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THE BRAIN & BEING HUMAN

OCTOBER 4 & 5, 2011

The Nobel Conerence at Gustavus Adolphus College is the frst

ongoing educational conerence o its kind in the United States

NOBEL CONFERENCE® 47 PREVIEW GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE



Understanding what it is to be human means understanding the brain. This intriguing scientic challenge has

grabbed the attention o more and more people rom all walks o lie. You may have noticed how oten brain science

pops up; breakthroughs are highlighted in the news almost daily and even serve as the basis or TV entertainment

in shows like Law and Order or interviews on the Colbert Report . The application o neuroscience has changed the

way the NFL manages concussive injuries, led to laws prohibiting the exchange o text messages while driving, and

suggested that exercise will not only trim your waistline but also improve your memory. Just three years ago, during

Nobel Conerence® 44, “Who Were the First Humans?” we learned how human brains have grown larger as our

communities have grown. Our hope is that people with a variety o interests and backgrounds and rom all corners

o campus and the wider community will realize that they can be part o this neuroscience conversation.

In 1994, the distinguished speakers who participated in Nobel Conerence 30, “Unlocking the Brain,” provided a

window or us to see how a set o electrical events traveling around in our head could account or how we move,

eel, and learn. In the past two decades, the pace o discovery in neuroscience has been astonishing, and the breadth

o the eld has expanded dramatically to encompass almost all human activities. It serves as a bridge between

diferent disciplinary perspectives, producing exciting new vantage points in the study o the human experience.

Now, in 2011, we make the leap to explore these grand new ideas at Nobel Conerence 47. Although we are

humbled by the complexity o the undertaking, we are excited to share with you the boundless possibilities o “The

Brain and Being Human.”

We hope that you can join us.

Michael Ferragamo, Chair Chuck Niederriter, Director

Nobel Conerence 47 Nobel Conerence

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE

AND THE NOBEL CONFERENCE®

Established in 1862 by Swedish Lutheran immigrants, Gustavus AdolphusCollege is a private, liberal arts college that provides an undergraduate

education of recognized excellence. The Alfred Nobel Hall of Science

at the College was named as a memorial to the great Swedish inventor

and philanthropist. Following its dedication in 1963—which was attended

by Nobel Foundation officials and 26 Nobel laureates—the College

sought endorsement from the Nobel Foundation for an annual science

conference. Permission was granted and the conference, now in its sixth

decade, continues to set a standard for timeliness, intellectual inquiry,

and free debate of contemporary issues related to the natural and social

sciences.

GREETINGSFROM GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE



TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2011

10 a.m. First Lecture: Vilayanur Ramachandran,

M.D., Ph.D., center for Brain and Cognition,

Psychology Department, and Neurosciences Program,

University of California, San Diego

1 p.m. Second Lecture: Larry J. Young, Ph.D.,

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,

Emory University School of Medicine, and Center for

Behavioral Neuroscience, Atlanta, Ga.

3 p.m. Third Lecture: Helen Mayberg, M.D.,

Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry and Behavioral

Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, and

Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, Atlanta, Ga.

6:30 p.m. Fourth Lecture: Aniruddh D. Patel, Ph.D.,

The Neurosciences Institute, San Diego, Calif.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2011

10 a.m. Fifth Lecture: John Donoghue, Ph.D.,

Department of Neuroscience and Institute for Brain

Science, Brown University, Providence, R.I.

1 p.m. Sixth Lecture: Paul W. Glimcher, Ph.D.,

Center for Neuroeconomics and Center for Neural

Science, New York University

3 p.m. Seventh Lecture: Martha Farah, Ph.D.,

Center for Neuroscience and Society, University of

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

8 p.m. Closing Lecture: Nancey Murphy, Ph.D.,

(banquet) Th.D., School of Theology, Fuller Theological

Seminary, Pasadena, Calif.

ABOUT THE

ARTWORK The theme o Nobel Conerence 47, “The Brain & Being Human,” comes to lie

through an intricate and detailed illustration created by Leandro Lima, a Brazilian

illustrator, designer, and digital artist currently living in Milan, Italy. Lima has

done work or numerous clients worldwide, including Microsot, Sony Ericsson,

Vespa, Everlast, and Wired magazine.

For this year’s conerence, he creatively incorporated aspects o daily human lie

and the workings o the human brain. Utilizing a highly stylized typographic

approach, he has created letterorms and pictures that represent sight, smell,

emotion, and decision-making. The design highlights the senses associated with

being human: among the images, an ear receiving sound waves produced by

strings, representing the eect o music; a tearul eye, representing vision and

emotion; a hand using a key, representing “the human possibility” o decision-

making; and a ace reacting with pleasure to the perume o a ower. The

reaching hands recall Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam , representing not

only the connection between people but also the theological implications o the

passage in the book o Genesis that tells o God giving lie and conscious thought

to Adam, the frst human.

There is a “discovery” aspect in Lima’s design. It might take the viewer some time

to see and appreciate all its aspects, not unlike our attempts to understand the

brain. At frst blush, our brains look like lumpy grey matter, but studying them

rom dierent points o view or with “dierent” eyes, we begin to appreciate their

subtle beauty.

THE BRAIN AND BEING HUMAN 3

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF SPEAKERS All lectures are held in Lund Center Arena.



As we unravel the biological complexity

of the brain we edge ever closer to a

unified explanation of being human.

Knowledge from the humanities, social

sciences, arts, ethics and religion, and

even aspects of daily human life are

now incorporated into the scientific

arena in a new synthesis to understand

the human experience. Nobel

Conference® 47 is a recognition that

the time has come to bring together

the leading minds and to engage them

in conversations about where this

frontier of science may deliver us.

Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran derives his dazzling insights into the workings of the brain from both the clinic and

laboratory. With his uncanny ability to convey his ideas with clarity and humor to the general public, he has become a

charismatic diplomat for the field of neuroscience. His work with neurology patients has led him to ask some intriguing

questions: How does an amputee feel a limb that no longer exists? How can an epileptic seizure produce a deep religious

experience? Why can some individuals taste color? How can someone with damage to the brain be blind and yet still see?

In solving these clinical puzzles Ramachandran has challenged our thinking about what “gives rise to our rich conscious

experience.”

4 NOBEL CONFERENCE 47

THE BRAIN &

BEING HUMAN by Michael Ferragamo and Janine Wotton,

with Gwendolyn Freed



How the brain directs the interactions humans have

with other individuals was once thought to be beyond

mechanistic explanation. However, the work of Dr.

Larry Young on the physiological underpinnings of

social behavior has now made this goal approachable.

His clever use of a comparative animal model, the

monogamous prairie vole, has revealed the crucial role

that specific peptides play in the brain when social bonds

are formed and how the environment may shape these

processes. Now, armed with this knowledge, we can

turn our attention to developing novel strategies for

treating social deficits such as autism, schizophrenia, and

depression.

At the heart of the conference is the recognition

of the importance of emotion to the well-being of

individuals. How and where are emotions experienced

in the brain? How do the brains of patients with mood

disorders differ from the brains of others? Dr. Helen

Mayberg ’s pioneering work on brain imaging of

patients with depressive disorders has revealed not only

the circuitry involved in depression and mood but has

also led to the design of new and exciting treatment

options. The ability to identify which treatments are

best suited to the individual has revolutionized the

medical care of depressive disorders and has led to a

greater understanding of emotion in both healthy and

disordered brains.

Over the past 20 years we have witnessed enormousadvances in the field of brain-machine interfaces, such

as devices that enable a deaf child to listen to a teacher

explain algebra or participate in a sing-along. One of

the most significant breakthroughs in what could be

called the history of human cyborgs occurred about

five years ago, when Dr. John Donoghue and his team

awed the world by restoring the ability of a quadriplegic

patient to operate computer cursors and robotic arms

by simply imagining the movement. The inspiration of

these highly innovative approaches has restored hopeto individuals suffering from all forms of paralysis and

along the way extended what we know about how the

brain coordinates movement.

The revelation of the essence of what makes us human

will likely emanate from people who, like Dr. Aniruddh

Patel, study the cognitive and neural links between

what may be considered our two most definitive traits—

language and music. In recognizing how vital music is

to the richness of the human experience, Patel borrows

from the tool kit of both evolutionary biology and

neuroscience to give us a better handle on why music

appeals to us, moves us in dance, draws us together in

rituals, and in many circumstances may even be more

effective than language as a mode of expression.

We all make choices every day but what guides us to

choose one course of action over another? Why dosome people gamble everything on a risky stock but

others play it safe and put their money in the bank?

Dr. Paul Glimcher is one of the founders of a new

field called neuroeconomics, which seeks to understand

what happens in the brain when people are faced with

choices. His work reveals how the patterns of activity

among a population of brain cells can embody the logic,

the emotion, and the life experiences that influence

what goes into making a decision. Once we understand

how the human brain makes decisions, perhaps it will

no longer be beyond imagination to directly manipulate

how one votes or what one buys.

Dr. Martha Farah will help lead the discussion of the

ethical issues generated by the research described by

other conference lecturers. Questions will undoubtedly

arise about what the impact of neuroscience will be

for individuals and for humanity. Farah, a prominent

neuroscientist who is a founder of an emerging field

called neuroethics, is uniquely qualified to address

these concerns. In 2009 she co-authored a letter,

“Neuroscience and the Soul,” in the journal Science withDr. Nancey Murphy , who has been invited to share

the perspective of a philosopher on the neurobiology

of moral responsibility and free will. Discoveries in

contemporary neuroscience have led Murphy to

evaluate the complementary roles of religion and science

in our explanations of being human.

The biologist E. O. Wilson famously used the term

consilience to describe a phenomenon in which different

types of human endeavor following varied paths of

inquiry end up identifying common truths. In pursuitof their mutual quest to make positive contributions

through greater understanding of the brain and the

human experience, this year’s Nobel Conference speakers

will offer a variety of perspectives that both converge on

and diverge from ideas and findings in other fields.

Michael Ferragamo, associate professor of biology and director of the Neuroscience

Program at Gustavus Adolphus College, is the chair of Nobel Conference 47,

“The Brain and Being Human.” He was assisted in the development of this

essay by Janine Wotton, associate professor of psychology and associate in the

Neuroscience Program. Gwendolyn Freed, former vice president for marketing and

communication, also contributed to the article.




NOBEL CONFERENCE® 47

PRESENTERSVILAYANUR RAMACHANDRAN, M.D. Ph.D.

Phantom limb pain occurs

in at least 90 percent of limb

amputees and has been known

about for hundreds of years, yet

only recently has neuroscience

begun to understand the

condition and its relationship

to empathy, and perhaps to

the next great leap forward

in human evolution. Some neurons, which normally

fire when you poke a patient with a needle, also fire

when the patient watches another patient being poked.

Vilayanur Ramachandran exploited this property, of

so-called mirror neurons, and developed therapies for

phantom limb pain and related disorders with a trick

box that provides false visual information about the limb

to counteract the phantom signals.

These mirror neurons seem to dissolve the barrier

between self and other. Rama, as his friends and

colleagues refer to him, calls them “empathy neurons”

or “Dalai Lama neurons.” He says, “Dissolving this

barrier is the basis of many ethical systems, and may

imply that mirror neurons can provide rational grounds

for ethics.”

The son of an Indian diplomat, Ramachandran spent

much of his youth moving among several different posts

in India and other parts of Asia. He had many scientific

interests as a youth but eventually focused on medicine.

After receiving his medical training in India, he pursued

his interest in the field of neurology. He says, “How

could you not be interested in understanding the

brain?” At Trinity College, Cambridge, he studied

vision and learned about mapping vision to different

locations in the brain.

Returning to his first love, neurology, he began to try

to understand how the brain fills in blind spots. He

was able to apply what he learned to missing limbs and

quickly made many discoveries about phantom limbs.

Ramachandran says, “Any field is exciting in its

early stages. There are many opportunities for fools’

experiments. Faraday did many of these in the

beginning stages of our understanding of magnetism.Neurology is still at the Faraday stage. Yet it is of vital

importance. Why do you laugh and cry? How do you

remember? We know so very little and there are lots of

very elementary questions yet to be answered.”

Ramachandran studies neurology for two reasons,

clinical and scientific. Understanding the plasticity of

the brain, its ability to change with time, could very

well help patients deal with pain and recover from many

disorders. But understanding how the brain works is a

first step in our drive to understand ourselves as humans,

something that could enrich our understanding of our

relationships and our place in the world.

Imagine we know everything there is to know about

the intricate circuitry and functioning of the human

brain. Scientists could create a “Matrix” scenario,

where thousands of electrodes and patterns of electrical

stimulation would make your brain think and feel that

it’s experiencing actual life events, and the simulation

could include a perfect sense of past, present, and

future. Your brain wouldn’t know that its experiences,

its entire life, are not real. And a philosopher would ask,

what is real anyway?

One should not be surprised what Rama does for

fun. In addition to walking and running, he studies

archeology, paleontology, and cosmology. He says that

he is a bit of a bookworm.




LARRY J. YOUNG, Ph.D.

Most people probably don’t

know that prairie voles are

monogamous and meadow

voles are promiscuous. One

might even wonder why anyone

would care. But Larry Young’s

work in understanding the very

slight differences in the brains

of voles is already leading to

development of novel treatments for autism spectrum

disorders. It turns out that the molecules regulating

behavior in voles have similar effects in humans,

providing Young and his colleagues a way to study the

complex interpersonal relationships of our species.

Growing up in rural south Georgia meant not having

easy access to college prep schools and classes. But

childhood on a farm provided Larry Young with a view

of the diversity of nature that a city kid would never

know. He was fascinated by the differences between the

animals he saw on the farm and in nature in general,

and was determined to understand them. He says that

if you are persistent, you can make your dream reality.

And persistent he was, earning a degree in biochemistry

from the University of Georgia in 1989 and going on to

get his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in

neuroendocrinology in 1994. During his undergraduate

education, he says, he became fascinated with the ideathat well-defined biochemical processes control complex

biological phenomena, and that many of these processes

are determined by an organism’s genes. As a graduate

student, he compared the behavior of two different

species of lizards and their underlying molecular

differences. It was as a postdoc at Emory University

that he began investigating the molecular mechanisms

affecting social attachment in prairie voles. Like the

lizards, different species of voles engage in different

behaviors. Prairie voles are monogamous and form life-

long social attachments, while montane and meadow

voles are promiscuous breeders and do not form social

attachments at all.

Although the vole studies have shown some promise,

Young says, “The real progress in understanding

the relationships between genes, social experiences,

neurological chemicals, and behavior will be made

when we translate the vole work into primate studies.

We need to go beyond prairie voles and study how

brain chemistry affects monkeys, chimps, and humans.

And we need to understand the effects that early life

experiences have on brain chemistry.”

For example, studies have shown that women who

were abused and neglected early in life have lower levels

of the hormone oxytocin later in life. Oxytocin is the

chemical that promotes social behavior in voles, and

apparently in humans. It is also the active ingredient in

a product called Liquid Trust, which is being marketed

for use in a variety of social situations from dating to

company management. “In the long run,” Young says,

“we need to understand how the human brain works

in order to understand human behavior and to treat

neurological disorders. And we need to learn from the

differences we observe in nature.”

Larry Young enjoys spending time with his family,

watching his children’s soccer games, and taking care

of his pets. He says that he has a house full of animals,

from parrots and parakeets to aquaria full of fish.

Visiting his house must be something like visiting a zoo.





PRESENTERS


HELEN MAYBERG, M.D.

Helen Mayberg grew up in

a medical family. Her father

practiced family medicine in

Orange County, California,

after considering training in

neurosurgery. She spent time

in her uncle’s nuclear medicinelab at UC Irvine, learning how

radiotracers could be used to map

physiological functions in the body. While she helped with

small tasks in the lab, she and her uncle would talk about

the potential for mapping brain function, a topic in its

infancy. “I loved the lab and the opportunity it provided

to think about new ways to solve problems,” she says.

As a USC medical student Mayberg’s interests in

neuropsychiatric disorders became more focused,

but she had difficulty deciding between residency training in psychiatry, neurology, or neurosurgery.

There were limited opportunities in those days for

brain-based quantitative measurements of complex

behavior. Computed tomography (CT) was only

newly available to help diagnose brain lesions; positron

emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance

imaging (MRI) were not available. But in her senior

year, she had the opportunity to study with behavioral

neurologist Norman Geschwind in Boston, solidifying

her decision to train in neurology but with a future focuson neuropsychiatry. Mayberg completed her neurology

training at the Neurological Institute at Columbia

Presbyterian in New York before moving to Johns

Hopkins for further training in nuclear medicine and the

emerging field of functional neuroimaging using PET.

Following training in PET methods and their application

to the study of epilepsy, Mayberg chose to focus on major

depression, taking a neurologist’s perspective and

capitalizing on the mapping strategies offered by PET

and later functional MRI scanning methods. Studies with

colleagues in Baltimore, San Antonio, and then Toronto

further explored the effects of various antidepressant

treatments—starting first with medication, but then also

cognitive behavioral therapy and even placebo—mapping

brain regions most critical to illness recovery. Thesestudies led to observations about the critical role of the

subcallosal cingulate region—Brodman Area 25—in

both depression recovery and the mediation of negative

mood in healthy subjects. The rationale to target Area 25

using deep brain stimulation in intractably ill depressed

patients was developed and ultimately tested by her team

in Toronto, bringing cutting-edge neuroscience to the

threshold of therapeutic practicality.

“What makes this work gratifying is seeing how research

can have major impact on individual patients’ lives,Mayberg says. “Deep brain stimulation seems to allow the

brain to recover, but it takes time. It isn’t like flipping a

switch, but it is still amazing to realize that patients who

were debilitated for years by depression are able to return

to normal lives, going back to their families, to school, to

jobs—getting on with activities we all take for granted. It

is wonderful to see people thrive after fighting their brains

for so long.”

The experiences of her research subjects are teaching

Mayberg and her colleagues things about the brain they could not have anticipated, helping to better design

future studies. “All scientists should be so lucky as to have

this kind of feedback,” Mayberg says. She is encouraging

students to study neuroscience, not just because it is

interesting, but because we need to understand how the

brain works to help people affected by neuropsychiatric

disorders like depression. “This is an area where science

and humanity meet,” she says.



ANIRUDDH PATEL, Ph.D.

What is it about rock and roll

music that makes those listening

want to move? The beat, of

course. But, what is it about the

human brain that makes it so

responsive to beat and rhythm?

After all, this reaction isn’t thatcommon in nature. Monkeys, for

example, can’t be trained to tap

to a beat, while some birds do respond. For the last few

years, Aniruddh Patel has been trying to find a model

system to study the human response to a musical beat as

a way to explore brain interactions between the auditory

and motor systems during beat perception. It isn’t just

because he likes working with Snowball, the sulfur-

crested cockatoo, who has been seen by millions on

YouTube. It’s largely due to curiosity about the universalpower of music to drive rhythmic movement in human

listeners. This power has been shown to help Parkinson’s

disease patients to walk, though the mechanisms behind

this effect remain unknown. Patel’s work with Snowball

complements the neuroimaging research he and his

colleagues are conducting with humans, to unravel the

brain mechanisms of musical beat perception.

As long as he can remember, Patel has been passionate

about two things: biology and music. He was able to

pursue at least one of his passions in college, earning abachelor’s degree in biology from Virginia. As a senior,

while taking a class in behavioral biology, he began

thinking about studying the biology of human music.

He quickly learned how little was known about this

topic at the time, but that didn’t dissuade him. He went

on to study evolutionary biology under E. O. Wilson

at Harvard. Wilson encouraged his unusual interests.

Working with Wilson and with scholars from a range

of disciplines, including linguistics, neuroscience, and

music psychology, Patel learned about the neurobiology

of auditory communication and wrote his thesis, “A

Biological Study of the Relationship between Language

and Music.” His scholarship helped usher in a new field

of study, the neurobiology of music.

Patel’s 1998 brain imaging work showed for the first

time that the processing of musical grammar overlaps

with the processing of language grammar in the brain.

This was an early clue that the neurobiology of music

could provide some insight into language disabilities

and maybe even point to a way to heal them. Patel’s

work has thus contributed to a recent rise of interest in

music-based treatments to help stroke victims re-learn

language skills. For example, it has been shown by other

researchers that having such patients produce simple

phrases by singing is often more effective than thetraditional therapy of having them repeat the spoken

phrases, suggesting that portions of the brain responsible

for processing music can take over when language areas

of the brain have been damaged.

Patel says that the study of the neuroscience of music

is in its early stages. He is excited to be in this field

because it offers the chance to study the connections

between culture and biology and to do empirical work

that spans linguistics, music psychology, animal behavior,

and other areas of science and social science. He thinks

that the next interesting area of study will be the two-

way interaction between brain and culture, exploring

how musical experience shapes the brain and influences

mental abilities such as language and attention both in

normal people and in neurological patients.

Aniruddh Patel enjoys spending time with his family,

especially taking his two children to Legoland, the zoo,

and the beach.





PRESENTERSJOHN P. DONOGHUE, Ph.D.

A woman driving a wheelchair

with nothing but her mind. Does

this sound like science fiction?

With the help of BrainGate

neural prosthetic technology

designed by John Donoghue,

Cathy Hutchinson can controlher wheelchair, a computer,

and even one of her arms. This

wonder of applied research and engineering promises

to allow stroke victims like Cathy and those with ALS

and spinal cord injuries to again control their limbs and

perhaps even allow them to perform many day-to-day

activities. One of John Donoghue’s short-term goals is

to provide Cathy with enough control of her limbs that

she can take a drink without assistance.

Donoghue obtained his bachelor’s degree in biology from Boston University and his master’s degree in

anatomy from the University of Vermont. After earning

his doctorate in neuroscience from Brown University,

he began a post-doctoral appointment at Michigan

State University. There, he studied brain abnormalities

in people with mental retardation, and continued the

research at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Exploring the cerebral cortex, he looked at many brain

cells at once in order to understand how the brain

transforms thought into action. The development of multi-electrode brain probes allowed Donoghue and

his students to understand the fundamental codes of

communication used by the brain. They were able to

demonstrate, for example, how a monkey could play a

simple video game using only its mind.

Donoghue’s BrainGate system combines one hundred

hair-like electrodes inserted in the motor cortex with

external processors and additional electrodes

to bypass the broken communication system in

paralyzed individuals. In most cases, the brain still

commands the muscles to move; it is a breakdown

of the spinal cord, nerves, or muscles themselves that

keep muscles from responding. Insight into the firing

of cells associated with the thought of motion made it

possible for Donoghue to stun the world by helpingto restore movement to the paralyzed. To develop the

laboratory findings into clinical applications for humans,

Donoghue co-founded Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology

Systems, Inc., which is continuing to develop the

BrainGate system. His work earned him a number of

awards, including the 2005 Breakthrough Award from

Popular Mechanics magazine, a 2004 Discover Award

for Innovation and Reader’s Digest ’s Top Medical

Breakthrough of 2005.

John Donohue is excited to be able to apply basicscience to help the human condition. The 20 years of

National Institutes of Health money that allowed him

to teach monkeys to play video games has also jump-

started neurotechnology. What started out as just an

attempt to determine how the brain worked could

end up changing the lives of many people suffering

from paralysis due to brain and spinal cord injury. He

will continue to work to make it possible for paralyzed

people to communicate, to develop crude movement,

even to get up and walk around.Running two laboratories keeps John Donoghue very

busy. Whenever he has the chance, he says, “I enjoy

being out on the water in my small power boat.”




PAUL GLIMCHER, Ph.D.

Have you ever entered the cereal

aisle in a large grocery store

and felt overwhelmed by the

choices? Maybe you have sat

down at a new restaurant and

you just couldn’t decide what to

order. Why does your brain just

seem to shut down? Under what

circumstances does this happen?

Paul Glimcher believes he can understand the biological

reasons for your experience by applying neural activation

models to your decision-making process. He describes

this as “stitching together the boundary between the

natural and social sciences to develop a better standard

model of human decision-making.”

Glimcher says that he was “raised as neurophysiologist.”

Growing up in New York, he was always interested

in science, so it was natural to study neuroscience at

Princeton as an undergraduate. After earning his Ph.D.

in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, he

remained for a postdoc position in the psychology

department. While studying the brainstem and nerves

that control eye rotations, he found evidence that the

nerves participating in the execution of saccadic eye

movements (i.e., quick, simultaneous gaze shifts of

both eyes in the same direction) might be involved

in planning those movements as well. Since then, heand his students have been studying the signals that

connect the neural processes associated with sensory

inputs and the neural processes responsible for motion,

which they believe underlie decision-making. They use

a variety of tools in their work, including single-neuron

electrophysiology, functional magnetic resonance

imaging traditionally used by neuroscientists, and game

theory developed by psychologists and economists.

Recognizing the applications of evolutionary behavioral

economics to his work, Glimcher went back to school,

so to speak, to learn economics. It wasn’t easy. “I

had to essentially teach myself micro-economics to

show that I was serious enough to get the attention

of economists,” he says. Eventually, he was invited to

join the economics department, and ultimately formeda neuroeconomics center at NYU with postdocs in

economics, neuroscience, and psychology.

Glimcher is excited about the tremendous consilience

now evolving among biology, chemistry, physics,

psychology, and economics as a result of the kind of

work he does. The challenge of understanding animal

and human choice behavior requires work from the

level of neurons and ion channels up to the level of

economics, according to Glimcher. Studying choice

behavior in humans with scanners and using chemical

and electrophysiology stimulation to test the rich

models developed in this incredible collaboration will

lead to a better standard model of human decision

making. An important challenge is learning how and

where in the brain the value of various options is stored.

“Only true interdisciplinary research is up to this

challenge,” he says. He requires his students to develop

a deep enough understanding of each of the disciplines

that they see the beauty in all of them, putting aside the

biases of their original discipline and taking up the biasesof the others, so that they can develop richer and better

models.

Glimcher enjoys solving optimization problems on the

fly, sailing in ocean races. He has single-handedly sailed

a number of 1,000-mile passages, and with other crew

members he has circumnavigated the globe one-and-a-

half times.





PRESENTERSMARTHA FARAH

“Neuromarketing could make

mind reading the ad-man’s

ultimate tool.” Could this title

of a recent Guardian article

become reality? Although

Martha Farah thinks “such

technology is a million light years away,” there are ethical

issues related to how functional

magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans are used.

“We are nowhere near being able to read thoughts,”

Farah said, “but we can derive a fair amount of personal

information from MRIs, including current mental

states, such as mood, intentions, and desire to buy an

object.”

Marketing has enlisted the help of neuroscientists to

more accurately predict how we’ll react to stimuli in the

marketplace, from prices to packages to advertisments,

in order to make more money for clients. This leads

Farah to be wary of neuro-marketing. “The biggest

ethical issue to me is the fact that many of the most

exciting new applications of brain imaging are being

developed entirely with private corporate funding for

commercial purposes,” she said. “I don’t think that is

going to give us the best new contributions to society,

and I don’t think that is going to lead to the greatest

transparency concerning what these scans can do.”

Martha Farah earned bachelor’s degrees in both

metallurgy and philosophy at MIT and went on to

receive a Ph.D. in psychology at Harvard. She has

taught at Carnegie Mellon University and at the

University of Pennsylvania, where she is now a professor

of psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive

Neuroscience. She began her career as a cognitive

scientist and slowly drifted into cognitive neuroscience.

She describes the difference between these two areas

by saying, “Basically, it’s the difference between trying

to do something really hard with one hand tied behind

your back, and going at it with both hands.”

When asked about the biggest changes in the field,

Farah says that there have been so many changes in

cognitive neuroscience in the last 30 years that it is hard

to point to just one thing as being the greatest. Perhaps

functional imaging of cognition, or computational

models linking single-neuron behavior with the

functioning of large-scale networks in the brain, or

the extension of the cognitive neuroscience approach

into the study of social and emotional functions, or . . .

She says, “Maybe the best way to answer the question

is to say this: We went from having neuroscience and

cognitive science as two separate disciplines to having

a truly integrated study of mind and brain.” Her work spans many topics within cognitive neuroscience,

including visual recognition, attention, mental imagery,

semantic memory, reading, and prefrontal function.

Martha Farah is proud that Penn’s Center for

Cognitive Neuroscience is state-of-the-art in a wide

range of methods, and very much committed to a

multidisciplinary approach. At a time when many

scientists are focusing on neuroimaging, she points

out that there are fundamental questions that imaging

can’t answer but that patient-based research can. In

addition to a thriving fMRI facility, the Penn Center

for Cognitive Neuroscience has its own patient research

coordinator to locate and screen potential research

subjects. But even the most advanced equipment and

best patients are useless without good experimental

design, so that is also—necessarily—a focus of her work.

Martha Farah lives in Philadelphia with her daughter

and her parrot.




NANCEY MURPHY, Ph.D., Th.D.

Nancey Murphy is attracted to

the often-charged intersection

of faith and scientific

understanding, seeking to

support greater dialogue among

theologians and scientists. As she

points out, religion and science

are merged virtually everywhere

in modern life. According

to some polls, more than 80 percent of the world’s

people believe in God, and most of those people are

immersed in technology and benefit in some way from

scientific discovery. Murphy now spends most of her

time studying this important interface, and is especially

interested in how recent advances in neuroscience will

change the understanding of scientists and theologians.

Murphy grew up on a ranch in Nebraska before

majoring in psychology and philosophy at Creighton

University. As she recalls, “Psychology at that time

was all about behaviorism.” She got interested in

the philosophy of science and continued her studies

in that field at UC Berkeley, where she earned her

Ph.D. Realizing that she wanted to teach philosophy

in a seminary, she decided she should also get a

doctorate in theology, which she did, at the Graduate

Theological Union in Berkeley. After a brief stint as

an assistant professor of religion, she joined FullerTheological Seminary. There, she has contributed to

the philosophical preparation of pastors, providing the

background they need to work with their congregations.

Over time, she has become involved in the science and

theology conversation and has contributed several of her

ten books and many more chapters and scholarly articles

in this area.

Teaching at Fuller is rewarding, Murphy says, because

the students are highly motivated and are delighted

to have the opportunity to think critically and

participate in open scholarly inquiry. Since the doctoral

program at Fuller is large, she has ample opportunity

to teach seminars in many areas of philosophy, such

as philosophical ethics, philosophical theology, andphilosophical issues in theology and science, along with

more traditional theology and philosophy courses.

When new interests arise, she can develop courses to

help focus her exploration and, of course, to share with

her students.

Murphy’s colleague, Warren Brown, who teaches

neuroscience at Fuller, got her involved in the

connections among philosophy, theology, and

neuroscience. Brown notes that most Christians are

dualists; as the pressure from society to put more stock

in science and technology has increased, the need has

arisen to help Christians develop an understanding of

human nature that is consistent with science. Do we

even need the concepts of mind or soul ? How do those

concepts fit with our new understanding of the brain

and its workings? Murphy has authored or co-authored

several books on these issues, including Did My Neurons

Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological

Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will , and

Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?

Murphy enjoys the traveling that comes with her

collaborations in philosophy, science, and theology, as

well as reading gory mystery and crime novels, which

give her a break from “real” life. For the past two years,

she has been helping her brother build a new house.



http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/nobel-magazine 14/16 14 NOBEL CONFERENCE 47

THE NOBEL CONFERENCE CONCERT, 2011

‘A STATE OF MIND AND MUSIC: NEW SONGS BY MINNESOTA COMPOSERS’

Tuesday, October 4 | 8:15 p.m. | Jussi Björling Recital Hall | Free—no ticket required

You are invited to experience vocal solo music written in the last ten years that provides insight into the creative

minds of a number of composers who call Minnesota home. Represented composers include Pulitzer Prize-winning

composer Dominick Argento, Libby Larsen (the 2010 winner of the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding

Contributions to Music in America), Stephen Paulus, and Gustavus alumnus Steve Heitzeg. World premieres ofcommissioned music by Timothy Berry and Todd Harper will be featured, as well as works by Jocelyn Hagen and

Hiram Titus. Professor of Music Michael Jorgensen, baritone, and Bonnie Jorgensen, piano, will have coached the

music with the respective composers and will be assisted in the recital by student musicians. We anticipate that the

composers will be in attendance as we celebrate their musical genius.

THEATRE

‘ON EGO’

Tuesday, October 4 | 8:15 p.m. | Anderson Theatre | Reserved seating, tickets

available at gustavustickets.com

On Tuesday evening, the Department of Theatre and Dance presents a specialperformance of On Ego, a play by Mick Gordon and Paul Broks inspired by the book

Into the Silent Land by Paul Broks, directed by Assistant Professor of Theatre Henry

MacCarthy. The play, called “totally gripping theatre” by the Sunday Times, addresses

how the brain creates a sense of self. How does the darkness inside our skulls become a

world of people and places, pleasure and pain, love and loss? On Ego is an exploration of

identity, humanity, and what it means to be unique.

ART EXHIBITIONS

A COLLECTOR’S PASSION FOR DÜRER’S SECRETS: THE MAGJEKL COLLECTION

COMFORT ME, SAID HE: RECENT WORK by Kristen LoweFOCUS IN/ON: GUY PÈNE DU BOIS, ‘CONNOISSEURS’

September 12–November 6 | Hillstrom Museum of Art

Nobel Conference Reception | October 4 | 6–8 p.m.

The Hillstrom Museum of Art is featuring two exhibitions and the latest in its continuing

series of collaborative, detailed considerations of particular individual artworks from the

Hillstrom Collection, FOCUS IN/ON, during the 2011 Nobel Conference. One exhibition

is the remarkable and extensive Magjekl Collection of prints by German Renaissance

master Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), begun by collector Elizabeth Garner in 2006 featuring

around 50 masterpieces by the acclaimed artist.

The second exhibition features works from the recently begun series of dramatic

and intensely emotional large-scale works by artist Kristen Lowe, who teaches in

the Department of Art and Art History at Gustavus Adolphus College. Finally, the

displayed FOCUS IN/ON project is a collaboration of sociologist Richard A. Hilbert, of

the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and Hillstrom Museum of Art Director

Donald Myers considering the Museum’s watercolor Connoisseurs (1938), by American

artist and critic Guy Pène du Bois (1884–1958), which was donated to the Museum in

2004 by the Reverend Richard L. Hillstrom.

Kristen LoweComfort Me, Said He, No. 2, 2010charcoal on paper42 x 72 inches




CONTRIBUTORS


COMMITTEE


The Nobel Conerence at Gustavus Adolphus College, the frst educational conerence o its kind in

the United States, is made possible through income generated by a Nobel Conerence endowment

and the support o annual conerence contributors. The Nobel Conerence Endowment Fund was

created in July 1978 and is permanently secured as a result o the generous support o Drell and

Adeline Bernhardson. Other gits to the und have been made by Russell and Rhoda Lund; the

Mardag Foundation, in memory o Edgar B. Ober; and the UnitedHealth Group.

The College also acknowledges key contributions to the 2011 conerence rom Cambria, Thrivent

Financial or Lutherans, and Heroic Productions.

In addition, the College acknowledges the Mankato Clinic Foundation and Medtronic, Inc. or their

generous support.

Chuck Niederriter, Ph.D., proessor o physics;

director, Nobel Conerence

Mike Ferragamo, Ph.D., associate proessor o

biology and neuroscience; chair, Nobel Conerence 47

Jennifer Ackil, Ph.D., proessor o psychology

Scott Bur, Ph.D., associate proessor o chemistry

Baili Chen, Ph.D., assistant proessor o mathematicsand computer science

Patric Giesler, Ph.D., associate proessor o sociology

and anthropology

Jon Grinnell, Ph.D., associate proessor o biology

Michele Koomen, Ph.D., associate proessor o

education

Mark Kruger, Ph.D., proessor o psychology

Richard Leitch Jr., Ph.D., associate proessor o

political science

Tom LoFaro, Ph.D., proessor o mathematics and

computer science

Karla Marz, Ph.D., assistant proessor o biology

Scott Moore, D.M.A., assistant proessor o music

So Young Park, Ph.D., assistant proessor o English

Garrett Paul, Ph.D., proessor o religion

Jessie Petricka, Ph.D., assistant proessor o physicsTim Robinson, Ph.D., proessor o psychology

Amy Seham, Ph.D., proessor o theatre and dance

Bob Shoemaker, M.S., visiting instructor o education

Dean Wahlund, director, communication services and

special events

Esther Wang, D.M.A., associate proessor o music

Janine Wotton, Ph.D., associate proessor o

psychology and neuroscience

Steve Wright, D.M.A., associate proessor o music



NOBEL CONFERENCE® 47 TICKETS ONLINE!

8 0 0 W e s t C o l l e g e A v e n u e

S t . P e t e r , M N 5 6 0 8 2

Order lecture and meal tickets online with Visa or

Mastercard at gustavustickets.com, or by phone at

507-933-7520 (mail orders no longer accepted).

Tickets are good or the two-day conerence.

Seating in Lund Center Arena is limited to 3,000.

Overow seating will be available in Lund Center

Forum, a specially, video-equipped site. Tickets are

non-reundable. Please note that a separate ticket

is required or the Nobel Conerence Banquet on

Wednesday evening.

Tickets will be mailed beginning mid-August.

Tickets ordered too late or mail delivery will be

held at the Nobel Conerence registration desk

in Lund Center. Ticket prices: Reserved–$100;

General Admission–$65; Student Delegation

(block o 10)–$40. For more inormation, contact

the Ofce o Marketing and Communication at

507-933-7520, by ax 507-933-6147, or e-mail

[email protected].

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