Last year, Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University School of Medicine neurosurgeons Dr. Eric Leuthardt and Dr. Albert Kim gave their version of a TED talk. The PowerPoint presentation, all about what’s happening in your brain as you engage with various behaviors, emotions, and health crises, was a hit. (The video footage of a tumor “the consistency of toothpaste” being sucked off a pituitary gland was particularly riveting.)
This weekend, the doctor-pals will mount the new and improved Brainworks: Your Mind on Life. The presentation has expanded to include a stage show with actors and theatrical sound and lighting, and sold enough tickets to warrant two performances.
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We caught up the doctors to find out how their fondness for all things brain plays out as a stage show—and if there will be brain-lasers. ‘Cause these dudes work with brain-lasers, yo.
What is Brainworks: Your Mind on Life?
Dr. Eric Leuthardt: Albert and I had been giving independent talks about how the brain works, and we’d given a joint talk about general brain function, and people liked it, but these sorts of talks can be stodgy. Last year we decided to create something more engaging. We were inspired by TED talks, but we thought we could take it up a notch by making it like a conversation between two people.
Dr. Albert Kim: The conversation format is a lot more natural. It’s really the sort of thing Eric and I do all the time: we nerd-out about the brain.
Dr. L: People have fun around us when we talk about the brain.
Dr. K.: So last year was like a TED talk with dialogue, and this year Eric thought we would merge science and theatre and have a dialogue in the form of a couple’s life as they’re going through milestones. These actors play a man and woman on their first date, getting married, dealing with the husband’s medical ailment, and so on.
Dr. L: The tagline is “Your Mind on Life.” We’ll look at what happens to the brain during that first date, a hangover, et cetera. There’s a lot of production work that’s gone into it. We’ve got custom animations made for this, with a lot of really beautiful neuroscientific images. A small team helped make each aspect of the production – sound, animation, lighting and more.
What do you guys do when you’re not being auteurs?
Dr. K: We’re both brain tumor surgeons.
Dr. L: I also do work on epilepsy. And we’re both pioneers in laser-based surgery where you only have a 3-millimeter incision. It’s called the Monteris. We both have very active laboratories, too.
Dr. K: I look at the microscale of the tumor. I’ve been looking into what may be the “queen bee cells” of the brain tumor, the stem cells of cancer. Eric has more of a macro sense of the brain and how it’s related to the body’s networks.
Dr. L: I have a sort of engineering lab, where we try to decode the brain and even decode your thoughts for purposes of brain-mapping and brain-computer interfaces.
I saw that the proceeds raised from Brainworks help fund your brain-tumor research—but something tells me you guys need a lot more than you can make from a couple of nights of theater to fund this level of work.
Dr. L: Of course, this is not only about the money; it’s about elevating awareness. Many of these brain tumors remain challenging, and some still don’t have a cure—and we want to show people how the brain works.
Dr. K: One of the issues we’re exploring is whether we’re hardwired, or if we can change and become better than who we are now.
On that note, what advice do you have to help us keep our brains sharp?
Dr. K: Your brain is like a muscle. The more you use it, the better it gets. If you don’t use your brain, it will atrophy and become less effective.
Dr. L: Learn a new language or engage with a new hobby. Use your mind in diverse ways.
Brainworks: Your Mind on Life runs December 5 and 6 (though the Friday show has already sold out) at The Sheldon. For more information, visit the Brainworks page on Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s website.
