Mind Reader

Correlating the mind with the brain is like trying to unite body and soul: it’s hard to know where one ends and the other begins. But the links are there, and Ned T. Sahin ’94 is searching for them. As a Ph.D. candidate in cognitive neuroscience at Harvard University and a scholar at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, Ned is investigating how our brains allow us to speak. Using brain imaging and more invasive electrical recordings, Ned is tracing the neural circuits for language and grammar in Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, two regions long known to be involved in language.

“The brain imaging technique fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) essentially allows us to take pictures of thoughts,” says Ned. “We can now ask scientifically about questions that until recently were only the domain of philosophers. I have always wanted to stay close to biology and ask how the actual machinery of the brain allows us to act and think the way we do, and these techniques allow me to be a biologist and still study topics relevant to the daily lives of humans as social beings such as language, emotions, dreams and decisions.”

From an early age, Ned felt the need to know how things work. “I would take apart electronic devices looking for the ‘magic’ inside that made them work, often destroying them in the process,” he says. By the time he applied to Milton, he’d already decided he wanted to study neuroscience. “It’s a hard technical science and also a realm where I can study questions very relevant to the human condition.”

He credits his classes at Milton, particularly honors biology, as a strong foundation for his future scientific studies, but says, “at the same time, much of what I learned came from my activities beyond the curriculum, seeing how ‘real science’ is done. Much as pre-med students often shadow doctors, I did summer internships in Boston-area neuroscience labs starting after my Class II year at Milton.”

Since then he has continued to immerse himself in research environments where theories become realities. In his role as senior technologist at Tiax LLC, a collaborative research and development firm, Ned is working on a wearable sensor that can predict and prevent stress in United States Army soldiers. The System for Evaluating Neurological Stress with Objective and Remote Sensors (SENSORS) will likely be a lightweight, under-helmet skullcap that measures the sleepiness, brain activity, perspiration and blood pressure of soldiers in simulated battle situations. The resulting biomedical data, broadcast wirelessly to a remote location for real-time evaluation, will allow the Army to understand how stress, workload and mental state affect soldiers’ performance and decision-making skills and then help it determine how best to train and protect soldiers. In addition, SENSORS may be used someday to monitor levels of stress and sleep deprivation in high-risk professions such as emergency medicine and commercial aviation.

Based on his own research experience, Ned believes that science students at all levels should get a hands-on opportunity to test their knowledge. “I read an opinion piece where someone said that if we taught soccer the way we teach science, grade-school children would go through several years studying the basic physics of an idealized sphere. Then they would learn about the quirks of a sphere with dimples and panels like a soccer ball. Next they would learn about projectile motion and write equations describing the path of a kicked ball. They would also have courses on game strategy, probably in high school, along with the mathematics of scorekeeping and statistics of winning probabilities given certain scores and strategies. In college they would watch videos of actual games, and write essays about how they could do better. For final projects they would play at being a coach of a recorded game and decide what to do. Finally, in graduate school, the few “soccer students” left would get on a field and kick their first ball themselves. For their Ph.D. theses they would play a single game of soccer. Then they would seek jobs as full-time soccer players on professional teams and be expected to go to the World Cup in six years, or be fired. Clearly this is not how it works! Teaching science and keeping students interested takes more apprentice-style instruction and real-time feedback. As early as possible, students should get the thrill of adding some new piece of knowledge to the pool, and should realize that increasingly complex and cutting-edge information is not just in textbooks but it is out there, ready to be incorporated into the realm of things we understand.” Ned is working to increase that realm by looking back into the mind, a circular loop of investigation and understanding that will ultimately reveal the mysterious conversation between mind and body.

Caitlin O’Neil ’89

 

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