A map for emotions.
Emotions are complicated. But uncovering the brain activity behind them required just a puff of air. Well, that along with a set of patients who’d already had electrodes surgically inserted into their brains for other medical reasons. Thanks to them, a collaborative team of Stanford researchers led by Karl Deisseroth, PhD ’98, MD ’00, a professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, were able to map the brainwide neuronal processing that underlies the emotional response triggered by a mildly unpleasant sensory experience. When researchers administered a puff of air at the subjects’ eyes (just like an exam used by ophthalmologists), their brains showed two bursts of activity. First, a strong but short-lived spike broadcasting “news” of the puff throughout the brain. Second, a longer phase (700 milliseconds) of activity localized to parts of the brain associated with emotion. Human patients described the air puffs as “annoying” or “uncomfortable.” Mouse subjects displayed behaviors associated with similar emotions. Repeated rapid-fire air puffs produced increasing annoyance that lasted longer. That’s likely adaptive, said Deisseroth. “Any repeated series of negative events is important to the brain, to be considered in guiding future behavior.”
The researchers then administered to humans and mice a low dose of ketamine, which is known for temporarily reducing emotional responses. They found that the first, “news” phase of brain activity was unaffected. But the second brain phase was shortened, and no emotional state was formed. The subjects were still fully aware of the puffs and had normal physical reactions (such as blinking). But they stopped exhibiting self-protective behaviors (like prolonged eye closure), and the air puffs became somewhat entertaining, “like little whispers on my eyeballs,” said one participant. The new understanding of this emotion-forming brain phase could help unveil some of the driving forces behind neuropsychiatric disorders (such as OCD, depression, and schizophrenia). If a disorder causes that second wave of brain activity to decay too slowly or gain excessive strength, it could result in the persistent or untimely emotions or intrusive thoughts associated with those disorders.
The coaches wore Cardinal.
There’s a cadre of coaches propelling Stanford student-athletes to the top of their game, and eight of them were once themselves student-athletes on the Farm. That experience gives them unusual insight into the lives of the athletes they coach, at least most of the time. “During my first year back, I was telling a recruit how campus worked,” says softball coach Jessica Allister, ’04. “And one of my players said, ‘Uh, Coach, that’s not how it is anymore.’” Still, these coaches also know what their players will need for life after Stanford. Women’s water polo coach John Tanner, ’82, who just led his team to its 10th NCAA title, has a holistic, collaborative, and curiosity-based approach to coaching. “Getting to Stanford is an individual sport,” he told Stanford magazine. “But being successful in life is a team sport. You can’t do anything without collaboration.”
A creative escape.
Photo: Jack Tse
This spring, the campus community explored engineering concepts in an escape room built by students in the Stanford Robotics Club and the Stanford Association for Computing Machinery. More than 600 people came out to showcase their problem-solving skills. Check out the solutions (finals are almost over, you’re allowed) on Instagram.
The language of AI.
Large language models like ChatGPT may work well for the 1.52 billion people in the world who speak English, but the AI revolution is leaving behind entire cultures and communities. “All of machine learning is highly dependent on data as a resource,” said Sanmi Koyejo, an assistant professor of computer science. Consequently, models don’t perform well on low-resource languages—those like Swahili, which has 200 million speakers but lacks sufficient digitized resources for AI models to learn from.
Solutions could include technologists training larger models that capture multiple languages or small models tied to one language. Automatic translations of materials could help, but that often fails to capture important nuances in languages and would likely miss elements of cultural values associated with the original language. Moving these models forward, Koyejo says, should be done thoughtfully, or they “run the risk of collapsing rich language and cultural diversity into one big blob.”
But wait, there’s more.
Government-supported research at Stanford has produced 6,700 inventions. A new Stanford research site highlights life-changing treatments for disease, revolutionary technology, and more research happening on campus.
Stanford magazine asked some of the people featured in our pages this year—including a fashion designer and a champion water polo coach—which books you simply must read this summer. Here are their recommendations.
“I’ve been fighting gravity my whole life.” Max Manson, ’23, a graduate student in Earth systems and former pole vaulter, appeared Monday night on an episode of American Ninja Warrior.
The end zone never sounded so good. Stanford Stadium was the first stop on Coldplay’s North American tour. The band played two nights for sold-out crowds under a sky full of stars. (The Loop makes no apologies for shameless references to song titles.)
Craig Carnaroli, MBA ’90, will join Stanford as the senior vice president for finance and administration after more than 20 years at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the senior executive vice president. Carnaroli succeeds Randy Livingston, ’75, MBA ’79, Stanford’s CFO of 24 years, who announced his retirement last fall.
Sophomore Aradshar Chaddar died on May 31 after being struck by a vehicle while riding an electric bike on campus. The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident.
When retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, ’59, visited campus last month, he talked about how younger generations give him optimism for the rule of law going forward. When a student asked him to share a career lesson with today's generation, Breyer answered: “Listen to people who disagree with you.”
Women’s sailing captured the ICSA Women’s Fleet Race Championship for the third consecutive season—making it the first team to three-peat in more than 40 years. Three was a big number for the women’s rowing team, too, which claimed its third NCAA title in school history this month after a notably dominant season.
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