David experimenting with EEGLoyal KQED blog followers have been reading of Dr. Barry Starr’s experience getting his genes tested by 23andMe. He has tested his native American ancestry and evaluated his risk for diabetes. What if Barry took even more tests, from blood toxins to more genetic tests – would that result in a clearer picture of his health? That’s exactly the premise behind David Ewing Duncan’s new book: “The Experimental Man”.

David takes “guinea pig” journalism to super size me heights. He was tested by numerous genetic sequencing companies, had dozens of brain scans, gave gallons of blood for toxicity tests, even had a virtual colonoscopy to understand what “personalized” medicine means for him. His experimentation was divided into 4 categories: genetics, environment, brain, and body.

My favorite experiment was a memory test in which David and I both participated. The study was on how normal aging changes the neural mechanisms of memory and attention; a study run by Dr. Adam Gazzaley of UCSF. His lab uses a combination of techniques including fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging -measures blood flow using a big magnet), EEG (electroencephalography – measures electrical signals in the brain), and TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation – using a magnet to “scramble” regions of the brain).

In this experiment, I was getting an EEG, designed to measure electrical signals of the brain, in this case studying regions controlling memory and attention. I was fitted with a stylish red cap, my head was covered with a conductive gel, and I was seated a few feet from a computer screen. After some careful measurements of my head, I was ready to go.

I was shown either a face or nature scene for a split second, then the screen went blank, then I was shown another face or nature scene. My task was to decide whether the two pictures were the same. Sounds exceedingly simple, but it was far from it. I left absolutely exhausted after just a few hours!

However, my results were excellent. I averaged about 95% correct over 3 hours. According to the researchers, that’s slightly better than the average 18-35 year old. David’s results were about the same, but he is more enthusiastic considering he’s closer to 50. Take a simpler version of a brain age test online.

The Experimental Man with David Ewing Duncan

Where: Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St @ Alabama St.

When: Monday, October 19th 7-9 PM

Cost: FREE

Details: David Ewing Duncan discusses his new book “The Experimental Man”, his book exploring what cutting-edge technologies in personalized medicine can tell us about individual health and life — past, present and future: genes, environment, brain and body.

Being a neurologist in the era of fMRI scanners must feel like being a kid in a candy shop. What's going in there while we're, say, shopping? How about reading? Watching campaign ads? Now that we have a way to take real-time images of the brain at work, the scientific possibilities are endless.

On the surface, the experiment at the heart of this story might seem pretty narrow. It focuses on a rare disorder called pseudobulbar affect, which afflicts only people with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease — a far cry from the universal rites of shopping or reading. But what’s fascinating about pseudobulbar is the light it might shed on all of us, and one of the most primal and mysterious human experiences of all: emotion.

People with pseudobulbar get happy and sad, just like the rest of us. They laugh and cry like the rest of us too. But then sometimes, something else happens: They keep going. And going. In this video, you can see how what looks like a laughing fit morphs into something else entirely. It’s as if the laughing and crying mechanisms have become detached from whatever part of the brain triggered the emotion in the first place. Maybe – and this is the hope of scientists Howard Rosen and Robert Levenson – by seeing that disconnect take place in real time through the fMRI, we’ll understand, for the first time, how emotion plays out in people without pseudobulbar affect.

(And it doesn’t stop there. Listen to the radio piece to hear Rosen's theory about what PBA might mean for depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and, particularly, PTSD.)

Finally, a note about Matt Chaney. As Rosen and Levenson remarked many times, science can't happen without people like Chaney. While the rest of us sat comfortably in front of the fMRI monitors, Chaney spent an hour and a half lying in the cramped quarters of an MRI tube, watching highly emotional videos designed to make him sad. Moving his head by a millimeter would blur the image, so not only is Chaney being taken on an emotional roller coaster, he's doing it without moving a muscle – a lot to ask from anyone, let alone someone with a degenerative muscular disease like ALS.

Journalism is a little less demanding (at least I hope so) but Chaney added to an already long day by spending time in an interview with me. He and his wife, Liz, were also extremely generous in allowing us to share videos of them, which illustrate pseudobulbar far more movingly and effectively than anything I could have written.

Listen to the Decoding the Emotional Brain radio report online, and watch our Web Extra: Emotions from the Inside and Out video.