Ideas change everything

Diagnosing a zombie: Brain and body (Part one)

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Bradley Voytek and Tim Verstynen |

TED-Ed

• October 2012

Zombies eat brains. They are also like all of us driven by brain functions. What is happening in their brains to make them act as they do? In this intriguing dialogue Tim Verstynen and Bradley Voytek apply the various human medical possibilities that make zombies...zombies. [Directed by Franz Palomares, narrated by Tim Verstynen and Bradley Voytek].

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Zombies eat brains. They are also like all of us driven by brain functions. What is happening in their brains to make them act as they do? In this intriguing dialogue Tim Verstynen and Bradley Voytek apply the various human medical possibilities that make zombies...zombies. [Directed by Franz Palomares, narrated by Tim Verstynen and Bradley Voytek].

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

This video was produced by TED-Ed, TED’s youth and education initiative.

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Meet the educator

Bradley Voytek

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science and Neuroscience at the University of California at San Diego

Bradley Voytek is a new Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science and Neuroscience at UC San Diego. In his other lives he’s a data scientist for Uber and is the world’s expert on zombie brains (seriously!). With his zombie co-conspirator, CMU professor Timothy Verstynen, he has published the book Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep: A Neuroscientific View of the Zombie Brain. In his real research, he studies the role that neuronal oscillations play in coordinating communication within the brain.

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This video was produced by TED-Ed, TED’s youth and education initiative.

Read more about TED-Ed.