how smart are you battle athletes
begin the would you like to be smarter I feel like increasing my purple tissue
I'm David Pogue and on his episode nobody science now
this is a real brain human brain I'm going to extremes
talk about a splitting headache to unlock the secrets behind some of the
most impressive Brians around
from perhaps the greatest mind to the modern age there's not one
grain that has the same anatomy as Einstein to a guy who can remember
impossibly long lists of numbers
41 me 59 shoes 597 okay that's
highly free 21 with an amazing head for dates
what day will Christmas Pauline in your 2366
Sunday goodbye
that what makes their brains so special
they are you saying that you can tell stuff but person's brain
by the outside yes and in the case Alliance dying once definitely able to
do that his genius porn
for me it's like an out-take from the Star Wars prop department
we're diving under the hood this place here comes right across the top of his
years and revealing new evidence up what it means to be smart
we can now evolved the definition of intelligence
and what you can do to improve your brain power what does this mean
I'm going to find out how smart can we get up next
on no bus I it's now
funding for Nova signs now is provided by
that you ever wondered why some brains are smarter than others
or there's a way to get smarter yourself I'm David Pogue
and I'm on a quest to explore the upper limits a brain power
to start I want to check out one of the smartest brains that
ever existed Albert Einstein's
there's no doubt the guy was a genius by his twenties
here revolutionize our fundamental notions of space
time and matter with his theory of relativity a few years later
he figured out how gravity works as if that weren't mind-blowing enough
he came up with equals MC squared
that eventually a great scientist moved here
to Princeton New Jersey using my picture and in his honor absolutely
this is is memorialized with this statue that only that
there's a shrine dedicated to him in a back up a local clothing store
there's gonna tell me there's a Kennedy Memorial behind the deli
but what most residents don't know
that hidden inside this hospital is one of the best kept secrets in america
over there Albert Einstein's brain
feinstein's brain the brain the most famous scientists in the world
is in there and they will let you in ASEAN it's been there for a dozen years
I'm unable to get access to it it years
on very bizarre story
neurologist Fred lapore would love to get his hands on
he hopes it will reveal what made feinstein so smart
was there something different about his brain believe it or not
we still have a chance to find out okay rewind a bit
a I signed I is I is signed I on April 18th 1955
Thomas Harvey the pathologist at the time is expected to do a routine
autopsies
routine autopsies but instead
what Thomas Harvey the doctor performing the autopsy
decides to do is anything but routine
without consent from Einsteins family he decides to remove the breed
so the doctor on duty not his partner
not his brother took the brain and basically kept it
yes in started studying yes
army takes dozens possibly hundreds of photographs
knowing what's coming up next because he's about to take the steps
you can't turn back from
he begins to dissect it over the next few days
into two hundred forty blocks when he say a block mean a little a little cuba
Ballard Designs brain yeah
I can show you some if you care to see you can get in there
I have pictures of the
these are the to glass cookie jar sleep early they hold about
a 180 blocks although they were counted
here talking about blacks a brain blah to bring those things that are certain
that yellowish party color
are sections a brain and each section a brain is surrounded by
gloss if you had all the axis you wanted you would find out what
that use a genius you might find out here some circus that are different
is it standard issue organized I'm really have a freakishly different brain
it becomes Thomas Hardy's life mission to find out are
do
and when he loses his job Princeton hospital Harvey quietly slips away
taking the brain with them
key measure with the TSA will said about his carry-on yeah here
it
traveled to the midwest wherever he moved
so does the brain do
from time to time he sends chance if it to researchers he deems worthy
then in the nineteen nineties he send several chances
and some of his photographs to Canadian neurologist
Sandra Wilson
wilson has one of the largest collections O'Brien's in the world
captain this walk-in refrigerator Thomas Hardy
realize that because I had a large brain collection
it would be a good comparison for a case study in Einstein's brain
party gives Wilson a few select chunks but is in a handful of photographs that
she finds the most valuable clues
she makes a startling discovery in an area of the brain called
the parietal lobe on the top of the head towards the back
we have a 125 brains in our collection which means
250 hemispheres there's not one hemisphere
that has the same cried a little as Einstein Wilson believes that a party
feinstein's parietal lobe was fifteen percent larger than
any other breed in her collection
to find out what makes this discovery so important
I'm going where no host has gone before
with the help a pathologist David zag zag in your surgeon John coffee house
i'm taking a little brain to work to gentleman
can you certify this is no plastic model this is a real brain
human brains Manny touch the brain very gently
do
oh wow it's cold bribery
in its clammy and it's kinda weird consistency
well how would you describe this to someone at home like hard shell as well
I think
yeah very her jealous good cash it don't put it down
but the first thing you notice when you look at it is that there are these
raised parses ridge's
these tiny ridge's air pumps are called
gyrating they contain billions of nerve cells
the crevices are called soulside see the reason we have all these fools that is a
brain developed
as we got smarter our brain got bigger and to fit inside the skull that had the
fold in on itself
is Amina Asian man would not have as many folds correct
more folds mean your nerve cells and that means
their brainpower do all these polls are divided into four major areas
for loads which are found in both hemispheres
the area Wilson found unique in Einstein
the parietal lobe is a fascinating part of the brain
that's involved in how we develop a picture the world around us
3d rotations spatial imaging that's what the Prada loafers Lanao
also can make sense that eisenstein who processed
the universe and the laws of physics should have a super divulge Pray Love
in the unique parietal lobe could have helped ice time
think about space time in gravity in a way nobody ever had before
%uh
that anatomy conferred some kind of an advantage
to Einstein in that particular area on intelligence
but is that what made him a genius %uh for his unique parietal lobes the key to
his revolutionary mathematical concepts
trial that's like a perfect score at Texas Tech University
Michael O'Boyle is doing research that could help answer this question
he's been studying the brains have math geniuses
like thirteen-year-old sharm ice n Ross
a great scientist so many others like Stephen Hawking
new they were all really great scientist
I do wanna be a great scientists like that charm has one
dozens of math competitions 12 square root of three
12 group 3 is the correct answer impact
he's become a bit of a celebrity on the math circuit
today Michael is scanning shamans green to see what areas he uses to do complex
math
this can is called an after MRI
the app stands for functional Marchan presses buttons to answer math questions
display on the screen
the scanner detects increased blood flow in a part of his brain that are hard at
work
these areas are depicted as red good how much is Shah making use of his parietal
lobes
the it turns out a lot the is relying on
parietal areas to determine his best medical relationships
that's characteristic up lot Savannah gifted types
%uh in fact in a recent study O'Boyle found that while solving math problems
math gifted kids have five to six times more neuron activation
in these brain regions than the average can especially here
in their prior to Lopes but is there more
my quest to find out takes me to Santa Fe New Mexico
to learn what anthropologist Dean fuck has discovered in Einstein's brain
Dean is a leading expert in the study a primate brains
for specialty analyzing the meaning have those bumps and polled on the surface
they are you saying that you can tell stuff about a person's brain
by the patterns in the fold on the outside
yes and in the case Alliance tying R&B once definitely able to do that to
some extent
by looking at Wilson's photographs d makes a surprising discovery
in another area by Einstein's brain the frontal lobes
doctors talk to me about frontal so these problems are really involved in
almost everything we do
making us who we are behaviors planning
understand mr. gonna do next staying organized
they really what makes you mad they're very important
so I was curious to find out exactly what Dean discovered
in Einstein's brain
show in looking at this photograph something jumped out at me
I noticed a particular feature in the final love
on them right k on it here that stems from not
then would you like to know right part in the brain that controls
why yes I would well it sa right
in Fran askin me a hand if this if you wake up call
week I'll your finger yeah you aren't using
this general area it's a motor cortex
for the left hand so this system area here in the back of my right frontal
lobe is considered control my left hand yes
and in the case I Starline it was greatly expanded informed there's not
here
it is shaded area and she liked him the brain to show you
where would be if it were expanded in human brain can be right about here but
notices human doesn't have the snot
and it turned out that I just read this study
that talks about that none of and what it means
this study reported that musicians who learn how to play a string instrument in
childhood
develop the same shape in exactly the same place
impact when they scan kids with an MRI before they learn to play a musical
instrument
and then again after 15 months a training
they discovered the brain head already changed
so I was surprised to see this and I and dynamic here
because in fact he took violent left as a child three years in use in years
Dean doesn't digging and discovers this when he was struck by six probably
in a joint is kitchen pick up the federal complaint to relax
and he would suddenly get an answer to a physics problem
penny been marching on wow %um
feinstein is reported to have said the theory of relativity occurred to me by
intuition and music was the driving force behind that intuition
feinstein may have been born extraordinary Priolo
but without his love the violin with Thein Sein have become
feinstein I am sign had experiences in his life
which allowed him to put to use a great brain
fell both nature and nurture were really important for Einstein
with all this talk about Brians I was dying to find out more about my own
so I had some scans taken that show the surface of my brain
and brought them to Dean to analyze I s'pose its
too much to ask did as I have anything in common with feinstein
Paul harm Gary interesting question
lo and behold the same studies that show violinists develop a knob on the right
side of their brains
show the PNS develop something similar on the left
I've been told that you do play piano yeah I'm want to ask you
did you can be done for a long time yet take sousa hidden palms
stern is nine in fact the piano is a big part of my life
I played through college on broadway and I still play today
well I'm not surprised because this configuration
sets for the finding from the study I've developed
an enlargement ray here in my motor cortex
on the left side of my brain just as many other pianist Stephen
so I am reshape my brain through callous attack UK
from reasonable hypothesis but enough about me
I let's get back to Albertsons
what the heck happened to his brains before Thomas Harvey died
he returned those two cookie jars containing Einstein's brain
here to prince in hospital a stone's throw
from Fred reporters reach so far the hospital has declined friend requests
for access
but he's determined to keep trying
gotta be a way midnight heists on
open to any suggestions potions 14
room
in
do
them
and being smart involves many skills
among them how important his memory
to find out I'm here at the US memory championship season and we have five
minutes
metal athletes
begin first-round memorized 500 numbers
in order in just five minutes
trying to remember more than 20 makes my head spin Nelson Dellis
a previous champion memorizes 303 a
making him the winner this round the top of my
its ranks it's it's stacked against people with bad memories
next I have five minutes to memorize the exact order
an entire deck of cards me you'll get extra points for creativity
or not
a poor smells and beat everyone recalling the order the entire deck
in 87 where
animals
how smart is this guy
and how does he do it pritchard olivia Newton
don't care how many
com
olivia Newton dunking a helmet believe it or not
he's using it Asian technique goes all the way back to .500 PC
too far to take this list I decide to put this memory techniques
to the test so I invite Chester Santos
the 2000 8 US memory champions to use it to memorize the list above 60 numbers
to take me to rest my life I could definitely do this in five minutes or
less
go the
by do okay I'm done
I doubt it they're done I gotta ask just let me know
if I make any mistakes change the whole thing you can count on it I
okay 40 41 8
1.1 to 0 97
5 the 0 8
7 wanna 59
shoes 597
you got them all exactly right okay that's highly freaky
going to now it's my turn to learn this ancient memory technique
are 8-3 on the list Chester takes out a list of 40 random words for me to
memorize in order
monkey iron rope kite
howls paper that's right I said
40 bicycle elephant computer
soared necklace and pizza that that would take me
several hours you'll have this perfectly memorized in 10 or less minutes
ty I just want to be clear for the record if I don't
it's his fault step 1:
my lesson begins by walking around my living room
making notable objects I see every day like my beloved grand piano
my favorite chairman and my kids get armed
toys really meant to have this cleaned up water and
Chester tells me to study these objects because we're about to use them
to help me remember those forty words the globe
and partial do
now it's on to stem to a match in the on papa
this piano there is a monkey dancing on that piano
but you don't just see the monkey dance around maybe even
here the monkey making monkey noises as
dancing that's the first word monkey so picture that really imagine that
happening
K and the monkey picks up giant
I N
how does this strange technique work he asked a memory expert to explain
we are visual we are auditory we have all these different
senses and the more a single piece and inflation is locked in through the
various senses
the better chances the chain
so the 30 and more vivid the story the better now
at that chair see ropes attached to a
kite in the kite flying around in the ames
picture that the car is smashing into howls
can you discover that the house is made of paper do all your visuals are very
active and then there's live motion to them is that party that
exactly me 10 remember things more
there were something interesting actually happening rather than just
a stagnant objects didn't
sewing dancing man he is shooting row
a smashing guitar perfect
further down the list might issues are having quite a memorable experience
as they get run over by a bicycle with an elephant perched on top
the season thank him
sorry wrong that you remember this
yes I will definitely a rumor that it
the time has finally come %um I have any particular has a
I have a lot of confidence yeah money and you know I got the money so
can I we have monkey and I am
in and
next to it was a chair and then had rope in cuts
in and Qatar smashing posts paper
lo and behold as I mentally traverse the room
that's the words come pouring out river that's right
Ron that's cracked re that's right she's racked
but then there's something about that she's bad
during had something to a smashing I
I
let's eat tissues I'll commitment issues are getting run over by
doll a baseball guy hell after a close call
I miraculously whiz through the rest to the list necklace and the past
great job hours K
next year's memory champion there thank you
impaneled I want to know what parts of my brain accomplish this for chilean
task
yes we're not seeing i asked doctors AGS agen golf enough to show me
so why don't you
are you kidding me this is what I call a brain nice some
so also police this one's going on a resume
very right there the man all
and I'll very happy to inform you that you have made the most
symmetrical cut and the
to a pecan pie I'll right here in front
just below the pointer
the hippocampus fire toward the middle in the head just a few inches
in from the ears these tiny structures help store are short term memories
said that little things are memories short term illness
Wow so what about these people from memory championship state
translate everything into visual metaphors
so if you think about their attaching extra information and using other parts
of the brain the part that
processes language apart the processes images
and that's how they attach them onto the memory make a stronger memory by
recruiting
other parts of the brain the hell
having a good memory is important but for brain to be really smart
it has to do even more tell me which of these pieces
go here it has to have the ability to problem-solve
the number for for over a hundred years
we measured the brain's ability to solve problems with IQ test
like this member 3 the could there be a better way
my quest to find out how smart brain works
takes me to a research center in Albuquerque New Mexico
where state-of-the-art technology could give us a whole new way
to assess intelligence we now have the opportunity to evolve the definition of
intelligence
away from just relying on task performance
and toward a definition that includes brain physiology that we can measure
how they do it using this strange-looking device
call in MTG scanner Richard higher in Rex young are trying to reveal what
parts of the brain we use
when we're problem solving
it's like an out-take from the Star Wars Prop 2 party
you but instead impersonating Darth Vader
I'm taking a pop quiz
questions like the kind you find on an IQ test will appear on the screen
I'm supposed to solve brain teasers like this
pay as I do my high-tech helmet
picks up what's happening in my brain
the brain is made billions of nerve cells in every time one communicates
with another
it generates an electrical signal those signals give of a magnetic field
which is picked up by my helmet the result
is an animated image my brain all these blue and red Flash's show
no second by millisecond the area's hard at work
around four hundred milliseconds in his win you see the campus fire up
school I'm making good use to the areas I used to memorize those 40 words
but hiring Young's research shows I'm also relying heavily on that area so
unique
in hindsight his brain the parietal lobe and I'm also making good use my frontal
lobe which helps me with planning and decision-making
both those areas have been linked to visual spatial ability
Mericle ability abstract reasoning
but our research suggests that is the communication among those areas
that really is the key
how different parts of the brain communicate look at the structure the
brain
easy they call the white matter even the connecting fibers
call the white matter because they're really why compared to the darker as
home now which are the gray matter gray matter is mostly on the outside in the
brain
it's filled with billions of nerve cells
beneath that is white matter the white matter is made up of long nerve fibers
that crisscross the brain connecting different areas have gray matter to each
other
the amount of gray matter you have is really important
but intelligence researchers are discovering that that spaghetti like
network connections
is just as crucial thats the next great frontier the brain is free and every
single connection
and how those connections work together we want to understand
not just the areas that light up during intelligence
but also how those areas communicate with each other
is that the same in every person
we think not we think there'll be differences
and we think those differences will be related to intelligence
Richard hiring Rex young are just beginning to unravel the secrets
to how intelligent brain works but until they can solve this mystery
I'd like to know if there's a way you can make your brain smarter
no items we read about ways that you are supposed to help your brain is brain
food in their
he say should do crossword puzzles as you age to keep your brain fresh is
there anything
that we can do to make ourselves smarter there could be
and if you come outside with us we'll show you one thing that though we can
try
you might be surprised at what the good doctor's order
you guys said that be able to do some
experiment demonstrating that you can actually grow your brain I thought the
equipment involved be a little more expensive than juggling balls what is
this about
well this is very famous study that showed if you juggle
over period a long period of time it actually increases
the gray matter in a certain region have your brain
that's observers juggling not only can you increase your grey matter
present study show you can increase your white matter to
bueno by you gentleman I feel like increasing my cortical tissue
less jojos give it a try now actually know how to check taken 22 pretty well
that count
ladies and gentleman you're witnessing for the first time on television
the growing love my brain I can feel like going to look like an alien in 20
minutes all
Wow
you wanna know how can you make your brain work better
use it or lose it and use it to learning new things
like chocolate
so remember learn something new and you too
can grow your brain power
the
on
do
the
the word
the
every brain is unique
but few are as extraordinary as George white nurse
what I experience walking down a city street is completely different from what
george experiences
24-hour acted right wing man to lie down
George is on the hunt for numbers when he finds once he likes
he plays the most amazing game the 515 527
takeout may 1st year fixed 5:27
george's transform this random number into a calendar days
homemade pizza 5527 like the Super future asi es
long time now what he does next
is absolutely amazing and added
as a
ya that's a Sunday but my
and you can actually find a counter from the year 5527 on the Internet and you'll
see that he's right
that George is what's known as a calendar calculator
the given a date in her tell you what day of the week it falls on
peso March 9 1871 what it means is that bad
looks like a Thursday home weekend it was indeed
a Thursday
what day will christmas ball on in your 2366
2366 December between
their a service seen a Sunday
my that here a
how does he do it how does the brain accomplish such extraordinary feats
when I try to counter calculate here's what happens
the jurors gives me a date February 20th 2002
to you do your thing and I'll do mine and I will see who gets there first can
markets and go
it's the I try to figure it out based on instructions I found on the internet
mister number
first I calculate the total number of days between now and the date
being 2007 and 41 days between divide that by seven days
game if the remainder is zero it will be the same day in the week as today
if the remainder is one it'll be one day earlier
its Tuesday Wednesday Thursday so how you say
figures 28 2002 was a Thursday fats
the center's scene had head chef's planet said I'm
see it's a Wednesday actually mentioned hoops
it shifted because I forgot to account for leap year said hold on
Wednesday Wednesday now I'm getting Wednesday
just like you away could you tell me how you did that against
not know okay how does George do it
he says he's not doing any math instead she sees numbers line up
to form a calendar he finds the date and seize the day in the week
today toward uses his counter calculating
to create fascinating paintings each one is filled with numbers
encounter dates he's an accomplished artist
but that wasn't always the case when using child
teachers couldn't figure out what was wrong with him I was labeled both gifted
and learning disabled
so he withdrew into himself finding comfort
encounter dates he became an obsession
disconnected him from the world it took years for George to find out why
finally he was diagnosed with a rare condition
called savant syndrome I A and my calendar salonga high-functioning
calendar survived
psychiatrist jerrold Trafford a prominent expert on savant syndrome
has documented about 300 cases people like George
who are born with extraordinary skills
in the process he's also found around 30 truly bizarre cases
for people were transformed into servants seemingly overnight
these are people who Hamburg injury or disease
and all of a sudden some ability cascades fourth which was never there
early forms
he calls them acquired servants and they represent some of the most mysterious
cases
in a field a brain science wanted them
is Derek Amada he became a pianist
after a severe head injury so you get this straight dive into swimming pool
and hit your head on the bottom
you came to a week later and what
Derek started to suffer from headaches and memory loss
that still plague in today but then something unexpected happened
barely a week after the accident
he was hit with an uncontrollable need to play the piano
the he said for hours plane this melody
over and over again
been
and that's what a las and you weren't a piano player
now hold so what I love to know is is how you
picture and think about music because when I learned his music
I generally look at the sheet music and you know each node is on a liner space
now represents one of the keys on a piano
and I i do I i learn it that way and sign in
do
so that's all written out by the composer specifically
that we're taking a year to learn maybe five wow said you
do you read sheet music no I see blocks I E C these black and white
squares nonstop the
these blocks tellers fingers how to play then Ali Memon
dump something kinda miraculous happens
to your brain when he hit the band the poor right but what
why do people like Derek develops a bite like abilities
after head injury and wire some people
like George Weidner the counter calculator born with them
so just follow me into the room clues to solving this mystery
may be hidden in george's brain for the last few years
near a radiologist joy hirsch has been studying it with an MRI scanner
what we're seeing is the structural pictures out his brain
it looks to a layman just like a normal brain well it looks
to our scientists and their radiologist
like a normal as hell I today her she is probing further
she's taking fMRI scans george's brain
this can t text increased blood flow in the areas of his brain their artwork
and this is george's brain when he's counter calculating
but we're seeing here are to slices have george's brain
so here on George week that this is my other
slices so this life here comes right across just about the top of his
years and this lies here comes right across the top of his head
okay and went to really interesting about this
is that most of the activity as you can see by the concentration of the yellow
gloves
is on one side of the brain nice actually the left side of the brain
what is that tell you what reaction you have are you like
all my Kaiser like a hot just as I P rising what well this was a complete
surprise
speakers typical brains in any task
are much more symmetrical
this is the fMRI have a typical brain at work
both the left and right hemispheres show activation
on but when Georges counter calculating bad doesn't happen
the the activity pattern on the right side of the brain
is a very sparse in a way that might suggest
some kind of shutting down on one side of the brain
the so this is quite extraordinary
it is if the tools on the brain that he needs to do that
task become highly focused that is he uses very specific areas in the brain
and doesn't use others
for savant have only one side working well to me I would interpret that as
saying
the other side is shut off for isolated and the side is using all available
processing power the brand but only on one or two tasks
instead of the hundred thousand the task at the whole brain
normally handle that one time all that processing power is buying the one
little thing
calendar calculator
but how about people who suddenly develops about like abilities later in
life
like an Adams an extraordinary case
a scientist turned Peter over several years
while and was stricken with a rare brain disorder that's slowly diminished her
ability to speak
she said miltie nestle developed an obsessive need
to Pete I need to make art it took over her life
she produced hundreds a PDX brain scans taken over several years
give us a rare glimpse and what was happening in anne's brain
%uh in areas associated with speech nerve cells were dying of
these areas are highlighted in blue done
but in the areas highlighted in orange something very different appears to be
happening
the right posterior part of the brain the part that involves we think with
production are is starting terror remodel and rebuild
this loss of function and her language circa
accelerated the growth in her additional circuitry
I think the brain compensates for loss this is exactly what happens
as you lose one circuit another circuit
is turned on more of the time it compensates and it develops new skills
that allow us to come
I showed joy hirsch and Adams askance
to see what she had to say so it's a very interesting case
where beaten balance on the brain was altered and during the course of this
alteration
the other side of the brain appears to have
on compensated with the emergence
%uh new talents almost some online how
these functional brain scans are helping us decode the mystery of servants like
George
and may help us understand how people like an Adams and Derek amato
can suddenly acquire remarkable talents
they command beautifully done the
the
it
these kids are about to take an exam
just one of many in their lifetimes and they're feeling the pressure
do it is one of the worst feelings in the world darken students take more than
a hundred million standardized tests a year
the circuit Canada you start doubting yourself but no matter how smart you are
sometimes even the brightest brains don't perform as they should
my stunning flips and then I
the really sad the choc under pressure
financially free now do and is not just in the classroom do I think
anyone can jump under pressure we've all seen it happen
from American Idol member good thing that I told you
them ironic
to a spelling bee by n
at I am all the great jokes have something in common
they've all failed to perform at their best when the pressure is high
the agency's repairing the Republican debate Sep 2011
and the a what's the third one there but say
I and of course sports choked
like going for crucial field goal that should be easy
the and missing the
with Iran athlete doctor just a kid sitting for the SAT
are choking can be devastating it's one thing to have skill or knowledge to
perform well
but it doesn't matter how much Matthew now if you can never showed on the
quantitative section and SAT
the
but what if you could teach your brain not to chip that's the goal of cognitive
scientist
see on bile see on is figuring out how to train your brain to perform at its
best
even when the heat is on
see on learned about choking the hard way
soccer and was my one really true passion
my name is Tiana and the soccer goalkeeper at sixteen
she was a star goalie in the Olympic Development Program
then one day a national coach came to see her play
I knew he was there in a new day this might be my one shot
and offensive player came down the right side of the field
took a shot at the near post
as the poster supposed to be able to save the bar
right under my arm and ball it went all downhill from there
said
was out of consideration for the national team
I had that one shot and I found
was a crushing blow I just felt totally
defeated all the hard work I put into getting to the place that is getting had
just
vanished in the blink of an eye
is the middle the game and I wanted to walk him so yeah
attempt
soon after see on walked away from soccer
the when she went to college
she was determined to find out what had happened inside her brain
on that fateful day so she majored in cognitive science
one of the reasons I was really interested in cognitive sciences that'd
seem like it might be a window into ill
trying to understand a little bit about how I perform some people always ask me
if I do me surgery
and I think there's definitely a little bit me search to what i do. CNN wants to
know what happens to our brain
under pressure and her research team has figured out the perfect recipe
for high anxiety on all we do is we have meetings come in
me angel bottom out bombs stay even make the math problems look strange to throw
the students often and we give this year's instructions are really designed
to create have a stressful environment for them
they put money on the line all and tell the students that a partner is depending
on them
to improve their scored
but he can't improve the you won't get additional money
any the way upon at this point students are really freaking out
annenberg to really make it a very very stressed and I'm going to be a Camry but
a red next to them
dissimilar from then
the students to a second block a problems and it works most people when
they're in our stressful situations
really do feel pressure to perform at a high level
and as it happens lotta people show under that pressure
usually de Chocolat 11 to 20 percent below their initial block
homes so what's happening when the choc
only the scanner can tell we put people in this MRI machine
they're lying on their back but they can see his computer screen and they're
actually performing problems
they use a controller to give her answers
then see on Steam makes them swept finally during this next other problems
we're gonna be videotaping our performance
CNN's theory was that these stressors were messing with the patient's working
memory
it's a little different from short term memory which comes from the hippocampus
working memory is your mental scratch pad that essentially allows you to work
with whatever information is held in consciousness
and involves the prefrontal cortex
which is part in the frontal lobe just above our eyes
the are prefrontal cortex essentially allows us to do all the special things
we can do is humans whether it's
hitting a tiny ball into the tiny all are juggling lot of math problems in our
head home
based on activity she saw in the scans have her stressed-out subjects
see on Canon for communication between the prefrontal cortex
and the emotional centers in the brain like the nigga
and when the emotional centers are overactive they can prevent
clear thinking in these situations and people fill these worries tend to come
online in co-op this be found resources
that people with otherwise use to perform while
CNN's preliminary data suggests that unit chokers brain
the emotions cause a racket big enough to interrupt
working memory but what about those lucky people who don't show
who perform well under pressure
what's different about and non chokers brain
on it's almost as if the prefrontal cortex and those emotions enters the
brain
on capitol more stop talking for a moment for non chokers
it's almost as though they temporarily put the conversation between these two
parts of the brain
on hold people who are less likely to choke
essentially show less crosstalk there's last an opportunity for these worries to
seep into impact performance
and we think that these are skills that can be taught high season
see on had a theory she thought could have a huge impact
in she set out to prove it she went where the stress was boiling over
a high school biology exam
just before the test started CNN's team gave the kids and extra assignments
we accuse the classrooms last all the students to either write about 30 per
starts
and feelings or sit for 10 minutes see on new from other studies
the depressed patients who wrote down their emotions in a journal
could break the cycle of negative thinking but would it work for
anxious test-takers the ideas that get we have people journal before this
important test
we might be able to help them succeed the students poured out there
deepest worries onto paper then it was test time
so how they do students who just sat without writing anything
on average got a B-minus I'm but the ones who wrote
got on average abuse class be boosted the student scores
over have a great point by just having them sit and write for 10 minutes
about their thoughts and feelings about the upcoming high-stakes times
so what did the students right years and millions are butterflies in my stomach
bringing breathe I'm telling myself
is a stress attack on how well he is leaning towards the middle he says
as I continue to think about the spinal I relax significantly for those students
with high test anxiety
journaling was a silver bullet but why does it work
when people are wearing up under stress it's almost like a computer with too
many programs open and one sometimes everything
crashes and by writing down some others worries you're able to
of let some others program see you free up resources to perform
your past
journaling may help kids show how smart they are when it matters most
%uh you don't have to be an Olympic athlete are sitting for the SAT to have
these choking experiences
weather here interviewing for a job or just
one of my favorite places where I often show parallel parking in front of your
spouse
some the same prostheses can drive that underperforms
what my work shows is that it doesn't have to be an inevitable phenomenon that
we can learn from this poor performances
and what if she'd never choked I thought about this idea maybe
if I had shipped for the national coach I would have gone on to play in the
Olympics
but I'm happy with all the lessons I learned from
that experience and I think I've been able to to take some of that and use
them
in mining new life persons
my work to really push the bounds of what we're able to do spend everyone
can perform up to their potential
NC on practices what she preaches she journal before this interview
so what did she write so I really wanted a
I'm exhausted and I hope that doesn't make me sound incoherent
I need to just focus on the present on today have fun with that
and not let my thoughts are worries about tomorrow or the next day feat Ben
and did it help sure today
minor dent then aunt
where
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path
this nervous I sell program is available on DVD
to order visit shop PBS .org will call one
800 play PBS Nova is also available for download on iTunes
I think consider perfect match for city wear them in a minute against
major reading the blog they can build on the knowledge month ago
wonderment taking generalized another
it's possible that moving into the urban environment is creating
technically smarter rack
is