Students will explore how biology can be the inspiration for engineering

and discover the ideas behind how we can form images of the brain and

see how people think.

Tom works on ‘looking’ at the brain, which led us to think how the

brain works and how we might engineer ways to ‘look’ at it ...

You can read profiles from Tom and Professor Peter McOwan from the Electronic Engineering and Computer Science department at QMUL on page three.

What You Need

✓ Teams consisting of a minimum

of seven students

✓ Six tubes (e.g. empty kitchen

roll tubes not toilet roll)

✓ Six lengths of rope (1m long)

✓ A pack of playing cards

We were inspired to contact Queen Mary University London (QMUL), after a suggestion from Dr Tom Hartley, a STEM Ambassador

from York...

The activity will take

approximately one

session – a minimum of

40 minutes. The activity

can be extended if the

extras, suggested in the

Some Extras section

are followed.

The Engineer's Brain

Advanced Activity

in partnership with

Handy HintsThe brain is our most complex organ, we have approximately 100 billion neurones and each is linked to 1000 other neurones! Visit www.bris.ac.uk/synaptic/basics/basics-0.html for a really good website on how the brain works.

Many techniques for neuroimaging rely on blood, as brain activity results in an increase in blood flow to that area. The energy involved in sending signals and resetting the signals afterwards, uses up oxygen and glucose which is why fresh oxygenated blood is needed. When a network like the "snap" network has been busy, fresh blood flows in.

We can build up a picture of the active artificial brain by looking at the students; who is using the most energy and getting tired quicker? Neuroimaging uses modern technology to measure different properties of the blood to build up a picture.

What To Do 1. Start by very briefly explaining neurones. Our brains are made of billions of neurones that send messages to one

another along ‘branches’ called Axons using electrically charged chemicals. Thanks

to scientists studying the brain we have a better understanding of how it works, and computer

scientists are investigating how to use this information to build artificial brains for robots. We are going to try modelling how neurones work.

2. Tie three of the lengths of rope into a Y shape, knotting them together in the middle of the Y. Repeat this with the other three lengths of rope. Each member of the team will act as neurones and provide the energy for messaging. The ropes act as the branching structures (the Axons) that connect the neurones together. Thread a tube onto each end of rope; these will act as the electrically charged chemical messengers.

3. We can simulate sending messages to other neurones by firing a tube down a rope (the rope needs to be pulled tight, look at the diagram for the starting positions of each tube). The brain’s neurones send messages to each other following a set of rules that are developed over a lifetime. We have to provide the students with some rules so that the activity will work in an organised way. Explain the rules to the teams (see the Rules section opposite).

4. You will need two positions for the brain to look at (this could be the left and right hand sides of the white board, or even your left and right hand). Left is ‘position one’, right is ‘position two’. You will place red or black suit playing cards in these positions.

5. Testing the Brain The artificial neural network is now ready to be tested. Place a red card in position one. The students at the first neurone position should fire their tube towards neurone five but nothing else should happen. Now place a red card in position two. Neurone two should fire. This should cause neurone five to fire, which should in turn cause neurone seven to shout Snap! After neurones have done a round of firing there is a resetting period as the chemicals return. The tubes all go back to the start. Place two black cards at positions three and four. The other side of the network should now fire.

6. Playing Snap You can now try it for real. Make sure only the eye neurones are looking. Quietly turn cards over at random from the pack and see what happens. If you are building several brains in parallel then at this point you can actually have a proper game of Snap between them. Give points for the brain that shouts snap first.

7. Neuroimaging Neuroimaging ‘looks’ for active areas of the brain. We can look at mimicking this by using the students' artificial brains. When a card is turned count how many times each neurone a) sends or b) receives a message. What is the count for the network as a whole (adding together each pupil’s count)? If the network was in the brain blood flow would increase for "snap" (relative to "not snap" and the difference across the experiment would be measured). Why not plot a graph of the total count as each card is turned? Your graph will have peaks every time there is a snap – this is just how the fMRI signal looks (but it is a bit blurry/noisy because blood flow takes a few seconds to change and the signals are very weak).

The picture shows the starting point of the tubes and the

positions of the team members.

The four students numbered 1 to 4 are eye neurones. They are connected to the eyes and

they are the only way that the brain can sense the outside world.

The next two neurones (5 and 6) are deep in the brain. They are not connected to the outside

world, only to other neurones. They can only send their tube onwards when

they have received TWO tubes from connecting neurones.

The final neurone (7) is a snap neurone (the kind everyone developed around the age of 4). It is connected to the mouth of our artificial brain and is the

only way it can communicate with the outside world. Its threshold is a single

tube arriving. When it fires, the mouth shouts Snap as loudly as possible.

RulesNeurone One

Fire on RED card in Position One only

Neurone Two

Fire on RED card in Position Two only

Neurone Three

Fire on BLACK card in Position One only

Neurone Four

Fire on BLACK in Position Two only

Neurones Five and Six

Fire when they have received TWO tubes

from connecting neurones

Neurone Seven shouts Snap when

it receives a SINGLE tube

J

J

JJ

J

J

J1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Setting It Up

Page 2

Figure 1: Neurone Matrix; © 2005 Nicolas P. Rougier (Released under the GNU General Public License)

ExplanationThis resource has been adapted from the Brain-in-a-bag: creating an artificial brain resource, which was created by Peter McOwan and Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London with support from EPSRC and Google.

You have created an artificial brain that works in a similar way to a real brain. When you play snap a similar chain of events goes on in your brain. We have used physical things (rope and tubes); this could just as easily be simulated in software, by engineers, using virtual neurones to send electrically charged messages to each other. (Are you able to show this? Perhaps the group could start a computer programme project?).

Neuroimaging uses a combination of physics and engineering to form images of the brain. One of the most useful techniques is called Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). MRI scanners allow us to look at the shape and size of different parts of the brain and can be used by doctors to detect signs of illness (structural MRI). Functional MRI (fMRI) is a specialised technique that lets us see what goes on in the brain as we process information. In fMRI a conventional MRI scanner is tuned to detect the tiny magnetic difference between fresh oxygenated and 'stale' deoxygenated blood, so the fresh blood entering a network appears to glow very slightly in the fMRI images. These images are taken every two to three seconds, allowing us to see which parts of the brain are getting more active (sending and receiving more electrical signals). These changes in activity can indicate what a person is doing, thinking, or seeing, and help scientists understand how the brain is working.

Samia FaruqPhD Research Student at QMUL

What I do on an average day: Talk and listen to various Computer Scientists and Biologists to help me build ideas for my own

experiments with bee colour vision. I also get the chance to tell others about my work.

My favourite part of my job: Investigating the results and reasoning behind my experiments. Meeting different researchers with different ideas, sharing ideas. Building my own experimentation.

What is Engineering? Using mathematics and science for building material to improve living.

Dr Tom Hartley University Lecturer and STEM Ambassador

What I do on an average day: Experimenting, computing, reading, writing, teaching and

learning, talking, listening and weighing up evidence.

My favourite part of my job: Doing things no-one has done before whether it is devising new experiments or spotting patterns no-one has noticed. Best of all is coming up with new ideas that predict what will happen in future experiments and help to explain how the brain works. If the predictions turn out to be true, it’s incredibly satisfying!

The future? ...will be even better than the present, thanks to science and engineering.

What is Engineering? Using knowledge and evidence to designing things which solve problems efficiently and don’t go wrong. It could include machines, computer programs, buildings – almost anything.

Who uses these ideas? STEM Ambassador Profiles

Page 3

Figure 3: fMRI was used to capture a sequence of images of video gamers brains, indicating regions where blood flow increased or decreased. Blood flow increases in areas where neurones are more active. The orange areas show parts of the brain that are more active when people find their way around a town in a modified video game.

Peter McOwanProfessor of Computer Science at QMUL

How I got here:I had a real interest in science and engineering when I was a kid. I did Scottish Highers and then studied physics at university then went on to take other degrees e.g. psychology, following my interest in brains, then ended up in Computer Science where I can build software to mimic brains and use these in robots.

My favourite part of my job:Having the freedom to follow my ideas and seeing the things I help to create being used.

The future?Build smarter machines to help people.

What is Engineering? Using good solid scientific principles to build useful things that people want.

Curriculum Links Using this activity may wish to discuss:

England

Science: Applications and implications of science PSHE: Looking at real-life situations, personal

preferences and priorities

Scotland

Topical Science and Technological developments in society

This Is EngineeringThis is a good example of the type of processes that specialist electronic and electrical engineers might have to understand in order to design, build and control relevant electrical and electronic devices. Many aspects of our life rely on the work of these engineers from computing to medical technologies. There are lots of university courses that include these elements. Often you will need STEM A levels (Advanced Highers in Scotland) including mathematics and preferably physics too. Alternatives include STEM-related Advanced Diplomas (or BTEC National Extended Diplomas) plus appropriate qualifications in mathematics and possibly physics too. See www.ucas.com for more information.

Related Subjects: Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is all around us and essential to our modern living. There are two sides to ICT: knowing how it works, and knowing how to use it. There are apprenticeships available in both; so whether you want to program computer software, fix things when they go wrong or become a skilled ICT user for business visit www.apprenticeships.org.uk for more information.

In Scotland visit www.apprenticeshipsinscotland.com and in Wales www.wales.gov.uk/apprenticeships

Contact UsThe Royal Academy of Engineering Prince Philip House, 3 Carlton House TerraceLondon, SW1Y 5DG Tel: 020 7766 0600 Fax: 020 7930 1549 Web: www.raeng.org.uk

Engineering Engagement ProjectWeb: www.raeng.org.uk/eenpEmail: eenp@raeng.org.uk

Next StepsVisit Computer Science for Fun from QMUL at www.cs4fn.org for lots more activities, information and articles.

These systems of artificial brains are used in robotics, visit www.lirec.eu for lots of robotics videos.

Remember there are more resources at networking.stemnet.org.uk

For more information on STEM Clubs visit: www.stemclubs.net

For more information on the Engineering Engagement Project visit: www.raeng.org.uk/eenp

For interactive activities linked to the National Curriculum on cell biology visit The Centre of the Cell at www.centreofthecell.org.

There are many links between engineering and biology, for example visit www.chi-med.ac.uk for information on how they are being linked to save lives.

CREST Awards are easy-to-run, encourage students to continue with STEM subjects, and add real value to UCAS applications. To link this activity to CREST Bronze Awards, contact your CREST Local Coordinator: www.britishscienceassociation.org/crestcontacts

Accredited Scheme

Some Extras...Can the teams create their own neural networks out of rope and tubes to recognise other, more complex objects for example animals by looking for things like stripes, claws, etc?

Understanding how the brain works has major significance for computer science. Lots of research is being done into developing artificial brains and robots. Why not research how far science and engineering has got? www.lirec.eu is a good place to start.

Generously supported by

www.baesystems.com/education