核心内容：Neuralink 与增强人类大脑的技术 | 马特·麦克道格尔博士

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我是安德鲁·胡伯曼，斯坦福大学医学院的神经生物学和眼科学教授。

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

接下来是我与马修·麦克杜格尔博士的对话。

And now for my discussion with Dr. Matthew MacDougall.

麦克杜格尔博士，欢迎你。

Dr. MacDougall, welcome.

很高兴来到这里。

Good to be here.

作为神经外科医生和神经科学家，首先能否和我们分享一下，你如何看待大脑这个器官，以及它有哪些可能性？

Just to kick things off, as a neurosurgeon and as a neuroscientist, could you share with us your vision of the brain as an organ as it relates to what's possible there?

外科医生看待世界的方式往往与大多数人不同，因为他们喜欢修复和修补，而在你的情况下，还有可能往大脑里添加原本不存在的东西。

Surgeons tend to view the world a little bit differently than most because they like to fix and they like to mend, and in your case, have the potential to add things into the brain that don't exist there already.

那么，你是如何思考和构想大脑这个器官的？你认为大脑真正有可能实现哪些我们大多数人可能没想到的事情？

So how do you think about and conceptualize the brain as an organ, and what do you think is really possible with the brain that most of us don't already probably think about?

大脑其实就是一堆功能模块拼在一起，用胶带粘在这个连着脑袋的骨头盒子里。

The brain really is a collection of functional modules pinned together, duct taped together in this bone box attached to your head.

有时候你会看到非常有趣的故障模式。

And sometimes you see very interesting failure modes.

我印象最深的病人之一，是我刚接受培训的时候遇到的。

So one of the most memorable patients I ever had was very early on in my training.

当时我在加州大学圣地亚哥分校，看到一个刚出车祸的年轻小伙子。

I was down at UC San Diego and saw a very young guy who had just been in a car accident.

我们给他做了手术，和神经外科常见的情况一样，我们救了他的命，但可能牺牲了他的生活质量。

We had operated on him and as is so often the case in neurosurgery, we had saved his life, potentially at the cost of quality of life.

他醒来后，双侧额叶受损，基本上完全失去了冲动控制。

When he woke from surgery with bilateral frontal lobe damage, he had essentially no impulse control left.

然后，他80岁的恢复室护士叫我们回去，说：“你们得马上来看看你们的病人。”

And so we were called back by his 80-year-old recovery room nurse saying, "You've got to come see your patient right away.

“出事了。”

Something's wrong."

我们走进去看他，他指着那位年长的护士说：“她不愿意跟我上床。”

And we walk in to see him, and he points at his elderly nurse and says, "She won't have sex with me."

那一刻很明显，他的额叶已经受损，这个人再也不会有正常的人类行为了。

And it was apparent at that moment his frontal lobes were gone, and that person is never going to have reasonable human behavior again.

这是大脑出问题最悲惨的方式之一，但大脑所做的任何事情，从控制体内激素水平，到视觉、感觉，再到最明显的事情，比如任何形式的肌肉运动，从眼球运动到弯曲二头肌，全都来自大脑。

It's one of the most tragic ways to have a brain malfunction, but anything a brain does, anything from control of hormone levels in your body, to vision, to sensation, to the most obvious thing, which is muscle movement of any kind, from eye movement to moving your bicep, all that comes out of the brain.

所有这些都可能出问题，任何一部分或者全部。

All of it can go wrong, any part of it or all of it.

所以，作为外科医生，处理大脑这个物质，风险非常高，但偶尔你会有机会真正帮到人。

So yeah, working with the brain is, the substance of the brain as a surgeon, very high stakes, but once in a while, you get a chance to really help.

你有机会修复看似无法修复的东西，而且像拉撒路那样的奇迹并不少见。

You get a chance to fix something that seems unfixable, and you have Lazarus-like miracles not too uncommonly.

所以作为职业，这非常令人满足。

So it's extremely satisfying as a career.

你能跟我们分享一个让你特别满意的经历吗？

Could you share with us one of the more satisfying experiences?

当然可以。

Sure.

或者说，在神经外科里，什么样的手术算是有成就感？

Or what qualifies as satisfying in neurosurgery?

我们最近常用的一种新技术是，如果病人脑子里有个比较小的肿瘤，位置很深，很难够到，传统的手术方法需要切掉很多健康的脑组织，破坏大量神经元和白质，也就是连接神经元的那些线路。

One of the relatively newer techniques that we do is if someone comes in with a reasonably small tumor somewhere deep in the brain that's hard to get to, the traditional approach to taking that out would involve cutting through a lot of good normal brain and disrupting a lot of neurons, a lot of white matter, the kind of the wires connecting neurons.

而现代的方法是在头骨上钻一个两毫米的小孔，通过这个孔放进去一根光纤导管，接上激光，然后在实时MRI的引导下，直接把肿瘤加热掉，整个过程都在大脑深处进行。

The modern approach involves a two-millimeter drill hole in the skull, down which you can pass a little fiber optic cannula and attach it to a laser and just heat the tumor up deep inside the brain under direct MRI visualization in real-time.

所以病人是躺在MRI扫描仪里的。

So this person is in the MRI scanner.

我们大概每秒钟拍一张图像。

You're taking pictures every second or so.

随着肿瘤被加热，我们可以监控温度，精确控制到我们想要的程度，既能杀死所有肿瘤细胞，又几乎不损伤周围的脑组织。

As the tumor heats up, you can monitor the temperature, and get it exactly where you want it, where it's going to kill all those tumor cells, but not hurt hardly any of the brain surrounding it.

所以现在经常有病人带着肿瘤来，以前这种肿瘤做手术风险极大，但现在我们可以通过只留一个小孔的方式，把肿瘤彻底消除。

And so, not uncommonly nowadays, we have someone come in with a tumor that previously would've been catastrophic to operate on, and we can eliminate that tumor with leaving a poke hole in their skin.

即使是以前被认为完全无法手术的病例，比如脑干肿瘤、初级运动皮层或初级语言区（布罗卡区）的肿瘤，以前我们可能要么不做手术，要么会造成灾难性损伤，现在这些人有时也能毫发无损地走出来。

Even in cases that previously would have considered totally inoperable, say a tumor in the brain stem or a tumor in primary motor cortex or primary verbal areas, Broca's area, where we would have expected to either not operate or do catastrophic damage, those people sometimes now are coming out unscathed.

你在Neuralink工作，同时也在其他临床环境中担任神经外科医生，肯定经常使用机器吧。

In your role at Neuralink and as a neurosurgeon in other clinical settings, surely you are using machines.

我觉得这是一个非常激动人心的时代，工程师们开始挑战大问题并全力以赴，而埃隆显然是最擅长做大事情的人之一，甚至可以说是最厉害的。

It's, I think, a very exciting time in which engineers are starting to toss up big problems and go for it, and obviously Elon is certainly among the best, if not the best, in terms of going really big.

在允许的范围内，你能跟我们分享一下Neuralink的任务是什么，以及任务的大致范围吗？

To the extent that you are allowed, could you share with us what the missions at Neuralink are and what the general scope of missions are?

当然可以。

Sure.

如果可能的话，再分享一些更具体的目标。

And then if possible, share with us some of the more specific goals.

我能想象一些基本目标，比如……

I can imagine basic goals of-

……试图理解大脑并增强大脑功能。

... trying to understand the brain and augment the brain.

我可以想象临床上的目标，就是修复那些正在受苦的人身上的问题。

I could imagine clinical goals of trying to repair things in humans that are suffering in some way.

Neuralink，还有之前的特斯拉和SpaceX，最终都成了人们投射希望和恐惧的空白画布，所以我们在这方面经历了很多好处。

Neuralink and I think Tesla and SpaceX before it, end up being these blank canvases that people project their hopes and fears onto, and so we experience a lot of upside in this.

人们以为我们有超能力，能改变大脑的工作方式，同时他们也对我们将要做的可怕事情感到恐惧。

People assume that we have superpowers in our ability to alter the way brains work, and people have terrifying fears of the horrible things we're going to do.

这些极端情况都不是真的。

Those extremes are not true.

我们正在制造一种神经植入物。

We are making a neural implant.

我们有一个机器人插入设备，帮助放置比人类头发还小的微小电极，遍布大脑的一个小区域。

We have a robotic insertion device that helps place tiny electrodes smaller than the size of a human hair, all throughout a small region of the brain.

在我们瞄准的第一个适应症中，我们希望将一系列这样的电极植入到那些脊髓严重受伤的人的大脑中。

In the first indication That we're aiming at, we are hoping to implant a series of these electrodes into the brains of people that have had a bad spinal cord injury.

所以那些基本上四肢瘫痪的人，他们的大脑是完好的，但无法用它来移动身体。

So people that are essentially quadriplegic, they have perfect brains, but they can't use them to move their body.

他们无法移动手臂或腿。

They can't move their arms or legs.

所以他们大脑中那个完好的运动皮层完全有能力控制人体。

And so this pristine motor cortex up in their brain is completely capable of operating a human body.

只是它不再与手臂或腿正确连接了。

It's just not wired properly any longer to a human's arms or legs.

我们的目标是将这个植入物放入运动皮层，让那个人能够控制电脑，比如鼠标和键盘，就像他们的手放在鼠标和键盘上一样，即使他们并没有移动手。

And so our goal is to place this implant into a motor cortex and have that person be able to then control a computer, so a mouse and a keyboard, as if they had their hands on a mouse and a keyboard, even though they aren't moving their hands.

他们的运动意图直接从大脑传到设备中，这样他们就能重新获得数字自由，并通过互联网与世界连接。

Their motor intentions are coming directly out of the brain into the device, and so they're able to regain their digital freedom, and connect with the world through the internet.

为什么要用机器人来植入这些芯片？

Why use robotics to insert these chips?

这些电极非常微小，而大脑表面的血管又多又密，人根本无法手动完成。

These electrodes are so tiny and the blood vessels on the surface of the brain so numerous and so densely packed that a human physically can't do this.

人手不够稳定，无法抓住电极线末端那几微米宽的环，并准确地将它植入皮层表面，而且是在盲视的情况下，还要达到正确的深度，穿过我们想要到达的所有皮层。

A human hand is not steady enough to grab this couple micron width loop at the end of our electrode thread and place it accurately, blindly, by the way, into the cortical surface, accurately enough at the right depth to get through all the cortical layers that we want to reach.

我当然希望人类外科医生在这个过程里是不可或缺的，但很快，人类的手艺就不够用了，做不了这么精细的活儿。

I would love if human surgeons were essential to this process, but very soon, humans run out of motor skills sufficient to do this job.

所以在这种情况下，我们就得靠机器人来完成这些电极的植入，要极其精准、极其快速，而且数量庞大，得把它们放到大脑的正确区域。

And so we are required, in this case, to lean on robots to do this incredibly precise, incredibly fast, incredibly numerous placement of electrodes into the right area of the brain.

我想快速插播一下，感谢我们的赞助商BetterHelp。

I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, BetterHelp.

BetterHelp提供专业治疗，由持牌治疗师全程在线进行。

BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online.

每次我做治疗，结束后都感觉更好，而且知道时间花得很值。

Every time I do a therapy session, I come away feeling better and knowing that the time was well spent.

这是因为每次治疗结束，我都能得到宝贵的见解，或者对正在处理的事情有了新的视角，无论是工作上的、个人关系上的，还是我和自己的关系。

And that's because whenever I finish a therapy session, I come away with a valuable insight or new perspective on something I'm working through, whether that's with work, with relationships in my personal life, or with my relationship to myself.

我一直都觉得，有效的治疗能带来很多好处。

I've just consistently found that there's so much benefit that comes through effective therapy.

有了BetterHelp，找一位能帮你获得有效治疗好处的专家治疗师变得非常容易。

With BetterHelp, they make it extremely easy to find an expert therapist who can help provide the benefits that come through effective therapy.

他们有一个简短的问卷，帮你匹配到合适的治疗师。虽然BetterHelp的匹配率在行业内领先，但如果你对匹配结果不满意，随时可以换一位治疗师。

They have a short questionnaire that helps match you to a therapist, and while BetterHelp has an industry-leading match rate, if you aren't happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time.

而且数据显示这确实有效。

And the data say it works.

BetterHelp的在线直播课程平均评分是4.9分（满分5分），基于超过170万条客户评价。

BetterHelp has an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for its live sessions based on over 1.7 million client reviews.

另外，因为BetterHelp完全在线进行，所以非常节省时间。

Also, because BetterHelp is done entirely online, it's extremely time efficient.

不用开车去治疗师的办公室，也不用找停车位等等。

There's no driving to a therapist's office, looking for parking, et cetera.

如果你想试试BetterHelp，可以访问betterhelp.com/huberman，首月可享受10%的折扣。

If you would like to try BetterHelp, go to betterhelp.com/huberman to get 10% off your first month.

再说一遍，网址是betterhelp.com/huberman。

Again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman.

所以从某种程度上说，Neuralink不仅在开拓人脑的探索、增强和治疗，也在引领机器人外科医生的发展。

So in some ways, Neuralink is pioneering the development of robotic surgeons as much as it's pioneering the exploration and augmentation and treatment of human brain conditions.

就目前这个设备来说，我们正在提交给FDA审批的版本，它只用于放置电极。

And as the device exists currently, as we're submitting it to the FDA, it is only for the placement of the electrodes.

机器人是手术的一部分。

The robot is part of the surgery.

我或者其他神经外科医生仍然需要做比较粗糙的部分，比如切开皮肤和颅骨，给机器人呈现一个干净的脑表面，让它把电极缝进去。

I or another neurosurgeon still needs to do the more crude part of opening the skin and skull and presenting the robot a pristine brain surface to sew electrodes into.

总的来说，Neuralink的使命是减少人类的痛苦，至少在短期内是这样。

Broadly speaking, the mission of Neuralink is to reduce human suffering, at least in the near term.

我们希望最终能找到一个合理的用途，让脑机接口把AI作为工具嵌入大脑，人类可以用它来增强自己的能力。

There's hope that eventually there's a use here that makes sense for a brain interface to bring AI as a tool embedded in the brain, that a human can use to augment their capabilities.

我觉得这离我们还很远，但绝对在我们的目标路线图上。

I think that's pretty far down the road for us, but definitely on a desired roadmap.

短期内，我们真正关注的是那些有严重医疗问题、目前没有其他选择的人。

In the near term, we really are focused on people with terrible medical problems that have no options right now.

那么，为了让我们更全面地了解这个情况，我们说的是一个因为脊髓损伤而无法移动四肢的病人。

So, to just give us a bit fuller picture of this, we're talking about a patient who can't move their limbs because they have spinal cord damage.

理论上，负责控制运动的大脑皮层是完好的。

The motor cortex that controls movement is, in theory, fine.

你在头骨上打个小孔，然后机器人就会通过这个孔把电极放下去，肯定是要放在运动皮层里，但具体要放到哪儿呢？

You make a small hole in the skull, and through that hole, a robot is going to place electrodes, obviously in motor cortex, but then where?

怎么放？

How?

你的意思是打算从不同的位置来演奏一场音乐会吗？

Is the idea that you're going to play a concert from different locations?

你会把钢琴上的所有琴键按出不同的组合吗？

You're going to hit all the keys on the piano in different combinations?

我还是不太明白信号是怎么从运动皮层传出去，越过损伤部位，再到达四肢的。因为在这个方案里，损伤本身并没有被处理。

I still don't understand how the signals are going to get out of motor cortex, past the lesion, and out to the limbs, because the lesion hasn't been dealt with at all in this scenario.

所以这里澄清一下，我得强调我们短期内不会讨论把大脑重新连接到患者自己的肢体上。

So just to clarify there, I should emphasize we're not in the immediate future talking about reconnecting the brain to the patient's own limbs.

这确实在规划路线里，但那是几年后的事了。

That's on the roadmap, but it's way down the roadmap a few years.

我们目前讨论的是，让人仅凭运动意图就能控制周围的电子设备，对吧？

What we're talking about in the immediate future is having the person be able to control electronic devices around them with their motor intentions alone, right?

所以——

So-

是假肢手和手臂，还是只是鼠标和键盘上的按键？

Prosthetic hand and arm or just mouse and keys on a-

先从鼠标和键盘开始。

Mouse and keys on a keyboard, for starters.

所以你看不到世界上任何东西在动。

So you wouldn't see anything in the world move.

当患者产生意图时，比如想象握拳或者移动手腕，屏幕上会出现鼠标向下向左移动并点击图标，打开文字处理软件，然后屏幕底部会出现一个键盘，让他们按顺序选择字母，从而进行打字。

As they have an intention, the patient might imagine, say, flexing their fist or moving their wrist, and what would happen on the screen is the mouse would move down and left and click on an icon and bring up their word processor, and then a keyboard at the bottom of the screen would allow them to select letters in sequence, and they could type.

所以我们正在使用更智能的算法来解码大脑中的运动意图。

So we're using smarter algorithms to decode the motor intentions out of the brain.

我们已经在猴子身上很好地实现了这一点。

We have been able to do this in monkeys really well.

所以我们有一大群猴子在玩电子游戏，为了喝到奶昔，它们表现得很棒。

So we have a small army of monkeys playing video games for smoothie rewards, and they do really well.

我们其实保持着猴子大脑信息传输速率的纪录，用来智能控制屏幕上的光标。

We actually have the world record of bit rate of information coming out of a monkey's brain to intelligently control a cursor on a screen.

我们在这方面的表现比任何人都好。

We're doing that better than anyone else.

如果允许的话，你愿意把这些电极植入到你的运动皮层吗？

Would you be willing, or are you willing if allowed to have these electrodes implanted into your motor cortex?

是的，绝对愿意。

Yeah, absolutely.

我会很兴奋去做这件事。

I would be excited to do that.

我觉得对于设备的第一版来说，它不会太有用，因为我还能动我的四肢，而且我们最初能实现的功能，我用双手也能轻松做到。

I think for the first iteration of the device, it wouldn't be very useful because I can still move my limbs, and our first outputs from this are things that I can do just as easily with my hands.

移动鼠标、在键盘上打字。

Moving a mouse, typing on a keyboard.

我们必然要把这个设备做成医疗设备，专门给那些有严重医疗问题、没有其他好选择的人用。

We are necessarily making this device as a medical device for people with bad medical problems and no good options.

短期内，一个身体健全的人去装这个设备，其实没什么意义。

It wouldn't really make sense for an able-bodied person to get one in the near term.

随着技术发展，当我们做出专门用来完成连健全人都做不到的功能的设备时——比如说，最终把技术打磨到能用意念和这种设备打字，比用语音转文字或手指打字还快——那对我来说，装一个就说得通了。

As the technology develops and we make devices specifically designed to perform functions that can't be done even by an able-bodied person, say, eventually refine the technique to get to the point where you can type faster with your mind and one of these devices than you can with text-to-speech or speech-to-text and your fingers, that's a use case that makes sense for someone like me to get it.

如果它只是让我用鼠标，还不如我现在用手用得顺手，那对我来说装它就没啥意义。

It doesn't really make sense for me to get one when it allows me to use a mouse slightly worse than I can with my hand currently.

不过，这个设备的安全性，我绝对可以担保。

That said, the safety of the device I would absolutely vouch for.

从我亲手做过的几百例这类手术来看，我觉得它比很多行业标准、FDA批准的手术都安全得多，那些手术我经常给病人做，大家也都觉得是常规治疗，根本不会多想。

From the hundreds of surgeries that I've personally done with this, I think it's much safer than many of the industry-standard, FDA-approved surgeries that I routinely do on patients that no one even thinks twice about their standard of care.

在我看来，Neuralink 已经达到了一个安全标准，远远超过了普遍接受的安全门槛。

Neuralink has already reached, in my mind, a safety threshold that is far beyond a commonly accepted safety threshold.

说到增强人的生物功能或者在世界上的能力，我觉得现在正好可以聊聊你手背上那个小肿块。

Along the lines of augmenting one's biological function or functions in the world, I think now's the appropriate time to talk about the small lump present in the top of your hand.

给正在听而不是看的听众说明一下，麦克杜格尔博士的食指和拇指之间，也就是食指和大拇指之间，手背皮肤上有个小肿块。

For those listening, not watching, there's a small lump between Dr. MacDougall's forefinger and thumb, or index finger and thumb, placed on skin on the top of his hand.

这个肿块你已经有好几年了，因为我们认识大概有七年了吧，我认识你的时候你就有。

You've had this for some years now because we've known each other for, gosh, probably seven years now or so, and you've always had it in the time that I've known you.

那个肿块是什么？你为什么把它放在那里？

What is that lump and why did you put it in there?

那是一个小的可写RFID标签，就是一个非常小的植入芯片，无线设备可以临时给它供电。

So it's a small writable RFID tag, so it's just a very small implantable chip that wireless devices can temporarily power.

如果你靠近天线，它们就能给它供电并来回传输少量数据。

If you approach an antenna, they can power and send a small amount of data back and forth.

大多数手机都能读写这个芯片。

Most phones have the capability of reading and writing to this chip.

多年来，它一直让我进家门。

For years, it let me into my house.

它解锁了我前门的门锁。

It unlocked a deadbolt on my front door.

有好几年，它帮我打开Neuralink的门，让我通过楼里各种上锁的门。

For some years, it unlocked the doors at Neuralink and let me through the various locked doors inside the building.

理论上，这些RFID还能放些什么别的东西？它们能留在体内多久，才需要取出来充电或更换？

What other sorts of things could one put into these RFIDs in theory, and how long can they stay in there before you need to take them out and recharge them or replace them?

嗯，这些是被动的。

Well, these are passive.

它们外面涂了一层生物相容的玻璃，另外，我是个攀岩爱好者，所以我担心攀岩时玻璃会碎。

They're coated in biocompatible glass and as an extra, I'm a rock climber and so I was worried about that glass shattering during rock climbing.

所以在植入之前，我又在外面加了一层硅胶环，这样就很安全了。

I additionally coated them in another ring of silicone before implanting that, so it's pretty safe.

它们是被动的。

They're passive.

里面没有电池，也没有有源电子元件，所以它们能陪我度过余生。

There's no battery, there's no active electronics in them, so they could last the rest of my life.

我觉得我没有任何理由需要把它取出来。

I don't think I'd ever have to remove it for any reason.

总有一天，技术总是在进步，所以我可能会把它取出来升级。

At some point, the technology's always improving, so I might remove it and upgrade it.

现在已经有了存储容量大10倍的版本，如果我取出来，可以直接替换。

Already there's 10X more storage versions available that could be a drop-in replacement for this if I ever remove it.

它有一个小众的用途，而且是一个有趣的验证概念，朝着你提到的那个概念迈进：你必须愿意亲身尝试你推荐给病人的东西，才能理直气壮地说你认为这是合理的。

It has a small niche use case, and it's an interesting proof of concept tiptoeing towards the concept that you mentioned of you have to be willing to go through the things that you're suggesting to your patients in order to say with a straight face that you think this is a reasonable thing to do.

我想快速休息一下，感谢我们的赞助商AG1。

I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1.

我很高兴地告诉大家，AG1刚刚推出了他们的最新配方，AG1 Pro。

I'm excited to share that AG1 has just launched their newest formulation, AG1 Pro.

AG1 Pro采用了有临床支持的AG1配方，包含维生素、矿物质、益生菌和适应原，并添加了三种重要的新成分：一水肌酸、HMB钙和肌肽锌。

AG1 Pro takes the clinically backed AG1 formula, which is a blend of vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens, and adds three important new ingredients, creatine monohydrate, calcium HMB, and zinc carnosine.

每份含有5克一水肌酸，支持肌肉力量和表现，以及大脑健康；HMB钙支持肌肉恢复，减少肌肉分解；肌肽锌支持并改善肠道内壁。

Each serving has five grams of creatine monohydrate to support muscle strength and performance, as well as brain health, calcium HMB to support muscle recovery and reduce muscle breakdown, and zinc carnosine to support and improve the lining of your gut.

这三种成分都有令人信服的科学依据，因此我很高兴看到它们被添加到现有的AG1配方中。

All three of these ingredients have compelling science to support them, and therefore, I love seeing them added to the existing AG1 formula.

你们大多数人都知道，我差不多14年来每天都吃AG1。

As most of you know, I've been taking AG1 every day for nearly 14 years now.

我早在知道播客是什么之前就开始吃了。

I started taking it long before I even knew what a podcast was.

这是个很棒的产品，现在新的AG1 Pro配方让它更好了。

It's a great product, and it's now made even better with the new AG1 Pro formula.

如果你想试试AG1 Pro，可以去drinkag1.com/huberman，那里有特别优惠。

If you would like to try AG1 Pro, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to get a special offer.

AG1会随你的首次订阅免费送一瓶omega-3辅酶Q10。

AG1 is giving away a free bottle of omega-3 coenzyme Q10 with your first subscription.

再说一次，去drinkag1.com/huberman，首次订阅AG1就能免费获得一瓶omega-3辅酶Q10。

Again, go to drinkag1.com/huberman to get a free bottle of omega-3 coenzyme Q10 with your first AG1 subscription.

我想回到大脑增强的话题。

I'd like to go back to brain augmentation.

你明确说过，Neuralink的首要目标之一就是让四肢瘫痪的人重新走路。

You've made very clear that one of the first goals for Neuralink is to get quadriplegics walking again.

嗯，再说一遍，先说明白，第一步并不是把病人自己的肌肉系统重新连接起来——

Well, again, just to be very clear, the first step is we aren't reconnecting the patient's own muscle system-

……连接到他们的运动皮层上。

... to their motor cortex.

让他们，抱歉，能够自主控制外界事物的运动。

Allowing them, excuse me, agency over the movement of things in the world.

对。

Yes.

最终是他们的身体。

And eventually their body.

你说得完全正确。

And you're exactly right.

是的，最终是他们的身体。

Yeah, eventually their body.

我们很希望能做到这一点，而且我们已经做了很多工作，开发了一套刺激脊髓本身的系统。

We would love to do that, and we've done a lot of work on developing a system for stimulating the spinal cord itself.

所以这就回到了你几分钟前问的那个问题：怎么把运动皮层和身体的其他部分重新连接起来？

And so that gets to the question that you asked a few minutes ago of how do you reconnect a motor cortex to the rest of the body?

嗯，如果你能绕过脊髓受损的区域，在脊髓本身植入一个设备，再在大脑里植入一个设备，让它们互相通信，你就可以把运动皮层里完全完好的运动信号提取出来，发送到脊髓。脊髓在受伤部位以下的大部分神经连接应该是完好的，比如车祸、摩托车事故、枪伤之类的造成的损伤。

Well, if you can bypass the damaged area of the spinal cord and have an implant in the spinal cord itself connected to an implant in the brain and have them talking to each other, you can take the perfectly intact motor signals out of the motor cortex and send them to the spinal cord, which most of the wiring should be intact in the spinal cord below the level of, say, the injury caused by a car accident or motorcycle accident or gunshot wound or whatever.

这样就有可能把大脑和身体重新连接起来。

And it should be possible to reconnect the brain to the body in that way.

所以并不是不可能，在几年之内，Neuralink 就能把一个人的身体和大脑重新连接起来。

So not out of the realm of possibility that In some small number of years that Neuralink will be able to reconnect somebody's own body to their brain.

说到增强功能，在早期一些关于 Neuralink 的公开讨论中，我听到埃隆和不同的播客主持人聊过，当时提到一个想法，比如说，你脑子里有一些芯片，我脑子里也有一些芯片，然后你和我就可以坐在这里，看着对方或者不看，点头或者摇头，就能直接听到对方的想法。

Along the lines of augmentation, early on in some of the public discussions about Neuralink that I overheard between Elon and various podcast hosts, et cetera, there was this idea thrown out that, for instance, that you would have some chips in your brain, and I would have some chips in my brain, and you and I could just sit here looking at each other or not, nodding or shaking our heads, and essentially hear each other's thoughts.

当然。

Sure.

我们真的能坐在这里直接听到对方的想法吗？

Is that possible that we could sit here and just hear each other's thoughts?

还有，我们怎么限制对方能听到什么？

And also, how would we restrict what the other person could hear?

当然，绝对可以。

Well, so absolutely.

想想看，我们现在就能做到——你拿出手机给我发短信，我低头回你。

Think about the fact that we could do this right now if you pulled out your phone and started texting me on my phone, and I looked down and started texting you.

我们不用看着对方，也不用说话，就能交流。

We would be communicating without looking at each other or talking.

把这个功能从手机转移到植入设备，不需要什么神奇的技术突破，也不需要飞跃。

Shifting that function from a phone to an implanted device, it requires no magic advance, no leap forward.

这是我们已知的技术。

It's technology we already know how to do.

比如说，我们植入一个设备，让你能控制键盘和鼠标，这是我们首个临床试验的既定目标。

If we, say, put a device in that allows you to control a keyboard and a mouse, which is our stated intention for our first human clinical trial.

所以，用大脑互发短信可能听起来不太激动人心，但想象一下，把同样的设备用在更偏向语言的大脑区域，让你能更自然地表达想法，然后转换成我能听到的语音，比如通过骨传导植入，这样就能无声地听到。

And so, texting each other with our brains is maybe an uninspiring rendition of this, but it's not very difficult to imagine the implementation of the same device in a more verbally focused area of the brain that allows you to more naturally speak the thoughts that you're thinking and have them rendered into speech that I can hear, maybe via a bone conducting implant, so silently hear.

像Neuralink这样的技术吸引我们的地方在于，它的上限非常高。

The thing that attracts a lot of us to a technology like Neuralink is that the ceiling is incredibly high.

随着这项技术的不断改进和发展，没有明显的理由说明你不能与数百万个神经元进行交互。

There's no obvious reason that you can't interface with millions of neurons as this technology is refined and developed further.

所以，如果你在谈论语义假体，即你认知能力的AI助手，那就是你想要开发的那种宽频带、高带宽的脑机接口。

So that's the kind of wide band, high bandwidth brain interface that you want to develop if you're talking about a semantic prosthetic, an AI assistant to your cognitive abilities.

未来几十年里，我们想到的那些更科幻的事情。

The more sci-fi things that we think about in the coming decades.

所以，在评估这些技术时，有一个重要的注意事项，那就是你确实希望它能够扩展到科幻领域。

So it's an important caveat when you're evaluating these technologies, that you really want it to be something that you can expand off into the sci-fi.

这些脑机接口能在多大程度上学习并不断进步，因为它也在倾听它试图支持的神经系统？

To what extent can these brain-machine interfaces learn and get better and better because it's also listening to the nervous system that it's trying to support?

这是双向的。

It goes both ways.

基本上，你是在将一种非常粗糙的软件智能——我应该说，不完全是成熟的人工智能，而是一些设计良好的软件，能够适应大脑放电的变化——与另一种智能，即人类智能，结合起来，让两者相互学习。

Basically, what you're doing is taking a very crude software intelligence, I would say not exactly a full-blown AI, but some well-designed software that can adapt to changes in firing of the brain, and you're coupling it with another form of intelligence, a human intelligence, and you're allowing the two to learn each other.

所以毫无疑问，植入Neuralink设备的人会随着时间推移而越来越擅长使用它。

So undoubtedly, the human that has a Neuralink device will get better at using it over time.

毫无疑问，Neuralink的工程师编写的软件会适应设备记录到的放电模式，并随着时间推移，聚焦于与运动相关的有意义信号。

Undoubtedly, the software that the Neuralink engineers have written will adapt to the firing patterns that the device is able to record, and over time, focus in on meaningful signals toward movement.

所以，如果某个神经元在你想要把鼠标光标向右上方移动时放电频率很高，一开始它并不知道这一点。

So if a neuron is high firing rate when you intend to move the mouse cursor up and to the right, it doesn't know that when it starts.

当你刚植入这个设备时，对芯片来说，那只是一系列随机的信号。

When you first put this in, it's just a random series of signals as far as the chip knows.

但你会开始把这些信号与你所知道的人想要做的事情关联起来，这些意图通过一系列游戏表现出来。

But you start correlating it with what you know the person wants to do, as expressed in a series of games.

所以你假设这个人想要把屏幕上的鼠标移动到显示的目标上，因为你告诉他们这是目标。

So you assume that the person wants to move the mouse on the screen to the target that's shown because you tell them that's the goal.

于是，你开始将他们在屏幕上向右上方目标移动时记录到的活动与那种放电模式关联起来，同样地，对于右上方、左上方、左下方、右下方也是如此。

And so you start correlating the activity that you record when they're moving toward an up and right target on a screen with that firing pattern, and similarly for up and left, down and left, down and right.

然后，你会在软件中半智能地建立一个模型，来预测这个人想要做什么，并让这个人自由使用一段时间，他们就会开始更好地使用软件呈现给他们的模型，这体现在鼠标在屏幕上移动是否正常。

And so you develop a model semi-intelligently in the software for what the person is intending to do and let the person run wild with it for a while, and they start to get better at using the model presented to them by the software as expressed by the mouse moving or not moving properly on the screen.

想象一个场景，你让某人弹钢琴，但每个琴键发出的声音会随着时间随机变化。

Imagine a scenario where you're asking somebody to play piano, but the sound that comes out of each key randomly shifts over time.

这是个很难的问题，但有了软件的辅助，人脑完全有能力解决它，并映射到一个相对稳定的状态。这样即使他们晚上关掉设备，第二天再回来用，哪怕有些信号发生了偏移，他们也知道该怎么操作鼠标。

Very difficult problem, but a human brain is good enough with the aid of software to solve that problem and map well enough to a semi-stable state that they're going to know how to use that mouse even when they, say, turn the device off for the night, come back to it the next day, and some of the signals have shifted.

咱们聊聊猪吧。

Let's talk about pigs.

没问题。

Sure.

埃隆和Neuralink的其他成员分享了一些他们在实验动物身上取得的进展，这些内容 understandably 会引起人们强烈的情感反应。

Elon and others there at Neuralink have shared some of the progress that they've made in experimental animals that understandably evokes some strong emotions in people.

为什么选择用猪来做实验呢？

What was the rationale for using pigs?

首先我得说，Neuralink 的员工几乎都是热爱动物的人。

Well, let me say first, Neuralink is almost entirely composed of animal-loving people.

如果有任何可能在不使用动物的情况下实现我们帮助患者的目标，我们一定会去做。

If there was any possible way to help people the way we want to help people without using animals in our research, we would do it.

只是目前还没有找到这样的方法而已。

It's just not known how to do that right now.

所以我们完全被限制在必须通过先在动物身上证明其极高的安全性，才能取得进展并获得FDA的设备批准。

And so we are completely restricted to making advances, to getting a device approval through the FDA by first showing that it's incredibly safe in animals.

基本上，任何医疗进步都是这样。

As is the case for any medical advancement, essentially.

我觉得，如果我们人类作为一个物种、一种文化，不是每天都在随意屠宰数以百万计的动物来食用，那么围绕动物研究的对话可能会完全不同。

I think we would probably be having a very different conversation around animal research if we as a species, we as a culture, weren't just casually slaughtering millions of animals to eat them every single day.

因此，在这个背景下，研究中所使用的动物数量相对微乎其微，几乎不可能理解为什么有人会指出那 ridiculously 小的研究用动物数量，而实际上绝大多数被人类使用并终结生命的动物都是为了食物。

And so that is a background against which the relatively minuscule number of animals used in research, it becomes almost impossible to understand why someone would point to That ridiculously small number of animals used in research when the vast majority of animals that humans use and end their lives are done for food.

在这种情况下，我们做动物实验是因为不得不这么做。

In that context, we do animal research because we have to.

没有其他办法可以绕过这一点。

There's no other way around it.

如果明天法律改了，FDA说："好吧，你们可以在自愿的人类参与者身上做一些早期实验"，那将是一个非常有趣的选项。

If tomorrow laws were changed and the FDA said, "Okay, you can do some of this early experimentation in willing human participants," that would be a very interesting option.

我觉得会有很多人站出来表示："是的，我愿意参与早期的临床研究。"

I think there would be a lot of people that would step up and say, "Yes, I'm willing to participate in early-stage clinical research."

你已经自愿报名了。

You already volunteered.

而且我不会是唯一一个。

And I wouldn't be alone.

说到这个，我觉得Neuralink在尽可能的范围内，比我所听说过的任何组织、任何事物都走得更远，给动物在研究每个方面都赋予了自主权。

On that note, to whatever extent possible, I think Neuralink goes really far, much farther than anyone I've ever heard of, any organization I've ever heard of, anything I've ever seen, to give the animals agency in every aspect of the research.

我们有一支非常出色的团队，专门照顾动物，并努力设计实验，让它们尽可能纯粹地自愿参与。

We have just an incredible team of people looking out for the animals and trying to design the experiments such that they're as purely opt-in as humanly possible.

除了手术本身，没有任何动物会被强迫参与实验。

No animal is ever compelled to participate in experiments beyond the surgery itself.

所以，比如说，如果某天我们的明星猴子Pager不想为了奶昔玩电子游戏，没有人会强迫它，从来没有。

So if, say, on a given day, our star monkey Pager doesn't want to play video games for a smoothie, no one forces him to, ever.

它们在整个过程中都有充足的食物，所以它们不饿也不渴。

They have free and full access to food this entire time, so they aren't hungry, they aren't thirsty.

唯一能激励它们的就是，如果它们想要正常口粮之外的额外零食。

The only thing that would motivate them is if they want a treat extra to their normal rations.

从来不会有任何剥夺。

There's never any deprivation.

从来不会有任何负面的刺激逼它们做任何事。

There's never any adverse negative stimuli that pushes them to do anything.

这是Neuralink被低估的创新之一，动物护理团队在善待这些动物方面已经走了很远。

It's one of the underappreciated innovations out of Neuralink is how far the animal care team has been able to move in the direction of humane treatment of these guys.

为什么用猪？

Why pigs?

猪在医疗器械研究中其实挺常用的，尤其是在心脏领域。

Pigs are actually fairly commonly used in medical device research, more in the cardiac area.

它们的心脏和人类的心脏有些相似。

Their hearts are somewhat similar to human hearts.

我们会在不同情况下使用不同种类的猪，来优化特定的特性。

There's a lot of different kind of pigs that we use in different contexts when we're trying to optimize a certain characteristic.

所以是的，猪——我们不一定需要它们很聪明或者能完成任务，虽然偶尔我们也会训练它们走跑步机，来研究它们四肢的运动，用于我们的一些脊髓研究。

So yeah, the pigs are-- We don't necessarily need them to be smart or task performers, although occasionally we have trained them to walk on a treadmill when we're studying how their limbs move for some of our spinal cord research.

但我们并不是在记录它们大脑中有趣的认知数据。

But we're not recording interesting, say, cognitive data out of their minds.

它们实际上只是一个生物平台，其头骨的大小和形状与人类足够接近，可以作为研究设备安全性的有效平台。

They're really just a biological platform with a skull that's close enough in size and shape to humans to be a valid platform to study the safety of the device.

所以再说一次，猪实际上只是一个安全平台，用来证明设备植入是安全的。

So again, the pigs are really just a safety platform to say the device is safe to implant.

它不会分解，也不会引起任何毒性反应。

It doesn't break down or cause any kind of toxic reaction.

猴子才是我们真正下功夫的地方，我们要确保从设备中获得良好的信号，确保我们在人类身上期望看到的东西先在猴子身上得到功能层面的验证。

The monkeys are where we are really doing our heavy lifting in terms of ensuring that we're getting good signals out of the device, that what we expect to see in humans is validated on the functional level in monkeys first.

也许最被低估但最强大的改善心理健康、身体表现和认知表现的工具之一，就是确保每天摄入足够的水分。

Perhaps one of the most underestimated but powerful tools to improve your mental health, your physical performance, and your cognitive performance is ensuring you get enough hydration every day.

然而，不幸的现实是，自来水通常含有对我们的健康产生负面影响的污染物。

The unfortunate reality, however, is that tap water often contains contaminants that negatively impact our health.

所以当我们试图补充水分时，这可能会带来严重的问题。

So while we're trying to get great hydration, that can cause serious problems.

事实上，环境工作组2020年的一项研究估计，超过两亿美国人通过饮用自来水接触到了PFAS化学物质，也就是所谓的永久性化学物质。

In fact, a 2020 study by the Environmental Working Group estimated that more than 200 million Americans are exposed to PFAS chemicals, also known as forever chemicals, through drinking tap water.

这些永久性化学物质与严重的健康问题有关，比如激素紊乱、肠道菌群失调、生育问题，以及其他许多健康问题，其中一些才刚刚被揭露。

These forever chemicals are linked to serious health issues, such as hormone disruption, gut microbiome disruption, fertility issues, and many other health problems, some of which are just now coming to light.

基于所有这些原因，当我发现Rorra净水器时非常兴奋，现在他们成了这个播客的赞助商。

For all these reasons, I was thrilled when I came across Rorra Water Filters, and now they're a sponsor of this podcast.

Rorra生产我认为是市场上最好的净水器。

Rorra makes what I believe are the best water filters on the market.

我使用Rorra的台式净水系统已经将近一年了。

I've been using the Rorra countertop system for almost a year now.

Rorra的过滤技术能去除有害物质，包括内分泌干扰物和消毒副产物，同时保留镁和钙等有益矿物质。

Rorra's filtration technology removes harmful substances, including endocrine disruptors and disinfection byproducts, while preserving beneficial minerals like magnesium and calcium.

它不需要安装或管道连接，所以非常方便。

It requires no installation or plumbing, so it's extremely convenient.

它由医用级不锈钢制成，放在台面上非常美观。

It's built from medical-grade stainless steel, and it fits beautifully on your countertop.

这是你厨房里会想要有的东西。

It's something that you would want to have in your kitchen.

如果你想试试Rorra，可以去rorra.com/huberman，享受专属折扣。

If you'd like to try Rorra, you can go to rorra.com/huberman and get an exclusive discount.

再说一次，是Rorra，R-O-R-R-A.com/huberman。

Again, that's Rorra, R-O-R-R-A.com/huberman.

你对脑机接口和大脑增强有什么期望？

What is your wish for brain-machine interface and brain augmentation?

我们假设临床方面的问题都能解决，或者也许你有一个特别关心的临床病症，你非常希望看到它被治愈。

So let's assume that the clinical stuff can be worked out, or maybe you have a pet clinical condition that you just are just yearning to see resolved.

那也很好。

That would be fine, too.

但除此之外，你真的可以放开想象。

But in addition to that, you really just expand out.

假设我们能让你多活200年，或者我们想想你的孩子和他们的孙子会生活在什么样的世界里。

Let's say we can extend your life 200 years, or we're thinking about the kind of world that your children are going to live in and their grandchildren will live in.

你觉得真正有可能实现的是什么——

What do you think is really possible-

……通过脑增强和脑机接口？

... with brain augmentation and brain-machine interface?

在这里，请完全不要有任何偏见，不必为了向我们展示你对临床状况的极大同理心和关怀而回答，因为那是你日常的工作——治疗病人，帮助他们改善生活。

And here, please feel no bias whatsoever to answer in a way that reveals to us your incredible empathy and consideration of clinical conditions, because that's how you spend your days is fixing patients and helping their lives be better.

所以如果你的回答属于那个范畴，那很好，但为了乐趣，为了愉悦，也为了让我们观众真正理解这里可能实现的事情——

So if it lands in that category, great, but for sake of fun and for sake of delight and for sake of really getting us, the audience, to understand what's really possible here-

……请毫无束缚地畅所欲言。

... please feel no shackles.

我喜欢未来的这个想法，我们说的是十年、甚至二十年的时间框架，人类能够控制一些大脑出问题的可怕方式，对吧？

I love the idea down the road, and we're talking a 10-year, maybe 20-year timeframe, of humans just getting control over some of the horrible ways that their brains go wrong, right?

所以我觉得现在每个人要么认识某人，要么间接认识某人，比如朋友的朋友，受到成瘾、抑郁、自杀或肥胖问题的影响。

So I think everybody at this point has either known someone or second order known someone, a friend of a friend, who has been touched by addiction or depression, suicide obesity.

这些大脑的功能，或者说大脑的功能失调，正是驱动我的动力。

These functions of the brain, or malfunctions of the brain, are what drives me.

这些是我职业生涯中想要攻克的事情。

These are the things that I want to tackle in my career.

说到我孩子那一代，我在想的是人类认知完全扩展到人工智能中，完全沉浸在你认知能力的互联网里，让你的思维不再受限于必须先读维基百科才能获取信息来支撑想法。

In terms of my kids' lifetime, I'm thinking full human expansion of human cognition into AI, full immersion in the internet of your cognitive abilities, having no limitation for what you think as bottlenecked by needing to read the Wikipedia article first to have the data to inform your thoughts.

和任何人交流都不受限制，不用再靠你脸上这块肉扇动空气来发声。

Having communication with anyone that you want to unrestricted by this flapping air past meat on your face.

这种交流方式极其容易被误解。

It's a means of communication that's ridiculously prone to being misunderstood.

而且它还是一个又窄又小的交流瓶颈。

It's also a tiny, narrow bottleneck of communication.

我们就像通过一根细吸管来回传递信息，但根本没有必要非得这样。

We're trying to send messages back and forth through a tiny straw, and there's no reason that needs to necessarily be true.

事情一直是这样，但未来不会一直这样。

It's the way things have always been, but it isn't the way things are going to be in the future.

我觉得有很多非常科幻的可能性，比如把多个人的大脑连接在一起，作为一个多单元有机体，作为一个自愿加入的多脑联合体，变得更加强大。

I think there's a million very sci-fi possibilities in terms of banding human minds together to be even more potent as a multi-unit organism, as an opt-in multi-brain.

这些事情离我们太远了，我甚至无法直接看到它们会如何实现，但我们正在研究的技术就像门缝里透出的一丝光亮，让其中一些事情甚至可以被现实地思考。

These are things that are so far down the road, I can't even directly see how they would be implemented, but the technology we're working on is a little crack in the door that allows some of this stuff to even be thought about in a realistic way.

说到这一点，我鼓励那些对此感到兴奋的人，尤其是机械工程师、软件工程师、机器人工程师，去Neuralink的网站看看我们有哪些职位。

To that point, I encourage anyone who is excited about things like that, especially mechanical engineers, software engineers, robotics engineers, come to the Neuralink website and look at the jobs we've got.

我们需要这个星球上最聪明的人来攻克这些我认为是世界上最难的问题。

We need the brightest people on the planet working on these, the hardest problems in the world, in my opinion.

所以，如果你想参与这些事情，就来帮我们吧。

And so if you want to work on this stuff, come help us.

首先，我真的很感谢你今天能来，从你看病人和做脑外科手术的繁忙日程中抽出时间，真的——

I really want to thank you, first of all, for coming here today and taking time out of your important schedule of seeing patients and doing brain surgery, literally-

很乐意来。

Happy to do it

……暂时离开你的家人和你在Neuralink的使命，来和大家分享你们正在做的事情。

... time away from your family and time away from your mission at Neuralink briefly to share with people what you guys are doing.

我也真的想感谢你做你自己，这听起来可能有点奇怪，但正如你手上植入的设备所表明的，你不只是把这当作一份工作。

And I really just want to thank you also for being you, which perhaps sounds like a kind of an odd thing to hear, but I think as made apparent by the device implanted in your hand, you don't just do this for a job.

你全身心投入，真正地投入到神经系统相关的工作中，努力想办法修复它、让它变得更好。

You live and breathe and embody, truly embody this stuff around the nervous system and trying to figure out how to fix it, how to make it better.

你全身心投入其中，我知道你对它有着深深的热爱。

And you live and breathe it, and I know your deep love for it.

所以我想感谢你，不仅感谢你付出的智慧和精力，也感谢你付出的真心。

So I want to thank you for not just the brains that you put into it and the energy you put into it, but also for the heart that you put into it.

谢谢你，安德鲁。

Thanks for that, Andrew.

我很感激。

I appreciate that.

我们只是想帮助人们。

We just want to help people.

我们想让事情变得更好。

We want to make things better.