>> charlie: weome to the broaast. tonight, t confirmation heings of supreme court nominee sonia sotomayor, with tom golsin of scottus blog.com. with roberts and alito and the begiings ofhe attack on her about her being a racist we were kind of in a death iral where we would have demoat nominees and republican ninees and thother party would line up against them, andthought took a step back from that day. >> charlie: take a moment looking into the human brain. >> a mass, a lum of jelly y can hold in your hand called the brain and it can contemplatehe vastness of space, it can think about atoms, subatomic rticles, it can think about

avenlgles and unicorn it can think abou infiny, the mathematical concept of infinity and even thinkbout itself thinking about tho things. >>harlie: we conclude the eveninwith playwright lynn notage andirector kate witurski. >> ideally something that's sympathetic but what was interesting in the posite reactions from the dience seemed to be that people feel like we're so happy that we actually cld spend time with these people because in the news it feels like numbers. and there is something about creating something where people are en enough to empathize with group of rape victims but in thetory telling we didn't nt to say you're going tmeet rape victims, wh we wanted to say was hereare some wen and let's go thrgh the story and en unbeknownst to them there

are all these surpris and trauma. >> part of what weant is to have a more compliced and intense relationship witthe stistics and the articles they read whe they read paragraph -- >> charlie: flesh an blad. >> fleshand blood. >> charlie: sotoyor's conversation, the human brain and e pulitze prize winning play "ruined." next. >> charlie: funding for harlie rose" has en provided by the following. >> each day a billion people won't find clean drinking water. we're workingto improve live through conservation and educion. one drop aa time. >> charlie: additional fundi for "charlie rose"as also provid by these funders. captioningponsored by communications

from our stuos in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: the sena judiciary commite today continued its confirmation hearings fo supreme court nonee sonia sotomar. senators froboth parties began questioning sotomayor, who cld becomethe cours first spanic justice. much of today's hearings focused on her past statements regarding race a her judicial ilosophy. >> the context thewords that i spoke have created a misunderstandi and i want -- a misunderstandingand to give evyone asrances, i wantto state up front, unequivocally dithout doubt,i do not want th any enic, racial, or gender groupas an advaage in soundjudgg. i do believe that ery person has an equal opportunity to be a

good and wise judge regardless of the background or life experiences. >> i think it'consistent in the comments iave quoted to you d your previous statents th you do believe that your background will affect the relt in cases and at's troubling me, so that is not imrtiality. n't you think tt is not consistent with yourtatement? th you believe yourole as jue is to serve thearger interest of impartial justice >> no, sir. as i he dicated, my record ows that at no point or time ve i ever permitted my personal vws or sympaths to inflnce an outcome o a case. in every case where i he identified asympathy, i have articulateit and explaine to e litigants why the law requires the different result. i do not peit my sympathi,

personal views, or prejudices influence the outcome of my cases. >> charlie: joing me tod from whington tom goldstein. he cofound the scotus.com weite widely read in the legal community. i am pleased toave him back on the program. welcome. >> thanks so much. it's wderful to be here. >> charl: tell me whatou saw today and wha did it add to our undersnding of the nominee? >> i thought sheame across very wl, thoughtful and knowledgeable about lot of cases and i ought the senators on the left and right came across well. we were worried this wou turn into sort race iting, a lot of accusationsbout who was for against hispanicses and with exceptions it was prty substantive. >> charlie: do you tnk she's winninover republicans? >> i do, including because think therepublicans for the most part have decided not just make this a pay-line

issue. i thk that the republicans will dive probably pretty evenly depending on how conservative a given republican is, butthose that are willing to liste just like those who are wiing to listen to john roberts or sam alito who had a sowhat open mind about it i thk are going to have to be impressed because she comes across as very thoughtful and very informed. >> charliehow is she surprising in terms of her presentation beyond thoughtful and likable? >> she's very patient. she's very lite. the are some things that aren't at al surprising. there is now a tradition that you tryand avoid answeri estions that might give a clu aboutow youight rule and, of course, that's what erybody is most interested in -- you jt wish you would say, "i all for roe v. wade" or "i think i would rike down the death pelty" oromething as dratic as at, but to the extent she is wiing to answer questionshe ses willing to dig down, seems to be very familiar with the case law -- you a obviouy dealing with somebod w is a thoughtful jge, a really

educated persoand who is interested in persuadi people and doesn'tome across as an ideologu >> charlie: at are the harshest atcks? >> first, the cservative republicans are ry concerned about her spches includi ese remarks about how a wise latina judge wou produce a better rult than white judge, a she basically disavowed th tay and said, "look, my point here isn't to say that any ethnicity hasore wisdom tha another. it was a pr play on words nator graham, who haseen ry impressiven the hearings, came after her with some extremely liral pitions taken by thepuerto rico liber defense d education fundhile she was on the board and she distanced herself a board member from that sort of litigation -- i uld say those are the two areas where she was under the most direct attack, and she bically answered by saying, "look, i he been a judge for 17 yea. if you look at my decisions and all the surveys tha have been done about my disions, the

come across as very mainstream" and that happens to be true and has beenretty persuasive. >> charliedidn't senator graham say "unless there is a meltdown or something unforesee you will b confird"? >> he did. he's bee amazily candid. he sd "i like you pernally and since i might we vote for yo you oughto care abo that." 's had a lot of great lines. i have toay i think senator graham haseen the most honest. said "this is about conservative and liberal politics, i woul't have picked you but tt doesn't matter. presidentiallections have outcomes. th have meaning here." he really triedo explain to her whit is that republica are concerd about her speeches. said, "look, when youe a court ofppeals judge those cisions are made a important but wh you're on the supreme court you're constraid by less so thehings you say in speechesorry peoplen the right because ty are concerned you might interjec your personal views more."

judge sotomayor understd that, she was committed to t rule of law and it was pretty illuminang interchange about what it is that republicans are worrd abo, more th just e usual political posturing by left and right. >> charlie: they caot, as they couldn't with ato or justice robes criticize the intellect of the nominee,er acamic performance at colge and law school has en superior. >> no question, a you can tell that she's not just bk smart. they tked about all kinds of cases today while she took a lot of notes, she didn't have nobooks in front of her. she was asked questions abt a ki of random antitrust desion by the supreme court from the pasfew years and s knew all aut it. she comes acro as well inform and balanced. if you're conservative y're going to ink she's more liberal than you but you're not going to think she's on the fringes. >> charlie: if someo was willg to make a seous bet

that she willot be any mor liberal than justi utter, would you take the t? >>t depends on the issue. i got the sense she will be in the same positio as him or a little to the left on abortion and race. agn, you barely eve have tea leaves to right here but on qutions of race and firmative action, she said "equalittakes realeffort" something that sandra day o'conn had said, "about 25 years from now weon't have affirmative action" is more a hope than an aspiration, she reaffirmed sreme court precedent on the robts court has been walking away from on ortion restrictns having to haven exception for the health of the mothe on the other hand as a former prosecutor and someone w decided to star her reer as a osecutor, and then was a trial judge and heard a lot o crimal cases, on those kind of issues it's ssible that she willt the very least be in the same position, maybe a little bit to the right. that's my take away from tod.

>> charl: and there is nothing either thatas happened o possibly to happen thatould suggest at she will trip. >> nhing remotely to the conary, i would say s picked up --it's hard tosay, somewhere 5-10 vot today. the other thing i woulday that was go about today is th it helped us wi the future of confirmation, wi roberts and alito and then the beginnings of th attacks on her abo her being a raci. we wer kind of in a death spiraletween democrats special republans where we were going to have democrats and repubcan nominees and the other pty wod just line up ainst them, and i thght we took a step back fro that today. i thought republican critiques of her --enator essions, the rankinminority member was very tough oner but in general i thought there was a lot of respect on both side of the room, and s i'm hopeful aut the next five or 10 supreme court nominees. we might b back on trk to sort of a sensibleprocess. >> charlie: a model hearing?

>> yes. we, the best we couldope for, iould say -- tre have been some low ments where senatorsust aren't paying to the answers or have no idea what going on but in general i think we'll look back on this process with se pride. >> chaie: not a lot of grdstanding? >> no,here hasn't been a lot of filibusting. take justenator sessns, right -- >> charlie: hes the ranking -- he's the ranking minority member. >> right and heas put in that posion because conservaves wanted someone o could lead the charge, and while he has been very aggressive, would make point and a point and thehe would say want you to have the chance to answer" he hasn't just said what h had to say and unfairly moved on,ven when he's been attacking she's had the chance, and democrats he such an ovehelming majority on e committee, 12-7 they're going get their points in no maer wh, so it hasn't been grandstandin the senators he been interested to the extent she's willing to answer questions to give her the chance to do so. >> charlie: but in the 5-4 balance she changes nothing

she's confirmed, wilshe? >> tt's right. there are only a couple of strange line-ups that we hav thatecur on the supreme court with thear left and the far rit come together, particularly on questions of criminal procere. the are some sues about punitive damages that ha some unusual alignments and we n't know what she wi do thereut you ca be the mostliberal judge in ameca and you couldn't shift the 5-4 balance on the supreme courtecause you don't have fr other people like you. e's going to be a lot like davidoutter and tha too, plains why the responsfrom republicans ha't been thermonuclear, and i explains a little bit why the attacks on sam ato in the end were much harsher cause he was replacing a swg vote on the supreme court and she's not. >> charl: how manyselections to the crt do you expect president obama will me betwee now andhe next electi? >> only one more. justice john paul stevens who is the oldes member of the court i think is quite likely t stay

for a ye or two more and then ve president obama a chance to replace him. ruth bader ginsburg hasade it clear e will stay so h replacement would come at the soest, and i think likely in a second oma term if there were one. the supreme court isreally up foa shift -- the only tim it could shifto the left in the electionf 2016. right now, justices kennedy and scalia are 72 an73. so by then, they would be getting to the point that they're 80, andhat's going to your first more conservative retirements. the chief justice, justice alito and justice thomas, the other conservati members of the court are a still very young. >> charlie: thank you fo joining us. pleasureo have you back. >> it's great to be back. thks very ch. >> chaie: we'll be right back. stay with us.

charlie: v.s. ramachan is here. from t university of san diego. he believes that rare a unexplained disorder conta valuable insights into brain functions. the 1990's he pformed pionring experiments on amputees sufring from the seation ofphantom limbs using a store-bought mirror and a piece of cardbod he was able to cure tm of pain in their amputated armi. he has sce turned to a wide range of topics from perception to consciousns. i am pleased t have him here this table f the first time. welcome. thank you charli lighted to be here. >> charlie: i want to rea somethg you id. which i -- this is, like, five shows right here. "en though is common knowledg these days, it never ceases to amaze m that all the richness of our mental life, all of our feelings, our emotions, our thouts, our ambitis, our ve life, ourreligious sentiments and even what each of

us regds as his own ntimate, prate self is simply the activity of these little specks of jelly in your head,in your brn." >> s. absolutely. well, it is astishing and it still never ceases to amaze me. just think aboutit. here is this mass ofjelly -- lump of jelly you can hold in your han called a brain, andt ca contemplate the vastness of space. it can think aut atoms, subatomic particle it can think abongels and unicorns, itan think about the mathematical concept of infinity, it ca even thin about itself contempting these things andhis is the most asnishing thing in the universe as know t. >> charlie: what's therimary difference in the spies? >>his is aery contested issue, whether e merel more sophisticated hairless

apes, who are jt quantitatively a little bit better than the great apes,r whether there is a sden jump in -- quantum jump in evolutio that makes u human. i ppen to believe thelatter, that therere traits that ma us human. it doesn't imply we didn't evol from preesting structures, i'm not a creationist, i believe dainian evolution,owever there are things that are unique to the brain, lguage is one striking example,self-awareness isone siking example i'm aware of mysf to an extent thato great ape is aware of itself. they see red the same way you and i see red but they don't as themsees questions like "who am i? where am i from?" you can reach for the stars. an ap can reach for a brch. >> crlie: how do you kno th? >> very often in science it's not a questioof absolute tru but circumstantial evidence. people have do extensive experiments onapesto see what

their cognitive abilits. we're amazedow good they are but things like being selfonscious and aware a believe lauage -- people have tried to teach apesnguage, you can ach them -- teach apes language, whathey cannot do is recursive embeddin for example sayi "john, who hit ary, went to the ball. jo, who hit mary, went to the ball." you instantly know it's not mary who went to the ball bu john." this hierarchic embedding of clause withinlauseis something no gat ape capable of. other thin like laughter humans. we're the laughing biped. >> charlie: they don laugh. >> they don't laugh -- unless you coun hyes. >> charlie: if they see themselves in a mirror. >> yes. >> charlie: what do th do? >> that's a go question. when you confront -- it's clmed that if of course in initial exposure to mior, whetr it's a child or an ape, it looks like anoer personnd

for example, a monkey never get used to the fact that it's mirror age but a great a, a chimps, for example, and a human, after expience with a mirror, seein that the mirror image does evething is a perfectl replicatesvery one of your little movements gives it the clue tt this is not another strange creature butt must be me. only humans c say it is me a the reection in th mirror apes habuate and get e hang of it but the extraordinary thing is when an ape anesthetized and you put a red patcon the forehd and the ape looks in the mirror he immediately does this. wipes off the patch. does haverudimentary sense of his body and realize he has to do this to remove that pot. doesn't reach into the mirr. it's not an all-or-none thing, it's notan awarenessemerged out ofhe blue. >> charlie: tell me abouthe brain's plasticity. it used to be tse

connectis in thebrain, 100 billion nerve cells in the average human ain, each nerve cell makes something like 1,000-10,000ontacts with other nerve cells. the contacts n be on, can be off,omeone calculated that the nuer of brain states -- the number opossible permutations ceeds the number of elemeary particles in thenown universe. how do y make theconnections? oneiew is it's allade by genes, there in thgenome and fixed in infancynd there is not much you can do when there is damag to the adult brain, for exame when there is stroke the dogma h always beethat there is ts -- this ties into the modular vi ofrain functis that there are different highly specialized regions, andvery point on the skin surface goes to a particular point ithe brain, and so on and so forth, so if you punch out a mole a function is lost a that's , so what we have learned from our experiments in the last 10-15 years and some of my colleagues in other stitutions is this is simply not true.

instead of thinking of punched-t modules you really thinkf a dynamic organism, almost, a brain, and when there is somethinghange the in th environmt or a damage or insu it's not a pce that's permaneny removed, there is a shifin the equilibrm, so there is a mass of neurons that is in a sta of equilibrium in the external wld and different parts are talki to each other and when the is damage, there is a shift and often all you need to dois a sple shift to trip the pattern. charlie: i have onceread, this may be allied ornot, tha everything you do in some way s some biological change in the brain. >>absolute. people who sdy the brain, most of us, would argue that any mental cnge -- there is always a corresponding brain change, and thisn fact is the main goal of the enterpre -- to expln all mental functions including ings like self-awareness in terms changes in neuro but returning to plasticity, one of the main evidences for this in my lab is

in amputees. phantom lim. it turns out the is a comple map of t surface ofthe body on the surfa of the brain. every brain is represented on a particar point and it also tus out that the map not perfect, it's distord so the ha is right next to the fe in that map. what we find is wh you amputate the arm,the question is, is there a ho in the brain corresponding to therm and the answer is there is no hole. thinputrom the face now takes overhe region that once belonged to e hand. so you touch the guy on the face, he is an amtee, you touch the guy on the face, he wi say, "oh, my god, you're touching my phantom lb" and we were spooked out by this the first timee saw it, then we realized wt was going on, the inpufrom the face, the skin is enervatinghe hand area the ha iseing uched. yo phantom hand is being touched. >> chaie: what's the technique? >> two techniques. one is simpltouching the patient and king him where he feels the sensations and you find a perfectap of the

missing nd on the ce. that's the thumb, dex finger the other technique is to do brain imageing wre you actually see the map has chand. the other astonishing examplof plasticity we disvered that ny patients with thehantom li will say that the phantom is frozenstiff in an awkward position. think about it. it's a phantom, not a real army, there is a charleyhors a amp in an excruciing position. if only i could remove it i could remove it but it's paralyze this sounds like an oxymoron. how could a phantom be paralyzed? from a praatic standpoint, how do you make the arm move ain to relieve the pain? we mply put a mirror in a box, and the patienlooks at -- so thiss a phantom hand cramped in a paiul position. you put a mirror here and he clenches his nmal hand, looks in the mirror and it looks like his phantohas come ba, you have resurrected his phanto

then yousk him to mimic the posture of the phantom,s though vuuplicated his normal arm d what you see in the mirror is e reflectio of the normal arm but it looks like t phanto the amazing thg, if he moves thehand it lks like the phantom is moving, instant it removes theramp and in many patien it seems to pmanently relievthe pn from the phantom lim not in all pients but in about third. >> charlie: does it matter wh the amputati occurd? >> if the mirrorrick is done a few months or a year or two after amputation thas when it works best. if y wait too long, 10-15 years the phantomain persist with aengeance and even if you put the mirror it doesn't help much. >> charlie: wh other diseases interest you >> a uple of -- there are two endas. one is to understan how the brain works,hat is consousness, what is mind, the other is praccal. how can you help people? when you get to the practica it turns out you can use theirror trick en for stroke. if a patientas complete

paralysis the arm, a real m, not amputated, one out of six us will have a stre and half of those people will have a paralysis of the arm sohe arm is paralyzed, there is flicker of movement evenhen you try, is called a stroke because the tor fibers thatgo from the motor cortex down to the arm are cut so the standard assumption is at is it, you can't anything about it. what w suggested is maybe there is a component of the stroke what's cled learned parysis that initially there is some ralysis but therain just gives up sonot all the paralysis due permanent damage. some of it is a rt of learned paralysis, sif you you put a mirror and start movg the normal hand, this isn experiment i did with ec alschuller, a colleue of mine, a strictly visual aparance, it not actually moving, after a few days of this, in some patients the arm actually starts movingy giving him a visual illusion tt the paralyzearm

is moving, the ralyzed arm starts literally moving to different extents in different paents and it esn't work at allin some patients, but in many patients theris a substantial recovery of functio so we've now apied this mirror technique to pain -- pain caused by strokes. paralysis csed by stroke. phantom pain. a number of other coitions. but the othergenda weave is basic science --n other words, understanding how the brai work >> charlie: rit. >> l's go back to phantom limbs, right? >> charlie: righ >> here is a person, s arm is amputated. he's got a phanto this is ooky enough. is has been known for 100 years and people wondered what was. medical school i countered patien and i alway asked, "what isthis? the patits asked. i'm as puzzle as the patient. just few -- a year or so ago, we found tha this is unreted to what i was tling you about with theirrors and all that, if i simply go a touch a normal pern on hisormal hand and the patient with the phant limb watches the person, he feelsit in his phantom limb. so assuming i have a phaom

limb and somebody touches ou, charlie, on the hand, i feelt my phanto this sounds like "x les" but we've repeated in a large number of patients. why does this happen? is is worthyof sheock holmes. why does it appen? whwould a man being fee a touch administered another human being? it tns out there is a bunch of neurons in the front of th brain which we've discovered i italy -- tse are called mirror neurons anthese neurons- ey occur in the frontf the brain but also occuin the back of the bra -- theyire when somebody were to touch my rl hand, ok? they're lled sensory neons. somee comes and touches my al hand, these neurons fire. that's been known 50 years. 100 years, in fact. >> charlie: when y say neurons fire, what does that mn? >> that meanshe brain is de upf the nve cell the fundamental structural units of the nervs system and a neuron means nee cell, a highly specialized form ocell which the brain uses -- a lotf these cells the brain are in fact neurons which are ud to

exchange informion, so whitouch your handor someone toucs my hand there is a hand area in e brain wherethe neurs fire. there is line if youike from e toucheceptors in you hand to the sensory touch area in the brain. so far, sogood, ok? the new scovery made by the italians is th some of these neurons, about a third of them, wi fire even if somedy touches chlie and i'm simy wahing, those arempathy neurons so they're saying, charlie is bei touched. i out to empathize with charlie so i will fe the touch myself. i el th empathybut i don't litelly feel the tou. the qution is why do i not literally feel it? i empathize, i know that you are being touched, i know what it feels like to be touche i do a virtua reality of my brn of your brain but it doesn'teel like somody is touching me. that's because my hand, my skin receptors are telling t brain, "look, buddy, you're not being toucd, don't worry. charlie is being touched. you can emphize by all means

but n't worry. you're not ing touched." >> charlie: where does that ke us? >> i coming to it if you remove the a that signal doesn't ce through and i start feeling your touch sensions. here is great medic mystery and you solve it by looking at urons in the brain. the advantage is, if somebod comes in and massages you, charlie, i feel a massagen my phtom and the pain in the phantostarts fading and disappearing. now, this needs to be done in controlled sdies, something we just discovered, but it tells you an emple of how yo can take a bunch of neurons nerve cells, study their prerties in monks and in humans, lookt a patient who halost an arm, make a prediction, you e sothing really spooky, experiens your sensations and lo and behold you now can use it therapeutically. not only that just for fun i call these neuronsghandi neurons bause they're invold in emphy and once i remove the skin it dissolves the barrier tween me a you s i

experience your sensation. >> charlie: why do youay understandin neurons is part of the great leap forward understanding han evolution? >> w0e8, i thin mirror neurons -- >> well, i think mror uronses, that's what these neurons are lled, they're involved in crting a virtual reality simulation of yr neurons. i don't see you as a puppet ving, i have an inrnal image ofharlie who hasntentions and he's reaching outo grab the cup, ok? so this construction of another human being inour mind ries to some extent on these neurons called mirror neurobbons and it tells out in derto imitate somebody you need mirror neurons because howo i imitate a compleaction? a human child seets once and maybe justeeing it once or twice does it immediately. turns out monkeys can't do thatven though commoy people believe they can do that, they're very bad at so they

have mirror neurons but they're not as sophisticated as ours. we have mirror neuro who can perform a sopsticatedunction of your brainreaching out to the cup and drinking and reenact itn my brainn one child and reaching out and drinking. this is very human. a polar bear has to -- hundreds of thousan of yearsto evolve a fur coat through tural selection. a human cld watchingts mother hunt and skin a polar be watches it once or twice and does it in one generation. that's a tremendous advance of cultural transmission over natural selectio whatakes millions of years through tural selectn of trial and rror, as result of mirr neurons and the grape leap forward youan achieve in one generati, and this is what makes man beings utter different from any great ape or animal, we have this great sophisticated culture made poible by emution. charlie: you started this conversation talki about the search for understanding

cociousness. >> s. >> charlie: how fa along are we? >> well, we have rely scrahed the surface, i would say. it's a problem that is so enigmatic at we don't even know howo state it, how dene it, t man people aee that it's even problem -- people say it'just playing with words. i think there a genuine problem here. there are neurons - nerve cells firing in mybrain and i see green or i see red. there is nothing r about the neurons. they're buhes of specks of lly firing away. how is it i experience redness, greenness, blness or love or charity or pity with these neurons firingaway. that's the oblem. the are two sides to the problem. onis awareness of red or green or blue then there is the self awareness, "i am aware of me as a person who endures in time despite all the diversity of exriences around me, i came and met yo today, is morning i took a taxi, i want to go to the metropolitan musm, a, b, c, d, a continuity in timeand

l these diversexperiences i have but there is a single sort of gold thread that's nning through the whole fric of my experience. thiss called the unity nsciousness. sohere is unity. ere is continuity. e embodiment. i feeli'm in here, i don'tfeel i'out there. sometimes that goe wrong d i have a out-ofody experience so soall of these pects of consciousnes we're going to chip away at t problem and understand them one by one and solve them. >> charlie: 're making giant stepforward in understandi the brn because we're getting muchloser to getting insight into the biology the brain. >> that's absolutely rit and even spooky questions like wh coniousness -- >> charlie: even understandi -- to interrupt -- how psychotherapy -- pchotherapy. >> y. >>harlie: affects blogy. >> right. or vice versa. or vice versa. >> charlie: yeah. >> psychothepy iway out there --e still haven't got at, but in terms of being re oreeing green, youhave to start somewhere inscience, start th the simple quesons. eventually we'll get to that, hopefully. supping you lk at something,

i'm conscious of it, nobody can take that away from me, that i'm seeing, experimts have been done where theve shown tha therare in fact two pathways in the brain. if iamage the visual area in the bin, obvioly tre is a g, huge blind spot, no sion isoming in be a i can't see thatcup. ok? but guess wh. me of these peopleeach out and grab the cup. and you say "how is that poible? you damaged the visual ea in e brain. you're reaching out, grabbing the cup." it tns out there are dierent vial areas in the brain. there is a parallel pathway tt goes from t cup tohe other visual aas that'sot conscious. it only the pathway that goes tohe visual cortex thas conscious. that amazing butt's tellg you so regions of the brain are conscious, other regions of the ain can do elaborate thin like grab cups without you being conscis so youan ask what's special aut these neurons and these circuits that makes coniousness possible? just like you said, what' special out the double helix

that makes heritagepossible. peoplehought thiwas an insoluble problem. why do gs give birth to pigs? why do people ly givebirth to people? how come the resblance? it all starts with an gg. once cri zonedn on the doub helix andaid the complementity, they solved it. likewise weant to find out i neur circuitry, what is the anatomy of thebrain, wha are e circuits that ctate the functi that we call conscisness or visual awareness, and we're heading th directn. we haven't gotten very far but we're headinthere. charlie: because it'sausing so muchattention, bri in another brain illness whi is autism. how es that relate to neurons? >> that's an exclent question. autism is a very conoversial topic and people have bn studying it r 20, 30 years, the incidence ses to be increasing we don't know if it's really ineasing or if it'simply eay diagnosis. the characteristics e e chd has no empat and very

little high coact, has poor language skills, for example, or poor joint attention -- normally when you look at the cup i look at it to s what's going on, or you pot to something, i'm the person, i'm the child, i look at it. that a very human tng to do but is child will lk at your nger when you point at mething so there is no share mindand this is very critical in autism. depends on whayou mean by cae. cause meaning people hav suggested vaccines, viruses, heavy metals. the idence linking all ofhat is tenuous. but coming to the brain, what circuits have chaed in the brn? there are lotsf different changes that have been oerved throughout the brn. theerebellum is offered. my colleague,r. kucha has learned that. if you look a the properties of the mirror neurons, the mirror neurons arenvolved in constructing a theory of othe minds, they must be involved emulatn, taking your view, cause that's what th mirror is doing. it's firing whe i movey hand,

it's firing when you move your hand saying charlie is doinghe same thing as i'm doing so it's constructing a model of your mind and what you intentio are. this seemso be deficient in autism and ao imitation, empathy -- ty're very bad at pretend play. l our kids havesuperheros and they pretend. th temporarily transpo themselves from their own bods to inside the ser hero. the autistic children are not able to do that. so if yomake a list ofall of this, all of these things that areeficient in autism- similarly, autistic children get confused between pronouns, ou anme." all of the, i think, are functions are mirror neurons so can't be a coincince. th is why we suggted that the core deficit in autism is a deficit in mirror neurons we propos it aut 10 years ago. since then there are sdies confirming it but i will sll say the evidence is suggestive,

compelling but not conclusive >> charlie: ere is the coroversy? >> the ctroversy -- i don't know. the usual controversy ishat the is not enough evidence a we need to do mor -- more intensive sdies, techniquese usto discover theoss of mirror neurons e not adeqte to clely demonstrate t loss. those kinds of objtions. theoretically far as i know there have bn no objections. >> charlieback to localization. parkinson's. what do we kw about actly where, wharf iis in the bra that cause -- whatever iis in thbrain that causes parkinson'is located? >> that's goodisease to talk about because even thoh it's not what i spealize in a gat deal is known about the precise areas, substantia negra, ganglia, automatic posture adjustnts or when i walk, you ing your arms and when you are swinging your arms you don't co-- don't do it consciously, that's done by the baseal ganglia. rkinson's patients hold thei arms rigi

they don have spontaneous facial exprsion. theyave a mask-likeface. that's something we do spontaneously. the basal ganglia are involved. these are ma with dopamine. they have gidity. th also have tremor. we knowoughly what parts of the brain are involved, what chemal is missing, you can replace dopammine with dopa. they wl often have -- replace dopamine with l-do. if you ge too much youget tics a grimaces. now theres a promising technie called deep-brain stimulation where y can put an electrode inside the brain and partlly aeviate many ofhe symptoms. that's showing considerae promise. >> charlie: what are wlearning from peoe who in a sense are made toeel betr becauf the psychological benet of counselling? >> oh, i think there is evince that talk thera helps.

there is evidenc that prozac help but the effects are quite small. you're talking about -- if you doroo -- placebo, talk your friend, ife take prac, if you talk t yourriend it's 65%. prozac is 75%. lk therapy with a trained therapist can be very helpful toout these are marginal effects because we d't understand the psychothology. one ofhe things we're intested in is boundary disorders -- that is disorders that straddle the bndary betwn psychiatry and neurology. at's where to go. >> charlie: give me an example ofhat. >> o example is here is a chap who s had a head injury, or in fact sometimes jus schizophrenia, and he look at s mother and says, "this woman is an impostor. she'not my mother." sometimes it tak a slightly panoid flavor. e's coming after me. e's not really my mother. th amazing thing about these syndromess the chap is mpletely normal in other respects. he can do mathematics. he plays chess.

helaughs. he sis. he's social. >> crlie: he doesn't recognize his mother. he recognis in the sense thathe looks lik her but there is noempathy. why is this hpening? the standard psychiatric freudian view has been"what's going on he is all of us when we're little babies, have a strong sexual attraction to yr moer, so-called oedipus complex, freud" -- i'm not saying i belve this but it's the freudian view then the child grows into adulthood the cortex shows up and inhibits these lent sexual urges, therefore when you look at your mother youe not sexually turned on, thank god, right? then a blow comes to the head, damages the rtex. >>harlie: and you goback? >> then u back. the late sexual urges come the surfacand this chap ss ifhis is my mom why am i feeling sexually aroused? it doesn't make sense and he says "this can be my mom." this is the standardld view. what we showed i there is a neurological explanation it turns out if you look at anhing in the world, whether it'srivial like a pie of wood or exciti lik -- you

kn, like a tiger o a on or a sexually attractive person, whatever, or indeed your ther, something that's significant comes to you, goe into the visual areas of e brain, goes into t visual recnition system, an area for recognizing faces, an ar for recognizin faces and om at area, messages go into an area called the mig dala. the amyddal is involved in regnition, is it a mate i have to pursue, your hrt starts beating and sweating, your blood essure goes up, or is it a piece of drift wd or chalk, ignore it. you don't want laramie bel going all the time. what's theonnection between this and my patient? oom coming to, th right? in these patients, what happens is in you and i we have this recognition area whi recogniz faces, recognis umellas, tables and airs, sends the messe to the

amdala which responds emotionally, in these paties the amygdala is normal, they react to things emotially, react sounds emotionally, they laugh ajokes, for exame, but when ty see anything emotionally salient like their mother, the message es to the fuciformgyrus, but the wire that goes from the ce area to the amig dala has been cut so the net rest is he says this looks like my motr because the recognitionrea is normal butf it looks like my moer why am i not experiencing any warm glow or tror as the case may be even thoug she looks like my mother, the only way i can mak sensef this is to s she's an impostor then we tested this using a simple experimt which took abt an hour and it turned out that we were right, there is a disconnection beeen vision and normal. vision is normal, facial recoition is disconnectedn emotions. >> charlie: thank you fo coming. >> thank you very much. >> charlie a pleasure. i hope we can do isagai

>> i would ve to. >> charlie: we'll be right bk. stay with us. >> charlie: thplay "ruined" written by lynn notage won the pulitzer prize for drama, it tells the ory of women fighting for survival ring the depths othe civil warn congo. here is montage of the play. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ charlie: otage's journey to write "ruid" began four years ago on a trip to ghana. e two adapted stories ty hearfor the play. i am pleaseto ha em, the playwright, lynn notage and kate nofski to talk aboutthe theatrical experienc congralations to you and the awards. how did this begin? >> with a rather impulsive idea which was to take -- >>harlie: to go to uganda >> to go to uganda, not only goo uganda b to find the ories of congolese refuge men fleeing the conflict at the time andne i had very

little mon and i wasn't sure how i was ing to find those women, but asked kate whether she would go with me and she said "i will absolutely go" and so we wentnd -- >> charlie: and the exptation was what? >> i didn't know what to expect. i think that was part ofhe adventure the journey is i knew there was a story tt wa't being told by t media d a story i couldn't so of conjure from the library and i was really quite surprised when got there the extent to whi the women told tales of rape and abuse, and tir narrates were remaably similar and i think that was sort of surprise figure are me. >> it actlly started with the idea ofit being mher courage set in the cong so i ought we would have the structure thawe would tell -- we would go along with brecht's structure in t congo so for me it fel a little bit more abo let'sigure out how brecht andhe cong worke together whi they didn't -- that's what we learned -- r me, it felt le there was nothing similar what brecht was saying that -- and then we

founthese incredibly ric stories from the women and it lt like we should tell the stories of theomen and let go of the brecht idea. >> crlie: when you heard the stories and started to write dit just flow? >> itefinitely didn't fl becae i think the stories were so raw and difficult that in the writing press i found myself stopping and starting many times and tryi to figure out how d i share something whh was real difficult for me to hear with an audience, an audice that was going to sit and lten to these tales for two hours so no, it wasn't hard -- i think i took me about two years to figure out slistically how i was going to tell, and i i brought in many elements. i brought music, i brought in some dance and i brought in some humor because i felt an audienc would abandon my talef i kept them ithe depth it ises of horror foroo long. >> charlie: you incled thaty simply telling stories of their lis. >> i rit. i to the complity of the afrin woman's life which includes allof tho elents.

i was ally shocked interviewi the women how easily they accessetheir laughter andumor and one wouldn't expect th. >> chaie: why do you think that was? >> i think it's survil mechanism. i think that part o themsves hadn't been complely selched and lled by what they had been through d they knaw it was necessary. >> charlie: w were the main characters? >> the main character is mama nadi, o runs the brothel, and she provides refuge to several women -- oneeing sophie, who a school girl who haseen raped and has nolace else to go, and shtakes herin, and then ather woman, josephine, who is the daughter of a chief, who also h been aumatized by the w and has found herself rginalized and takes refuge in mama brothel, and then the third woman issalima, who is a fa woman wse family and her husband and her village have driven her away and she also finds herself taking refuge i

ma's brothel. charlie: sophie is? >> soph ishe school girl who has this angec voice, the innocent in the playnd the most destyed of the women in that s has fistula,he's carrying extreme psychological and also fist scars. >> crlie: take a look at this ip. >> is this yours? >> yes. >> yes? tell mwhat you were planning to do with my money. beuse it's my money. >> i -- >> "i, i, i" wh? >> wt do you think? >> you are not going to run aw with my moy. >> takher in. give her food. your uncle begged m wh am i supposed to do? i trust you. everyone say "she bad uck" but i say, "no, shes smart girl. maybe mama won't have do everything b heelf." you read books, you speak like white man but is this w you want to be? >> i sorry, mama. >> no. no. i will put you out onour ass, i will make you walk naked down

that road. is that what youant? what did you think you wer going to do with my money? huh? huh? what were you goingo do? >> white woman comg here sang there is an operation. >>on't you lie tome. >> charlie: you pe theater goers ce away wh a thtrical experience, not a journalistic message, a theatrical experice. >> ye >> charlie: which wi be to internalize these cracters as players? >> ideally, it would be a combination something thas both politicalnd -- and sympathetic, because -- what was interesting and the posive reactions from the aience seemed toe that people feel like we're s happy that we tually could spd time with ese people, because in the newst just feels like numbers, and so there is somethg about creati something where people are open eugh itheater to empathize wh a groupf rape victims, right? but in the story tling we

didn want to say "you're going to come in and meet these re victs," what we wanted t say was here are se women and let's go through the sty and then unbeknownst to them there are all theseurprises and trau. >>lso i think to answer that questi, part of what we want is the to have a more complited and inten relationip with the statistics and with those articles that ey read so that when they read a pagraph -- charlie: flesh and blo. >> fsh and blood, that they undetand who these women are beyond the statistics and beyond sort of the graphic horror and poography of it. >> charlie: yohave said that your dream was thatichelle obama, the first lady -- >> yes. >> charlie: and oprah winfrey would come, separately, togeth, it didn't matter to you, jt come. part that drea has happenednd someone i kno a producer here sat hind them and said there waa clear emotional connecti oprahn terms of tear in tes ofhat you feel whe

someone is terribly moved by something they seen a eater. >> i think that this ay speaks to so many ofhe issues tt rah has been outspoken abo and i think that she in some ways knows this character mama nadi who is a survivor and wh is a fight and who wl do whatever it takes to sort of protect the women her brothel, and keep em safe. >> charlieas we saw in this clip >> as we saw in this clip. >> charlie: doou expect -- are things going to get betterin the coo with respect to rape as a tool of r? any reason toelieve th? >> i don't think the ansr is a good on >> crlie: yeah. whats the answer? it's getting worse? that it's -- >> wl, i think -- unfortunaty, you now, i talked to dr.mcquage who runs the hospital and isked him, "have you er met a man who has gone tough rapin women and have you evemet someone who has then turned and decided i

want to actually transform and be different person?" and he said, "no, i have ner met anyone like th." charlie: whys that, not one single pern has everaid that out of guilt, out of awaress, out of new kwledge, out of change imy humani -- >>art of these stories- the young boys arliving wh their parents and th rebel soldiers come in and say -- kil their parents and s once they've killed tir parents, in order for themsels to surve it's very hard for them toave y sort of >> crlie: they lose any sse of right and wrong, any sense o choice, it ao becomes -- >>hey gravitate towardhe personho just made theo that, and so psychologically there is such profnd trauma in these men that it'sery hard to figure out how could you unvel that. and i thin that's the probl. and dr. mcquageaid something interestg, people talk out

suicide bombers and say that's the worst thin people. he sai"i think these men are the worst thing possible because yohave psychologically trmatized them so deeply, and then they're out in e world causing incredible violence, a there is no way of rehabilitating the >> charlie: so whahappens to th? >> i think evtually, due to violence, they die, but i don't think it's -- >> charlie: go ahead. you wante to speato that. >> i do thk that there are reasons to be optimistic tha it's not a completely hopeless situation. i thk that there is a movement afoot to bring tools tthe women in the congo to proct themselves. went to hearingsn washgton and senato boxer spoke incribly eloquently and passionately about this issu and sa she wants tmake it priority. e wants to stop this in congo and she used tha lguage and i think that the are many people in positions of power that are beginning to hear the cal

>> charlie: eve enzler said at. >> ve ensler said thaand sheese one of the -- she's one of the people who tesfied in washington >> charlie: he you written another play? >> i have cpleted anoth ay. i write o plays at the same time, parcularly dealingith something as heavy as this, i ha written a comedy which is the complete lar opposite of this pl. >> charlie: you write th at the same tim >> i write them at the same time. i switch my screens ke this when i feel as though i can no longer dwell in th depths of the rain forestn afr i switch my screen and suddenly i'm in hollywood in 30. >> charlie: it easy to make th -- >> for me, it is, and think that that's st the nature of my a.d.d. brai is that i can turn the stch on and off very quickly. >> charlie: ongratulations. everythi. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> charlie: congratulaons. >> thank y. charlie: thank you very muc thank yofor joining us.

see you next tim ♪ ♪ captioning sponsored by rose communicatis captioned by media access gro at wgbh acce.wgbh.org