Me, I wonder at times if I’m not a little maso,
because, to spend a lifetime trying to understand
how the brain works, it must be a little bit.
That said, I must have extenuating circumstances.
To be born in Cairo in a Jewish family,
speak at home Hebrew, Arabic, French of course,
go to the Catholic school Saint John Baptist de la Salle,
to learn catechism, to have a little Qur’an in the back,
then go live in Israel and see the other side of the fence,
there are two conclusions: one is very much a secular atheistic country,
and two, we can tackle complicated things.
Life is complicated, that’s for sure.
The brain is very complicated: a million billion connections.
The human brain
One million billion connections, each one of them
is much more complicated than a mobile phone
because she is learning, the phone does not learn.
It would mean that every human being
would have the equivalent of 200,000 cell phones.
We understand that the telephone exchange is a little complicated
and sometimes a little engorged.
So, in 1986, I was appointed unit director of INSERM,
in Paris, in Port Royal, on a maternity where on four floors there was
women giving birth,
scheduled caesareans, premature babies, etc.
I had the top floor.
And I succeeded a great man, Alexander Nikovski, who, first,
understood that pregnant women must be protected
because pregnancy is the period of all dangers.
He struggled so that during pregnancy,
there is a vacation period, etc., he is a great man.
We went to lunch with my wife, once I was appointed,
at the end, he told me, “Everything is in order,
we replace an Ashkenazi Jew with a Sephardic Jew,
And your wife is smart enough, so you must be good! “
Like what skills, this is not the primary criterion.
And so, I started working on brain development,
on which we finally know very little.
That’s future babies,
then there is one who has a mathematical problem,
who is scratching the occiput,
that one wants to go out, the food is not very good,
and that one, he hesitates between playing football at OM or PSG.
Why am I showing you this? It means that, in fact,
there are so many things happening in utero.
In the monkey brain, for example,
a cortical neuron has 7,000 connections before birth,
after that he will have 10,000.
This is not an inert period at all.
So first thing to remember,
the brain in utero, moves a lot,
is developing really, and has a lot of activity.
Obviously, if we make a comparison to that,
it’s a lot more complicated than a plane, a submarine or a boat.
The major difference is that when you build it,
– I have never built a plane, but I imagine –
the engine does not turn while it is assembled, there, if.
The engine works while the brain is built, it is the same:
there is an architect program
but then there are site meetings to check that everything is going well.
So first thing to understand, the brain in utero works a lot.
Second thing to understand,
it’s that he not only works a lot,
but the electric currents
-It is my specialty, the electrical currents of the brain-
the electric currents generated by these neurons being formed
have nothing to do with the adult.
The immature brain is not a small adult brain.
He has his language, and his language is totally different from the adult.
(That explains why it took years
before convincing administrators that we are not giving a baby
the same medicine as an adult by dividing the dose,
it makes no sense because the processes are totally different.
We need to understand how the brain develops if we want to heal it.)
I showed this picture because imagine that I’m a conductor
(unfortunately, I am not)
that it will play the second of Brahms with if possible Jascha Heifetz on the violin
well I’m telling you that during the rehearsals,
they repeat Brahms, here not at all.
You have a band that plays rock,
one who plays Bach, and one who plays anything.
And when we arrive, they will play Brahms.
So it has nothing to do with an adult brain.
The question that arises, of course, is why all this?
Take the visual system: the retina, at home,
forms at about the end of the first trimester of gestation.
We do not see anything, we forget everything.
In all animal species, if we record the waves of the retina,
it generates an activity, called retinal waves,
which absolutely does not allow to see,
but that’s crucial, because if we block it,
the visual system is developing badly.
You have an activity that is not sensory in the sensory sense,
but which has a major function.
So, with my friend Nick Spitzer,
a theory called checkpoint theory has been proposed:
the idea is that while everything is being built, for example this building,
or anything, you have to control what’s done.
The construction of the brain is not I press a button,
I leave a cell and I have a brain in a genetic way, it’s absurd.
Obviously there is a control all the time
and it was suggested that it was a checkpoint.
In fact, when the Channel Tunnel was built,
there were these huge machines on both sides of the Channel,
(they did not leave Europe at the time)
we dig and we find ourselves face to face.
If there was no GPS, it would not do that, or that,
but that would not have done that.
So you need continuous monitoring.
What I proposed is that this continuous monitoring,
it was an electric activity during maturation.
As the cell matures like an apple that matures,
she sends electrical signals saying in what state she is
and where it is from the construction point of view.
The purpose of these activities in the retina is to tell the visual brain:
“I’m here, not here. Basically, a GPS.
All that is good, but you will tell me:
“It’s good, but what happens when things go wrong? “
Neurological and psychiatric diseases emerge
we have been trying to heal for centuries without getting there.
For a lot of reasons, especially because they are generated very early
and we do not really know what they are doing on the brain.
But, if we think about it a little bit,
There are two solutions to this problem: the first,
it’s like in the Imaginary Illness,
when Mr. Argan’s maid says, “Lungs, lungs,” I tell you. “
Geneticists: genes, genes, everything is genetic!
If we think a little bit,
I proposed a concept called neuroarchaeology.
The idea is very simple: if this building one day collapses,
we will know that here there was a post that had been badly built,
who came back on the floor, which reflected on I do not know what
and at one point, it collapsed.
The idea is exactly the same:
during the construction of the brain, there are maturation sequences
that I have described to you,
if something happens in utero,
(a gene, a mutation, a pesticide, stress, alcohol,
all you want, the environment to be very short)
That’s what’s important because if we go back a second to genetics,
contrary to what we tell you,
the overwhelming majority of psychiatric illnesses
is not genetic.
For example Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, there may be mutations:
they concern very few patients
and they are not monogenic, it means that if for example
you take a kid who has a mutation that will cause him to be diabetic,
if he goes to MacDo every day, he will be diabetic.
If he goes to an island, he eats fresh fish
and tomatoes without pesticides, he may not be diabetic.
It creates a susceptibility that is called epigenetics:
the environment creates a susceptibility that will be expressed by the disease
in some cases and not in others.
The second approach is this: it consists in saying:
“Let’s try to understand how the brain is built,
how the maturative sequence is deviated,
and from there, we will be able to think. “
Because, imagine the fundamental thesis,
if it’s confirmed, I think it’s a major breakthrough
in the understanding and especially the treatment
neurological and psychiatric diseases:
I tell you that if there is an “aggression” in utero,
whatever the cause, genetic or not,
it will modify a maturative sequence.
A neuron that was to mature does not mature.
Like an apple that remains immature.
It will not connect where it is needed, it will not go where it is needed,
and the thesis is that this neuron that does not go where it takes
remains immature in an adult brain.
In this vision, many neurological or psychiatric diseases
would be due to displaced neurons
who kept immature electrical properties.
I explained to you that the immature brain
had a function that was not that of the adult.
These neurons that are there or there or there
generate activities that disrupt the neighborhood.
What I propose is a kind of pharmacological surgery
with drugs that only block these immature neurons
in an adult brain, since their properties are precisely different.
That’s the idea, we started to prove it.
Obviously it does not show in humans but it shows
in experimental animal models, be it Parkinson’s,
Alzheimer’s or autism.
We actually realized that …
You know, a neuron is an electric machine.
Ions come in, out,
potassium, sodium, calcium, chlorine, etc.
It makes electricity, which codes what we are.
All that we integrate is that in fact.
And among the ions that play an important role,
there is one that is very important: chlorine.
Chlorine inside, it has been discovered that in an adult neuron,
naive, there is very little chlorine inside.
In a young naive neuron, there is a lot of chlorine inside.
It completely changes the stability of the neuron.
Now, it has been discovered next that in animal models of autism,
we find ourselves in a situation reminiscent of the immature brain.
That’s exactly what I told you, that a neuron that is young
he has a lot of chlorine, he matures, he has no more chlorine,
if it matures “badly”, it keeps a lot of chlorine.
So we said, you see the consequence is that chlorine, here,
he returns, here he comes out: the electric response is totally different.
So we said, with my friend Éric Lemonnier,
one of the best French experts in the treatment of autism,
he’s been working on autistic kids for ages,
– Chance does things: me, five years ago,
I did not know what autism was,
I did not work on it at all.
I gave a talk to parents of autistic children
talking to them about chlorine etc.
and Eric said to me, “But you know, if there’s a lot of chlorine,
there is good reason to believe that children with autism are
for clinical reasons, because when you give them valium,
instead of going to sleep as we would if we are given valium,
they are extremely agitated; it means that probably
there is a lot of chlorine inside. “
We took an extremely naive assumption,
which is to say, we will reduce the chlorine inside,
and for that, we will use a diuretic.
It’s a molecule, when you take it, you go to the toilet to urinate.
Because in the kidneys, it’s the same thing.
The same system that exists at the level of the kidneys
exists at the level of the brain.
We said to ourselves, there are diuretics on the market
we have been using for a very long time,
in the treatment of hypertension, cerebral edema,
we took five kids in Brest, we gave the diuretic,
it seemed to have a positive effect,
we did a second test with about fifty children
double blind, it worked,
and I will show you one of these children.
You will see a kid before and after treatment
the treatment being the diuretic for 3 months.
Woman: … baby. So, for baby’s birthday …
Are you coming, Allan? “
Y. Ben Ari: You notice, that he does not look in the eyes,
Woman: Come on, come on!
(The child cries)
Y. Ben Ari: self-stimulating, you will see, he plays with light,
(The child cries)
Y. Ben Ari: and she has a lot more patience than me.
Woman: And on the baby birthday cake, I’m going to put candles.
You come to put the candle?
Put the candle! Put the candle!
YBA: Not once, he looked at his eyes.
That’s three months later after treatment.
Woman: For baby’s birthday, we make a cake.
On top of it glue candles. Do you put yourself?
Hop!
Hop!
Bravo!
We light the candles, it’s hot!
And we sing: ♫ Happy birthday ♫
♫ Happy birthday ♫
Y. Ben Ari: Look, he’s looking into her eyes.
(The child breathes) Woman: Yesii! Well done Allan!
We take off the candles.
Y. Ben Ari: You understand that I do not believe in miracles.
Totally atheist; so that’s not a miracle.
This child did not speak and he still does not speak.
But parents tell us all the same thing:
“They are more present, they are more with us. “
This is important because in the history of autism,
it’s not just children, parents too are suffering.
And making them more societal is extremely important,
they no longer participate in society,
I do not think a drug will cure this kind of disease,
my head hurts, I take an aspirin, my head hurts more.
If you understood what I told you,
the disease being early and having modified areas in the brain,
we are not going to erase that by a miracle, precisely.
But it is the school that will heal.
If we can put these kids in school,
the school will make them more societal.
Why am I showing you this picture?
Those of you who are younger,
it’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? “
with these two sacred monsters that are Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor,
obviously, you look, you understand the scene:
they argue because before, he had dredged that one, etc.
Of course, if you look at the plate here,
what an autistic child will do, he does not look at the eyes,
you will not pick anything.
It is not that he is not emphatic, but that he does not look where he should be.
Since he does not look at the eyes, we can not know
if you cry, if you laugh when you look.
We took autistic children with Nouchine Hadjikhani,
we showed them sad or cheerful images,
before and after treatment, and
that they saw more eyes after than before, which the parents confirm.
So it works, it’s not a miracle, it’s a treatment,
it has side effects, especially
a loss of potassium in the blood that must be controlled
but for now,
there is no other medicine on the market that can help these children.
We did a phase 2,
we had permission a very short time ago
by the European authorities to make a phase 3.
Me now, I devoted myself to working
on brain development,
on childbirth, of which we do not know much.
How does a brain prepare to be born?
Do you realize the complexity of the reaction?
What is he doing ? When does it go wrong?
The mother is hypertensive, diabetic, whatever you want.
How does it work, what are the consequences?
This is one of the major public health issues not addressed
because the pharmaceutical industry is not interested in it, nor are the policies
because obviously it’s a bit of a problem.
To conclude, art and science are not the same.
But at times, it has similarities.
The process called creativity is precisely this one.
It’s a process in which you think outside the box,
we think in a non-Catholic way, not kosher, not halal, that’s according to
and we think differently.
And the last image to show you is this one because
I am a fan of Modigliani, and when he made this cellist,
At the Grande Chaumière school, a student told his teacher:
“This arm is not normal, it is too long. “
What the master answered majestically:
“An arm that is as well painted is never too long. “
He expressed what creativity expresses, that is, to think outside the box
and really show what a cellist does.
Thank you.
(Applause)
”
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