The Future of Human Health TED-Style

This week the 2009 TED Conference is kicking into full gear, and it’s getting live blogged by BoingBoing throughout the week. See for example here, here and here. If you’re familiar with the TED format, you’ll know that the goal is to take influential thinkers and have them deliver the “talk of their lives” in 18 crisp minutes or less. It’s a good model, and it’s one that Stanford used during the fall when it delivered a short course called: “The Future of Human Health: Seven Very Short Talks That Will Blow Your Mind.” In the lecture posted above, Jennifer Raymond talks about what changes in our brains when we learn and remember, and how our understanding of these processes (and of specifically neural circuits) can eventually lead to treatments for learning disabilities, dementia and Alzheimer’s. You can find the complete list of short talks on YouTube and iTunes as well.