I think it will. I think it will. I think that I think that there are certain indications that that it's going to and I think that this was, I think that whatever mass experiment social media was for the amount of time that it that it was this kind of experiment, people are realizing on the map. Like people are seeing how unhappy a lot of people have been in the last 10-15 years and they do want to change. Like one thing is like, that's amazing how humanity is that generations come and go fast.

54:53 And I think we realize and we learn from each other. You know, like I learned from my parents things to and not things to do and not to do. And my kids will certainly learn from me things to do and not to do and we'll correct. And well, you know, and I think, and I really think that people see that relationships are at all time low. Loneliness is at all time high for everyone. You know, women don't, guys are afraid to ask girls out on dates and go, you know, and, and, and, and just, I mean, no one knows how to have relationships anymore. And, and then kids are saying, Hey, screw that. I don't want to be a part of that. And you know, if, if, if everyone says that this is social media doing it, then, you know, then I'll put it away for a day a week, you know, a couple of times a week, or I'll leave it at home instead of taking it to school or whatever it is.

55:36 But I think I, I, I, I am hopeful in that in that sense, I do want to actually talk to you also. And hopefully you know, this will be the last fun part of the whole thing's been fun, but the last fun part of our conversation is music in the brain. I love music. Music means everything to me in so many different capacities. I love music for the music, which I've only learned to recently appreciate because I started playing guitar. I used to listen to music for the lyrics as opposed to, you know, as opposed to just for the music. So I'd focus more on the singer-songwriter and simple, simply simply musically structured music. And I found that they've actually served very different, as very different tools in my life depending on what I'm going through for different things to, you know, for me, you know, sometimes I need more lyric based, story oriented narrative to get me through whatever I'm experiencing. And sometimes I do need music, like just the music and just the sounds and just the melody and just the interplay between the, between the band members.

56:44 What how'd you get started on this and what you know and and how do you go about studying and what do you study as far as music in the brain? Yeah, it's a really interesting question because again, it's it's really broad. And I started teaching a class called Music in the Brain with a music professor. Her name's Jennifer Kelly, and she and I really want to teach a class together. And so we decided that we would bring, you know, neuroscience and and music together. And there's so many different ways you'd come at it. And it's really interesting that you were talking about lyrics versus the melody and the tempo and what's more important to you at a particular time. And when we would talk about music, and again, we're both coming at it from really different directions, she was really adamant that when we were focusing on music, we were just focusing on the more instrumental component and not the lyrics and how the lyrics could interfere with your appreciation of of the music. And I didn't, I didn't see it that way because that's not how I was.

57:46 I was coming at it and our class was very different. So she would teach, you know, about music and music appreciation, and I would teach about the brain. And then we would have to bring these two converging ideas together to meet the needs of both of our students, both the neuro students and the music majors. And one of the things that I was really fascinated about was this neuroscientist and musician. His name is Charles Lim and he found a way to study creativity. So studying creativity in the brain is a really hard thing to do because how do you define creativity? How to find it?

58:26 How do you define it? Define it. I would say, I would say free flowing personalized associations. OK, great. So, you know, as a scientist, you really have to define all your parameters. You have to study, you know, something very specifically. So sometimes by defining the parameters, you can sort of take the creativity out of creativity. But he studied the changes in neural activation patterns using functional magnetic resonance imaging and jazz so had. Improv music for the most. Yeah. So we had them play a structured component and then a more free flowing component and looked at the the activation patterns in the brain.

59:11 And I just thought that this was just that in itself was super creative and fascinating. And I was also really interested in the use of music at in therapy. Yeah, so using music and the tone and the pacing of music to help people with motor impairments or help people who had lost their ability to speak for whatever reason, to actually sing the lyrics even though they couldn't sing the words, as opposed to speaking the words and how that can be used to sort of bypassed areas of damage. So when we taught this class, we used music to express emotion. One of the things I find fascinating is I used an example of, you know, the Halloween movie where the pumpkins sort of getting closer and closer to you. Yeah, you turn the music off.

1:00:07 Yeah. Totally not scary. Sit all the time. You have the music on, you know, your heart rate starts and your galvanic skin response and you know, your hands start sweating. The music is such a powerful influence over our emotions and our movement and you know. Breathing even and our breathing. I've noticed that with, with tense movies, I, I, I, my breathing slows down right before something really scary happens. And if I'm scared, I force myself to take deep breaths while while I watch the horror movie that I that I'm being forced to watch. But and then the music in that is like a whole nother character to the movie outside of the actors, right?

1:00:49 It helps to elicit those emotions. And I find all of that really fascinating. So This is why we want to teach that class. Actually, I had some students I haven't been teaching the last couple years because I was Dean for a few years and I'm on sabbatical right now. And a student said that they were graduating next year and I really needed to teach that class. So I'm, I'm hoping to, but again, it's one of those classes that I think is better taught when you have people who are experts in two different fields and you're bringing those together rather me trying to just teach it all by myself. Totally. That's really, really cool. That's I never even heard of collaborative classes like that. I've never taken any in college at least It's really. Cool.

1:01:31 They're the most challenging to teach from the side of a professor, but they're the most interesting. It's actually twice the amount of work as opposed to half the amount of work, but I think they're the most most interesting for students. I bet, I bet that's really, it's really awesome. I I'm also curious and there's so much to go into, at least from what we, the brief, the brief, the brief overview. But first of all, I'm also curious about the relationship between lights and music because I know that, for example, when and I've gone to some concerts where, you know, I've listened. So I'm actually much more nowadays into the improvisation improv provisional, thank you Grateful Dead and and strings and like that whole that whole genre of music. And one thing I didn't notice I've noticed is that when I've gone to see shows, cover shows or real shows, an enormous component Fish, which is a famous jam band from your neck of the woods to play around there. They they're they're light sky is known as a six member of the band because or the 5th member of the band because it the lights are so integral to the audience experience during the concert.

1:02:42 And there's something about when music is playing that activates another part of your brain that and it's so interesting because songs almost feel like they take like they have color tones to them. So if like if you're playing a song and then the and then the and then the whole place flashes red. There's something about like the relationship between the tone of the music and the color that's being flashed, you know it across the room and it enhances the experience to a tremendous degree. I mean, I, I can't even compare listening to that kind of thing even on great speakers at home and then being there with the crowd with the lights flashing like that. I'm curious if there's if you if you've noticed any overlay between the two. You know, that's really interesting. And I've never studied the interplay between. So in this case, like your emotional connection to the music with, you know, what's being presented visually and what's going on in the brain.

1:03:37 So I haven't actually studied that. And, you know, when we're studying something, the more variables we put into the mix, sometimes the more limit them. But now that you said that, now I'm actually curious and I I want to go look and you know. Get some, get some, get some funding and go to the sphere in Vegas. You can check out over there I mean. Experimental Lab. Real Life. Experimental Lab and you and there is no, there's no venue like this fear and it's, and it's so immersive. And I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen any videos of it, but oh, man. I mean, and I mean, I don't know what kind of music you listen to, but just about most great bands have, you know, like a band that you will certainly appreciate has played there where you can kind of see the way they make use of, of, of everything.

1:04:25 And you know, we know that music also turns on the, the visual aspect of our brain too. I I do a creative writing assignment with my students who I'll play a well play a score, I'll play an instrumental piece and have them write the image that pops up in their head from the music. Yeah. And there's sometimes where it's remarkable how 10 students or 15 students can all come up with extremely similar themes from music. And you wonder, you know, is it is that just association wiring? Like, you know, the pirates type of fat pirates in the Caribbean theme? Like everyone recognizes that that's going to be pirate music, right? But what if there's music that's a little bit less well known? And then one person thinks it reminds them of a field, another person thinks reminds them of an old French villa.

1:05:09 You know, I mean you, you, you know, So I've had a lot, a lot of fun tinkering around students perception of music too, and it's really cool. Yeah, usually, you know, so when I teach introduction to neuroscience class, I'll take a song that was, you know, very popular over the summer, whatever song that may be, and I'll play a clip from it. And I just tell the students, just just free, right, right, whatever comes to your mind. And then we talk about all those different aspects, and it helps me to introduce the idea that although there are parts of your brain that are responsible for vision and auditory, your brain is all interconnected, right? So it's the circuitry that ultimately gives us this sense of connectedness between visual and auditory and, and movement and so on and so forth. And it's that part of the brain that really fascinates me. Yeah, I have a friend and maybe you could speak to this. I have a good friend of mine who has, I mean, he's very good about it, but he has a little bit of a stutter. And one of the ways that he deals with it is if he catches himself stuttering, he'll kind of slow down on that word. So if he was going to stutter on the West of the word, it's a, it's this herd that I'm having a hard time with. He does rap and he is an excellent rapper and he is incredibly creative and he has no problems just freestyling and coming up with that.

1:06:32 Can you speak to the, you know, is it the beat that's doing it? What's happening with the stutter that is that that or I guess I don't know if you could speak about his particular case, but in general what happens? Yeah, you'll even hear about. So something about the beat and the music has been very helpful in a lot of different aspects. So somebody with movement disorder might use music and might dance fluidly, but then when the music stops, when they have, you know, when they lose that thing to attach to, to help preempt the next motion, now they might lose their ability to move as fluidly.

1:07:12 Or somebody with Tourette's syndrome might use excuse. Me Billie Eilish has Tourette's syndrome, apparently. I didn't know about that. Yeah, and she and she's talked about how music has helped her, has helped her navigate her way through it. Yes, yes, there is an excellent movie. I think it's called The Tick Code with and it's about a little boy who has Tourette's and how he's a musician and he connects with another musician who also has Tourettes that he didn't know about. And and how music helps with their, you know, to control their motor ticks and help them, you know, connect with something. It's music is really powerful and we haven't even scratched the surface, I don't think.

1:07:57 And all you know and the power it actually holds. I think we've written an oath as an art instead of looking at it at the science. Yes, I would absolutely agree with that. And yeah, it feels a little bit like a shame that we that we do that because we, I mean, we even know the impact of there have been so many times in my life where I felt the weight of the world, you know, when I was in my early 20s and I had no idea what I was going to do with myself. And I and everyone around me felt like they had everything worked out and were moving on with their lives. And I didn't. And then they were. And I would just RIP down the highway and listen to music and like, that was the only thing that was going to, you know, help me at that moment or set me free at that moment. Bruce Springsteen has saved my life, saved me many times throughout the years, you know, but but there's something about like, like there's something interesting about the fact that, hey, if I'm down, listening to happy music doesn't necessarily work to pick me up.

1:08:57 Sometimes I have to listen to sad music when I'm down. And then I'm like, Oh, now I'm better, you know, and, and what is that and why and why do we feel that way? And that's a science too, you know, that that should be something that we should be employing and using. My first podcast, one of my first real guests, the quote UN quote that you could say was actually some, I believe she's a nurse or a therapist down here in South in University of Miami. And she's a music therapist and she uses the ukulele and the piano and she uses it to help student. She uses it to help in all sorts of fact faculties and with all sorts of patients. I think primarily with the youth with kids, but they've been expanding the program and she's like, we can't even hire enough music therapists is how popular and how useful it's been. So I hope that there's an industry that keeps on taking off.

1:09:45 Me too. OK. What are so to wrap up, what are a couple of things that you're looking forward to that you're that you're I guess hopeful for, I guess or excited about and when some of the things that you were a little nervous about that you would like to at least people to bear in mind? In terms of science or just life or. Yeah, whatever you think is important. You know, so I always, I always go to my kids first. I'm, you know, curious what life is going to be like for them and whether I've prepared them enough to meet all of those challenges. And, you know, they're incredible people. And although they're all my kids, they're all, you know, very different. So, you know, I'm interested in in what the world is going to be like for them and how they are going to contribute to it. In my field.

1:10:38 I would love if, you know, the tool that we developed through, you know, decades of science actually helps somebody what that be the BCI or whether we're able to detect reading impairment so that kids can get help as soon as possible. I would love to be able to, you know, give it forward to have a positive impact on others lives. Definitely, definitely. Well, Doctor Lisa Gable, thank you so, so much for coming. This is so much fun. I hope you had fun with the second podcast experience. You were excellent. And and I hope to do this again because this is so much fun. And when you have some exciting new things, you can let me know.

1:11:20 I'll check back in. But I'm really, I think this is a lot of fun. I'm really excited. I hope to. I hope to stay in touch. Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it. It's a blast. Take care. Bye bye. OK. What do you think? That was fun. I just realized that I had like.