تدريب Shadowing: I Taught Rats to Drive. They Taught Me to Enjoy the Ride | Kelly Lambert | TED - تعلم التحدث بالإنجليزية مع YouTube

When I first started teaching rats to drive cars,

⏸ متوقف مؤقتاً

السرعة:

218 جمل

إذا كانت الجمل قصيرة أو طويلة جدًا، انقر على Edit لتعديلها.

When I first started teaching rats to drive cars,

I never dreamed that those little rodents would steer me toward a surprisingly big discovery,

a lesson about the importance of joy in our lives.

It turns out that we had a lot to teach each other,

but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm a behavioral neuroscientist.

I'm interested in brains, behavior,

and environment, and how they influence one another.

For most of my career,

I focused on the negative emotions,

fear, stress, anxiety, symptoms of depression, and for good reason.

Depression rates remain unacceptably high,

and recent reports suggest that deaths of despair,

deaths related to suicide and addiction and loneliness,

are on the rise in the United States.

Even though we've invested a lot of research and resources toward understanding mental illness,

it seems that we have a long way to go.

Perhaps we need some fresh perspectives in this area.

Several years ago when I was writing my book,

Lifting Depression, I started to investigate the connections between reward and physical effort.

I introduced this term, behavior-ceuticals,

the idea that we can intentionally change our behavior to alter neurochemistry in therapeutic ways.

If you have enjoyed knitting or cooking or producing a piece of art,

you've experienced your own dose of behaviorceuticals.

But that's anecdotal evidence.

I needed to take this to the lab and consult with my research colleagues.

That's the laboratory rats.

So we trained them to exert physical effort for fruit loops,

and that's the currency of my lab they love fruit loops

so they'll work for fruit loops

so we had about five weeks where the animals had to connect physical effort digging up those fruit loops

and at the end of that time we saw

that there was enhanced evidence of emotional resilience affecting more effective coping strategies

and even signs of neuroplasticity this idea of the brain changing

in response to the changing demands of the life of the animal and that's traditionally thought to be good and healthy

for the for the brain now

when we compared these animals to the control group this was a group

that received the same number of fruit loops

but they didn't have to work for it we called this the trust fund rats group

and we did not see the benefits in these animals

so it seemed to be more than just the reward it's our relationship with the reward

and perhaps the ability to control these rewards so this was interesting

and we did a good bit of research on what we call effort-based reward protocol

and found some interesting findings

but I still found myself going back to these negative emotions

especially chronic stress investigating all the ways things can go wrong with brains

but it took the rats to point me in the direction

of looking at what could go right let me provide a little context here

so those rats

that I talked about the driving rats in the in the beginning of the talk we originally train them to drive,

to understand more about agency and a sense of control and skill acquisition on their brains and behavior.

And so we taught them to drive these rodent-operated vehicles,

or ROVs as we call them,

and we found some interesting findings and we published it,

but we quickly realized that this program of research had a lot of potential for science outreach

and this is something that we really need

today so we decided to keep a group of rats trained up on driving

so that we could continue with this science outreach

and they became little rodent celebrities they were in documentaries

and newscasts and podcasts and that was all great

but i remember during the pandemic

when all the students were gone it was very quiet on campus

and a few colleagues

and i were taking turns going into the lab to take care of the animals

and i vividly remember this morning this one morning i walked into the lab

and i saw these rats run up to the front of the cage

and they were reaching their little arms out and jumping up

and down and it looked like they were excited to see me like little rat joy

and it made me excited that they were excited to see me

and on the heels of all the negative emotion research

that i had conducted through the years

and all the negativity of the pandemic i decided right then

and there that whatever

that was i was seeing i wanted to investigate it i wanted to know more

but could a neuroscientist study something as complex as joy

in a rat i went to the literature and was encouraged i even found a definition of joy in non-human animals,

a brief and intense burst of activity associated with a favored event or object.

So when my husband and I would ask our little dog Brody

if he wanted to go for a walk

or just showed him the leash and saw him running around in circles and jumping up and down and yelping endlessly,

that seemed to fit the definition of joy.

If I could see it in a dog,

I was encouraged that we could see it in the rats,

but I still needed a plan.

I landed on this idea of anticipation the time before an award because i knew that we could manipulate that time

in the laboratory so i was encouraged

and really fascinated by some research conducted by scientists where they

trained rats to press a bar to have cocaine delivered directly to their brains

and when the cocaine hit the brain their natural kind of feel-good neurochemical known as dopamine

would rise but what was even more interesting was when

that rat would approach

that bar before the cocaine was there you'd also see this rise in dopamine it seemed

that the brain was interpreting the reward

and the time before the reward in a similar manner it really makes me wonder what our founding fathers knew

when they emphasized life liberty and the pursuit of happiness it's really interesting

so we had an idea anticipation we still needed to translate this into something

that we could use in the laboratory we came up with this protocol

that we referred to as unpredictable positive event responses

or uppers in keeping with this behavior suitical theme

100

so this was pretty simple for about five weeks we introduced the rats to three good things fun things

101

every day and in an unpredictable order and time

102

so they were exposed to a lego block

103

and they had to wait 15 minutes to get that fruit loop

104

or sunflower seed they had to wait patiently to shell it

105

or they were placed in a transport cage

106

and wheeled across the hallway into the another space in the lab where they got to play around run around

107

and what we call rat park and they had to to wait in that transport cage for three minutes.

108

We were encouraged that we were on to something

109

when we started to observe the rats in that transport cage and we saw brief bursts of behavior running around.

110

They seemed so excited so we were encouraged

111

that indeed we were influencing something that looked like joy or at least positive anticipation in these rats.

112

So what are we finding?

113

The results are still rolling in but we're starting to see some trends.

114

If we expose these rats to a rat optimism task,

115

and yes, there is such a thing,

116

we've seen that the males shift from a pessimistic strategy to an optimistic strategy.

117

But we don't see that with the females.

118

They remain more reality-based in both groups.

119

Now, I should mention that the control group for this bit of research is a group

120

that receives all the good things at once,

121

so they don't have that anticipation period there.

122

So we're not sure if that generalizes to humans about the females,

123

but we need to pursue that further.

124

But the other results we see,

125

we see both in males and females.

126

And it is important to look at sex differences when we're doing this research.

127

So both males and females show increased and intense exploration,

128

as if they think they're going to find something good when they're exploring a novel environment.

129

So we're very encouraged by these results.

130

And surprisingly, one day a student ran into my office and said,

131

Dr. Lambert, why are the upper trained rats' tails sticking straight up?

132

I've been working with rats for over three decades,

133

and I've never seen this or heard of it.

134

But I went to the literature,

135

and I saw that some researchers would inject an opioid into the animals,

136

and their tails would go up.

137

And I thought, oh my goodness,

138

maybe we're doing something with behaviorceuticals that has been done with pharmaceuticals.

139

So this is something that we need to explore further.

140

This research made me think about some classic research conducted in the 1950s by Kurt Richter at Johns Hopkins University.

141

He was interested in swim behavior between lab rats and wild rats,

142

and he had some interesting laboratory conditions for this.

143

But in the swim tank,

144

it was turbulent water, so it was challenging.

145

And he saw that the lab rats could swim for hours or days.

146

They're great swimmers.

147

But the wild rats, when he trapped them,

148

brought them in and put them in in the tank,

149

they sank immediately, dying.

150

And he was shocked by this because it's tough living out there in the wild.

151

And he thought those wild rats would be more resilient.

152

He said it looked like they were just giving up.

153

But when he thought about the experiences of the lab rats and the wild rats,

154

he realized that those lab rats had been periodically picked up by human hands,

155

and their conditions had changed.

156

So there was some hope that

157

if you didn't like what was going on now it could change

158

but the wild rats hadn't had that experience

159

so he did he devised this intervention where his assistants would pick up the wild rats from the restraining cage

160

or from the water just once or twice

161

and he ran the study again and he found

162

that a majority of those wild rats at

163

that time they went from dying to surviving and

164

and he said it was the hope of rescue that led them down that path.

165

It makes you think, is this important for humans?

166

There is a good bit of research to suggest that hope and positive attitudes are important for health and longevity.

167

One of my favorite studies was conducted with Israeli children who were very ill,

168

and they were part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation program.

169

And the researchers monitored their general physical health

170

and mental health outcomes from the time they were told specifically what their wish was to the time the wish was granted.

171

And that was about five months so they could extend that anticipatory time.

172

And they found that these outcomes improved to suggest that maybe their quality of life during that time was enhanced.

173

when they compared it to the children who were in the queue to get a wish,

174

but they hadn't been told the specifics,

175

so they really couldn't wish specifically and hope specifically for that to happen.

176

But I'm sure, hopefully, when those children received the details of their wish,

177

they also benefited from this.

178

So there's a lot of research to suggest that,

179

yes, those negative emotions are important to understand,

180

but these positive emotions are as well.

181

And when we step back and look at the brain and everything that's going on during positive anticipation and joy and

182

you can see that there are a lot of different areas of the brain

183

that are on board are activated during this time areas involved the processing reward

184

and monitoring internal feelings and planning and movement are all activated during this time of joy and positive anticipation

185

So with all of this evidence,

186

behavioral, anecdotal, neurological, suggesting that positive emotions are important,

187

this isn't always reflected in our culture.

188

It's really interesting to me that we have a word for anticipating something negative.

189

It's dread.

190

But to my knowledge, I don't know that we have a word related to anticipating something positive.

191

But in the German language they do, it's forfreude.

192

It means joyful anticipation.

193

Perhaps it's time for us to step up and come up with our own word for joyful anticipation.

194

And personally, I find myself going back to this Puritan work ethic too often,

195

where we equate busyness and hard work with virtue.

196

And if I find an hour or two to watch Netflix or something I enjoy,

197

I often describe it as a guilty pleasure.

198

But why does it have to be a guilty pleasure?

199

Far from an indulgence, it's looking like these pleasure and positive events are important and critical for healthy maintenance of our brains.

200

Let me end by going back to those driving rats.

201

A lot of people ask me,

202

Kelly, do they like to drive?

203

Do they enjoy driving?

204

And my response has typically been,

205

well, I can't give them a questionnaire.

206

I don't really know.

207

I think they do.

208

But we could ask them from a behavioral perspective.

209

And that's what we did recently.

210

gave them a choice of walking to the fruit loop tree

211

that's what they drive to in a more efficient path

212

or they could take a detour and backtrack and jump in the car

213

and drive to the rewards and I couldn't wait to see what they would do

214

and what we found was a majority of the animals did indeed backtrack take a tour

215

and jump into the car and drive to their fruit loop rewards

216

and if you saw a human jumping in the background and

217

that was me jumping for joy seeing rats choose pleasure

218

or fun over efficiency I taught rats to drive cars but but they taught me to enjoy the ride thank you

TRENDING

الأكثر شعبية

ما هي تقنية التظليل الصوتي؟

التظليل الصوتي (Shadowing) تقنية تعلم لغة مدعومة علمياً، طُورت أصلاً لتدريب المترجمين الفوريين المحترفين. الطريقة بسيطة لكنها قوية: تستمع لصوت إنجليزي أصلي وتكرره فوراً بصوت عالٍ — كظل يتبع المتحدث بتأخير 1-2 ثانية. تُظهر الأبحاث تحسناً كبيراً في دقة النطق والتنغيم والإيقاع وربط الأصوات والاستماع والطلاقة.

☕ اشترِ لنا قهوة

يظل ShadowingEnglish مجانيًا بنسبة 100% بفضل دعمكم. تكاليف الخوادم والذكاء الاصطناعي مرتفعة — قهوتكم تبقينا مستمرين! 🙏

التبرع عبر PayPal

ShadowingEnglish.com – تمرين التظليل الصوتي للإنجليزية

تحدث الإنجليزية بطلاقة باستخدام تقنية التظليل الصوتي. استمع لفيديوهات يوتيوب الأصلية، كرر جملة بجملة، وابنِ نطقاً حقيقياً وطلاقة — يستخدمها متعلمو IELTS حول العالم.

تدريب Shadowing: I Taught Rats to Drive. They Taught Me to Enjoy the Ride | Kelly Lambert | TED - تعلم التحدث بالإنجليزية مع YouTube

الأكثر شعبية

السياق والخلفية

أفضل 5 عبارات للتواصل اليومي

دليل خطوة بخطوة لممارسة المحادثة

ما هي تقنية التظليل الصوتي؟

تدريب Shadowing: I Taught Rats to Drive. They Taught Me to Enjoy the Ride | Kelly Lambert | TED - تعلم التحدث بالإنجليزية مع YouTube

تنزيل التطبيق

السياق والخلفية

أفضل 5 عبارات للتواصل اليومي

دليل خطوة بخطوة لممارسة المحادثة

ما هي تقنية التظليل الصوتي؟