WEBVTT

00:00:06.018 --> 00:00:07.978
I have to take a breath,

00:00:07.978 --> 00:00:10.367
to talk about emotional short circuits.

00:00:10.367 --> 00:00:13.149
I could ask you to come here 
and look at yourself,

00:00:13.749 --> 00:00:16.123
and the short circuit would start.

00:00:18.564 --> 00:00:21.015
I deal with children who can't make it,

00:00:21.015 --> 00:00:22.926
children who struggle with school,

00:00:22.926 --> 00:00:24.839
children who struggle with growing up,

00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:27.984
children who don't feel understood,
children who suffer.

00:00:28.516 --> 00:00:32.131
And this has changed my story,
my story as a scientist.

00:00:32.131 --> 00:00:35.363
So the other day,
I was in a learning center,

00:00:35.363 --> 00:00:38.160
the place where I help these kids,

00:00:38.160 --> 00:00:39.794
and in this learning center

00:00:39.794 --> 00:00:42.726
one of the girls was looking at me

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:42.726 --> 00:00:45.877
because I was worried about
how to start today's talk

00:00:45.877 --> 00:00:48.377
that in a few minutes
will explain you what we do

00:00:48.976 --> 00:00:50.126
and why I'm here.

00:00:51.895 --> 00:00:53.442
I looked at her and told her:

00:00:53.442 --> 00:00:55.467
"You know, I don't know where to start."

00:00:55.467 --> 00:00:57.048
She smiled at me and told me:

00:00:57.048 --> 00:00:59.067
"You have to start from the beginning,

00:00:59.067 --> 00:01:01.393
you always start from the beginning."

00:01:01.623 --> 00:01:03.621
And so, here you can see me

00:01:03.621 --> 00:01:06.820
this somehow represents my beginning,

00:01:06.820 --> 00:01:09.273
my beginning as a scientist

00:01:09.273 --> 00:01:13.317
and of my journey to study 
and to understand - but what?

00:01:13.464 --> 00:01:15.515
The thing that, on some level,

00:01:15.515 --> 00:01:17.629
has fascinated me for so long,

00:01:17.629 --> 00:01:20.208
the relationship between
the brain and the mind,

00:01:20.208 --> 00:01:22.041
between the brain and the soul.

00:01:22.041 --> 00:01:23.874
Between what we feel

00:01:24.134 --> 00:01:27.053
and how it is possible
that we feel this way.

00:01:27.263 --> 00:01:30.072
And so I spent years and years

00:01:30.072 --> 00:01:33.909
fascinated by this astonishing structure:

00:01:33.909 --> 00:01:36.548
the brain is an extraordinary structure.

00:01:36.548 --> 00:01:39.296
In milliseconds, right now,

00:01:39.296 --> 00:01:42.669
you have millions
of billions of connections

00:01:42.669 --> 00:01:45.190
that set in motion a transformation

00:01:45.190 --> 00:01:47.813
of what you have been
and what you will be.

00:01:47.813 --> 00:01:51.400
This transformation is caused
by all the incoming information

00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:53.067
that, in some way,

00:01:53.067 --> 00:01:54.910
sow something new,

00:01:54.910 --> 00:01:56.194
and cause pruning

00:01:56.194 --> 00:01:58.294
in what you have been until now,

00:01:58.294 --> 00:01:59.970
and create new buds.

00:01:59.970 --> 00:02:01.443
This miracle

00:02:01.443 --> 00:02:03.587
which measures a mechanism called:

00:02:03.587 --> 00:02:06.222
"Zone of Proximal Development".

00:02:06.222 --> 00:02:09.211
One of the most 
fascinating processes of life:

00:02:09.211 --> 00:02:12.683
it is the thing that makes a living being,

00:02:12.683 --> 00:02:15.620
that makes who each
one of us, time after time,

00:02:15.620 --> 00:02:17.512
chooses to be.

00:02:17.512 --> 00:02:20.704
So, after studying hard all these systems,

00:02:20.704 --> 00:02:23.064
I came back to Italy.

00:02:23.474 --> 00:02:25.230
And what happened to me?

00:02:25.230 --> 00:02:26.660
I met a child,

00:02:27.380 --> 00:02:31.273
I met him in the green hall
of an hospital,

00:02:31.273 --> 00:02:35.021
the walls were truly terrible,

00:02:35.021 --> 00:02:37.086
they gave the idea of something

00:02:37.086 --> 00:02:38.864
that did not cure but oppress.

00:02:38.864 --> 00:02:42.917
This child had eight adults with him,

00:02:43.507 --> 00:02:46.427
besides his parents, various assistants,

00:02:46.427 --> 00:02:49.536
various teachers, the hospital personnel.

00:02:49.536 --> 00:02:53.535
The nurse told him that I was the boss.

00:02:53.535 --> 00:02:54.827
What I did

00:02:54.827 --> 00:02:57.454
was a gesture from afar,
from the end of the corridor:

00:02:57.454 --> 00:03:00.089
I lowered down and I smiled.

00:03:00.683 --> 00:03:03.704
This gesture made he ran to me,

00:03:03.704 --> 00:03:05.646
he took me by the gown

00:03:05.646 --> 00:03:09.094
and told me that word
that you all can read: "help me".

00:03:09.484 --> 00:03:12.378
Now, I don't know
what happened to this kid,

00:03:12.378 --> 00:03:13.393
but what I do know

00:03:13.393 --> 00:03:16.658
is that he changed the trajectory
of my history as a scientist

00:03:16.658 --> 00:03:17.871
because I thought

00:03:17.871 --> 00:03:21.579
that if everything we knew
couldn't help a child,

00:03:21.579 --> 00:03:25.805
and if a whole community,
that was giving him eight adults,

00:03:25.805 --> 00:03:28.915
was not helping him
because he was asking for help

00:03:28.915 --> 00:03:32.664
to a stranger in a lab coat,
in a green hospital hallway,

00:03:33.075 --> 00:03:36.824
this whole system was not helping.

00:03:37.154 --> 00:03:39.559
And so I went back to studying.

00:03:39.559 --> 00:03:42.502
I went back to study
what in terms of science,

00:03:42.502 --> 00:03:44.923
and deep science,

00:03:44.923 --> 00:03:47.078
is called: "neuroplasticity"

00:03:47.078 --> 00:03:49.423
and in educational terms is called:

00:03:49.423 --> 00:03:52.433
"Enhancement of the Zone
of Possible Development".

00:03:52.843 --> 00:03:54.845
I began to study

00:03:54.845 --> 00:03:58.528
how we can exercise the cerebral domains

00:03:58.528 --> 00:04:01.080
to cause improvements in language,

00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:04.121
in the ability to focus,
to memorize, to pay attention,

00:04:04.121 --> 00:04:06.210
improvements in numerical intelligence.

00:04:06.210 --> 00:04:07.596
I became good at it.

00:04:07.596 --> 00:04:10.279
Good to the point that children changed,

00:04:10.279 --> 00:04:13.952
and from a research point of view
I was very successful,

00:04:13.952 --> 00:04:16.356
because at the level
of experimental research

00:04:16.356 --> 00:04:19.631
what we achieved was what is called:

00:04:20.301 --> 00:04:26.156
"Improved Potential of the Individual 
Neuropsychological Structure".

00:04:26.156 --> 00:04:28.234
If I can give you an example:

00:04:28.234 --> 00:04:33.476
the brain buds in milliseconds

00:04:33.476 --> 00:04:38.010
the memories we imprint
through the information we receive.

00:04:38.121 --> 00:04:40.197
If we want to understand what causes,

00:04:40.197 --> 00:04:42.517
for example, life in school to a child,

00:04:42.517 --> 00:04:44.166
we just have to do a calculation.

00:04:44.166 --> 00:04:46.985
A calculation that I gave
to the Ministry many years ago:

00:04:46.985 --> 00:04:48.716
let's multiply milliseconds

00:04:48.716 --> 00:04:51.667
by hundredths of a second,
by tenths of a second,

00:04:51.667 --> 00:04:53.503
by seconds, by minutes, by hours,

00:04:53.503 --> 00:04:56.313
by days, by months, by years
that a child spends in school:

00:04:56.313 --> 00:04:58.862
you'll get a number close to infinity.

00:04:59.165 --> 00:05:00.384
That number measures

00:05:00.384 --> 00:05:02.948
what each of the adults he will meet

00:05:02.948 --> 00:05:04.838
determines in his neural connections:

00:05:04.843 --> 00:05:06.513
the transformation of his self.

00:05:06.708 --> 00:05:08.423
It is an immense power.

00:05:08.423 --> 00:05:11.152
And so my son in second grade wrote

00:05:11.152 --> 00:05:12.453
that his mother,

00:05:12.453 --> 00:05:15.029
when she finished learning
how to be a scientist,

00:05:15.029 --> 00:05:17.540
started being a teacher for teachers

00:05:17.540 --> 00:05:20.180
because I started explaining to teachers

00:05:20.180 --> 00:05:21.907
what was going on

00:05:21.907 --> 00:05:24.707
with neuroplasticity and human potential.

00:05:25.757 --> 00:05:28.530
And I was sure I had made it.

00:05:29.525 --> 00:05:31.715
But it was not like that. Why?

00:05:31.715 --> 00:05:34.518
Because some time later,

00:05:34.518 --> 00:05:39.351
and we are getting to the topic
I want to talk about today,

00:05:39.351 --> 00:05:41.312
I met another child,

00:05:41.312 --> 00:05:44.553
a child with whom we achieved
an extraordinary change

00:05:44.555 --> 00:05:46.917
in terms of cognitive profile,

00:05:46.917 --> 00:05:50.140
because he had recovered 
a standard deviation and a half

00:05:50.140 --> 00:05:54.338
from what it is generically called 
general intelligence quotient.

00:05:54.338 --> 00:05:57.506
And this child at some point told me:

00:05:57.506 --> 00:06:00.382
"Now that you have taken
the mistakes from me,

00:06:00.382 --> 00:06:02.709
will you take away the pain too?"

00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:07.540
And I was not prepared
to understand the relationship

00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:13.078
between the error of the mind
and the pain in the mind.

00:06:13.538 --> 00:06:15.647
And above all I had not reflected

00:06:15.647 --> 00:06:18.487
upon what the mechanism of pain was.

00:06:18.927 --> 00:06:22.129
But if now I'd ask you, a thousand adults,

00:06:22.129 --> 00:06:25.083
to remember your life and your mistakes,

00:06:25.083 --> 00:06:28.867
and I don't mean mistakes in school 
about reading and writing,

00:06:28.867 --> 00:06:30.871
but life's mistakes,

00:06:30.871 --> 00:06:35.339
and if I'd ask you: what has left
a deeper track in your story,

00:06:35.339 --> 00:06:38.797
the mistakes you have made 
or the pain that they caused you?

00:06:38.797 --> 00:06:42.111
And what causes a reaction in you?

00:06:42.571 --> 00:06:45.078
I think the answer would be unanimous:

00:06:45.078 --> 00:06:47.643
it is pain that determines the reaction.

00:06:47.643 --> 00:06:49.546
But what does pain do?

00:06:50.086 --> 00:06:53.424
I'll explain it in a few minutes,
otherwise they will scold me,

00:06:53.424 --> 00:06:56.889
I will ask you some degrees of freedom,

00:06:56.889 --> 00:06:58.849
that is, I ask you to do

00:06:58.849 --> 00:07:02.446
something that, in some way,
will help us understand immediately.

00:07:02.446 --> 00:07:06.127
Give yourself a pinch, a strong one.

00:07:06.287 --> 00:07:10.348
I'm asking you: what is this,
pain or suffering?

00:07:11.598 --> 00:07:12.998
It's pain.

00:07:12.998 --> 00:07:15.894
Because we have millions of alerts

00:07:15.894 --> 00:07:20.119
that from the structure we are hitting,

00:07:20.119 --> 00:07:22.637
send us neuroelectric information.

00:07:22.637 --> 00:07:26.550
Because the brain sends,
through the peripheral nervous system,

00:07:26.550 --> 00:07:29.485
this biochemical boiler
that produces energy,

00:07:29.485 --> 00:07:32.545
many information and says:
"Beware! It hurts."

00:07:32.545 --> 00:07:34.026
Why does it tell us "it hurts"?

00:07:34.026 --> 00:07:35.640
Because we must remember

00:07:35.640 --> 00:07:39.135
that we should no longer
find ourselves in that situation,

00:07:39.135 --> 00:07:40.325
because it will hurt us.

00:07:40.325 --> 00:07:42.523
It begins to trace memories, telling us:

00:07:42.523 --> 00:07:44.870
"Away from here! It will hurt."

00:07:44.870 --> 00:07:47.991
So what are these extraordinary emotions?

00:07:47.991 --> 00:07:49.511
Here you can read it:

00:07:49.511 --> 00:07:54.968
they are incredible processes 
on a neurofunctional level.

00:07:54.968 --> 00:07:56.821
I teach my students

00:07:56.821 --> 00:07:59.600
about this biochemical boiler
that produces energy

00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:02.336
because we sleep
and we produce three Hertz,

00:08:02.336 --> 00:08:05.908
we are awake, as in this moment,
and we produce nine Hertz.

00:08:06.338 --> 00:08:09.177
But it takes just an emotion,
a drop of any emotion,

00:08:09.177 --> 00:08:10.922
like the one I'm feeling right now,

00:08:10.922 --> 00:08:15.506
and although I explain these things
even in much more complex contexts,

00:08:15.506 --> 00:08:17.732
it's making me far more emotional,

00:08:17.732 --> 00:08:20.323
because I have a big goal:
that is, to talk with you.

00:08:20.323 --> 00:08:21.677
Eventually I will tell you.

00:08:21.882 --> 00:08:24.042
And this emotion is so powerful

00:08:24.042 --> 00:08:26.542
that, although my brain
is very well trained,

00:08:26.542 --> 00:08:28.369
my voice makes it explicit.

00:08:28.369 --> 00:08:30.838
And I can't control the voice

00:08:30.838 --> 00:08:33.932
because the emotion is more powerful
than the cognitive system,

00:08:33.932 --> 00:08:35.710
it is the great decision maker.

00:08:35.710 --> 00:08:40.347
And it's a smart decision maker
but it has only two answers,

00:08:40.347 --> 00:08:42.621
which are: "it hurts"
or "it's good for me".

00:08:42.621 --> 00:08:44.351
"It hurts" or "it's good for me".

00:08:44.351 --> 00:08:47.468
Emotions exist in our evolutionary system

00:08:47.468 --> 00:08:51.954
to tell us: "run away" if it hurts,
"keep it and look for more" if it's good.

00:08:51.954 --> 00:08:53.788
And how does it tell us so?

00:08:53.788 --> 00:08:57.888
It tells us this through
an incredible hertzian mechanism.

00:08:57.888 --> 00:09:01.814
If we have a moment of joy, 
we have a hertzian peak

00:09:01.814 --> 00:09:06.410
in which the wave that takes place
is a wave with a very high intensity

00:09:06.410 --> 00:09:08.231
but very very short.

00:09:08.231 --> 00:09:11.457
Why are high intensity waves that short?

00:09:11.457 --> 00:09:14.143
Because the memory of joy must be traced;

00:09:14.143 --> 00:09:15.984
but since joy is good,

00:09:15.984 --> 00:09:19.470
as everything that makes us feel good,
the brain has to find it again.

00:09:19.470 --> 00:09:22.014
And so the moment of joy is short,

00:09:22.014 --> 00:09:26.355
because this will trigger
the mechanism of the search for joy.

00:09:26.355 --> 00:09:32.115
But if instead of joy
we feel anguish, anxiety, fear,

00:09:32.115 --> 00:09:34.174
then the wave is very different.

00:09:34.174 --> 00:09:38.514
Because it is at low intensity,
it is below the threshold of conscience,

00:09:38.514 --> 00:09:41.674
it remains invisible from the mind,
it stays down there.

00:09:41.674 --> 00:09:44.436
Because it has to give an alert that says:

00:09:44.436 --> 00:09:47.477
"Remember, remember, remember."

00:09:47.477 --> 00:09:51.480
"Run away from here, it hurts.
Run away from here, it hurts."

00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:55.355
Our circuits are pervaded 
by waves that say:

00:09:55.355 --> 00:09:57.180
"Run away, because it hurts."

00:09:57.180 --> 00:09:59.870
And the energy we produce
is an energy that tells us:

00:09:59.870 --> 00:10:01.754
"Run away, because it hurts".

00:10:04.104 --> 00:10:06.318
It seems there is no way out.

00:10:06.318 --> 00:10:07.938
On the contrary, there is.

00:10:07.938 --> 00:10:11.029
I told you, it's not the mind
that controls emotions,

00:10:11.033 --> 00:10:13.123
It is a great illusion.

00:10:13.123 --> 00:10:16.365
As a cognitive scientist, 
at some point I had to give up.

00:10:16.365 --> 00:10:20.093
Make yoursel feel "comfort",
for example, as an emotion.

00:10:20.093 --> 00:10:21.583
Can you do it?

00:10:21.703 --> 00:10:23.374
Make yourself feel "understanding".

00:10:23.654 --> 00:10:28.415
Now order yourself to feel
a connection between each other.

00:10:28.585 --> 00:10:29.908
You can't do it!

00:10:29.908 --> 00:10:32.410
But look, we have switches,

00:10:32.410 --> 00:10:34.820
and these switches are catalysts.

00:10:35.050 --> 00:10:38.936
We can't turn on the light with our mind,

00:10:38.936 --> 00:10:41.119
we have to use the right switch!

00:10:41.119 --> 00:10:44.693
And we have to figure out
the right switch for emotions.

00:10:44.693 --> 00:10:46.150
For example, if I ask you,

00:10:46.150 --> 00:10:49.997
please, look into each other's eyes
with understanding. Go.

00:10:52.016 --> 00:10:55.960
Please, hug one another
for 30 seconds, come on!

00:11:02.790 --> 00:11:07.351
Please, stroke one another a caress,
a caress of comfort.

00:11:09.651 --> 00:11:14.096
If we measure now the heartbeat,

00:11:14.096 --> 00:11:15.936
if we measure temperature,

00:11:15.936 --> 00:11:19.252
if we look at markers, such as skin color,

00:11:19.252 --> 00:11:23.326
and the acidity of the sweat
that has been released,

00:11:23.326 --> 00:11:25.830
we would see a change in indexes

00:11:25.830 --> 00:11:30.354
because we have activated 
very powerful neuroelectric circuits.

00:11:30.354 --> 00:11:34.047
These are the organizers.
These are the switches.

00:11:34.047 --> 00:11:36.321
Just think that hugging for 30 seconds

00:11:36.321 --> 00:11:38.951
commands the amygdala to produce oxytocin,

00:11:38.951 --> 00:11:43.296
the hormone that grants,
at the time of birth,

00:11:43.296 --> 00:11:46.180
the ability of a woman to resist pain.

00:11:46.180 --> 00:11:48.285
30 seconds of hugging.

00:11:48.285 --> 00:11:49.843
So, as my son said,

00:11:49.843 --> 00:11:53.303
I started explaining to people

00:11:53.303 --> 00:11:55.792
that learning to look kids in the eyes,

00:11:55.792 --> 00:11:59.630
learning to hug them,
learning to caress them,

00:11:59.630 --> 00:12:02.849
creates permanent memories in the circuit,

00:12:02.849 --> 00:12:05.979
which are tied to emotions
that build well-being

00:12:05.989 --> 00:12:08.141
and not uneasiness.

00:12:08.486 --> 00:12:10.216
It's water and bread.

00:12:10.451 --> 00:12:12.918
Science has returned to water and bread.

00:12:12.918 --> 00:12:15.346
And in which memories do the emotions go?

00:12:15.346 --> 00:12:17.649
Emotions, it's interesting,

00:12:17.649 --> 00:12:20.535
because when we put so much effort,

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:20.535 --> 00:12:22.450
into studying, to try and remember,

00:12:22.450 --> 00:12:24.948
in that moment we consume energy.

00:12:24.948 --> 00:12:28.597
Instead the memories that are determined 
by an immediate trace

00:12:28.597 --> 00:12:31.553
are the memories that hold emotions.

00:12:31.553 --> 00:12:32.698
But then, if we,

00:12:32.703 --> 00:12:36.278
at some point in
our emotional short-circuit,

00:12:36.278 --> 00:12:39.333
we do something like those things
which always happen,

00:12:39.333 --> 00:12:44.095
that is, for example, I study, I learn, 
I struggle, I experiment anxiety,

00:12:44.095 --> 00:12:47.582
my memory stores what I studied

00:12:47.582 --> 00:12:50.430
but also the anxiety
with which I memorized that.

00:12:50.430 --> 00:12:55.294
And when I go back and take
from the drawer of my memory

00:12:55.294 --> 00:12:57.414
what I have studied,

00:12:57.414 --> 00:13:00.761
I take back not only
the information that I put there

00:13:00.761 --> 00:13:03.230
but also the emotions
with which I traced it.

00:13:03.230 --> 00:13:05.515
And so anxiety enters the circuit

00:13:05.515 --> 00:13:08.700
and becomes an information
that creates a short-circuit.

00:13:09.410 --> 00:13:13.882
And if I learn with fear,
I will retrieve the fear;

00:13:13.882 --> 00:13:19.644
and if I learn with lack of self-esteem
I will retrieve the lack of self-esteem.

00:13:19.646 --> 00:13:24.372
But if I learn by challenging myself 
I will recover the challenge to myself.

00:13:24.372 --> 00:13:28.143
And this, I told you before, 
happens for thousandths of a second

00:13:28.143 --> 00:13:30.515
up to whole years and years

00:13:30.515 --> 00:13:32.495
in which the educating system

00:13:32.500 --> 00:13:35.608
can pollute the mental circuits

00:13:35.608 --> 00:13:37.706
or cause a pandemic healing.

00:13:37.706 --> 00:13:40.129
I am in favour of this pandemic healing,

00:13:40.129 --> 00:13:44.170
also because as a person of science 
what I have to be aware of

00:13:44.170 --> 00:13:46.307
are also the sciences that stand close.

00:13:46.307 --> 00:13:49.260
And the research on epigenetics
made me tremble.

00:13:49.260 --> 00:13:52.650
Why? Because by studying
what happens to little mice

00:13:52.650 --> 00:13:56.161
that during pregnancy 
are put into ice water,

00:13:56.161 --> 00:13:58.622
and then they are made to give birth,

00:13:58.622 --> 00:14:02.374
it's been noticed, and this data
should make us think

00:14:02.374 --> 00:14:04.143
that it doesn't happen only to mice,

00:14:04.143 --> 00:14:07.789
that their puppies
will inherit the fear-alert

00:14:07.789 --> 00:14:10.299
for three generations at least.

00:14:10.299 --> 00:14:13.026
As if memories of pain

00:14:13.026 --> 00:14:16.985
were not only individual 
but transgenerational.

00:14:16.985 --> 00:14:21.726
This means that we pass on,
to protect our children,

00:14:21.726 --> 00:14:24.213
the thing from which
they should protect themselves.

00:14:25.503 --> 00:14:28.166
What are the two most troubling emotions,

00:14:28.166 --> 00:14:29.702
those that worry me the most?

00:14:29.702 --> 00:14:31.645
Guilt and fear.

00:14:32.514 --> 00:14:34.282
I can't talk about these,

00:14:34.282 --> 00:14:37.239
but I can tell you which are
the antagonist emotions.

00:14:37.239 --> 00:14:38.759
To guilty conscience

00:14:38.769 --> 00:14:42.115
the great antagonist is
the right to make mistakes.

00:14:42.115 --> 00:14:44.752
If we are aware of this,

00:14:44.752 --> 00:14:49.206
that we should raise our children
in the right to make mistakes,

00:14:49.206 --> 00:14:53.235
in treating error as a process of change,
of continuous improvement,

00:14:53.235 --> 00:14:55.301
the level of awareness changes.

00:14:55.301 --> 00:14:58.380
We said whispers and voices.

00:14:58.380 --> 00:15:02.790
Well, if we say "Good", "Good", Good!"

00:15:02.790 --> 00:15:06.295
we give completely different information

00:15:06.295 --> 00:15:09.419
because it is the emotion
that we send with it,

00:15:09.419 --> 00:15:12.171
the indicator we are using,

00:15:12.171 --> 00:15:16.062
that goes to the great decision maker
and says: "protect" or "don't protect".

00:15:17.151 --> 00:15:19.020
Now I'll tell you about the last child,

00:15:19.020 --> 00:15:20.646
since I just have 18 seconds left.

00:15:20.646 --> 00:15:24.193
This last child reveals to you
why I've come here,

00:15:24.193 --> 00:15:26.615
doing something crazy,
between two conferences,

00:15:26.615 --> 00:15:29.840
because I'm leaving for Paris 
for a conference on the brain

00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:32.585
that makes me much more anxious.

00:15:32.585 --> 00:15:34.678
So, this is not a good day.

00:15:34.678 --> 00:15:36.687
But then, why did I come here?

00:15:36.687 --> 00:15:38.717
I'll tell you through
the story of Anselmo.

00:15:38.717 --> 00:15:42.299
Anselmo is an Asperger child 
with very high cognitive functioning.

00:15:42.299 --> 00:15:44.727
Like "Rain Man", to give you an idea.

00:15:44.727 --> 00:15:47.728
I met him some years ago
because his parents, two doctors,

00:15:47.733 --> 00:15:48.818
told me:

00:15:48.818 --> 00:15:51.609
"You help so many children in need.

00:15:51.609 --> 00:15:55.688
Help him too. Him who speaks
four languages, solves maths problems

00:15:55.688 --> 00:15:58.393
as if he's attending his
second year of university,

00:15:58.393 --> 00:16:01.798
draws the Duomo of Milan
in a few seconds without mistakes."

00:16:01.798 --> 00:16:04.097
But all it takes to upset him,
is looking at him

00:16:04.097 --> 00:16:07.267
and he goes into all of those
typical behaviours,

00:16:07.267 --> 00:16:11.633
prototypical of all major
autistic syndromes.

00:16:11.633 --> 00:16:14.126
I had never tried before to help a child

00:16:14.126 --> 00:16:17.027
in what is the development
area of proximal emotions

00:16:17.027 --> 00:16:20.166
But I thought that in
this extraordinary brain,

00:16:20.166 --> 00:16:24.867
if the two structures are structures 
that collaborate synchronously,

00:16:24.867 --> 00:16:28.741
I could help the emotions 
with the cognition.

00:16:28.741 --> 00:16:30.044
And what did I do?

00:16:30.044 --> 00:16:32.157
I asked him to jot down on a notebook

00:16:32.157 --> 00:16:35.943
all the things that caused him
fear or anguish,

00:16:35.943 --> 00:16:37.483
or a sense of vulnerability.

00:16:37.483 --> 00:16:38.812
And I asked him to find,

00:16:38.812 --> 00:16:42.534
for each of those, a strategy
to overcome this vulnerability.

00:16:42.534 --> 00:16:46.856
This strategy didn't have
to be particularly sophisticated.

00:16:46.856 --> 00:16:49.487
Most of the time it was 
a strategy of his own,

00:16:49.487 --> 00:16:53.094
like stomping his feet on the ground,
clapping and snapping his fingers,

00:16:53.094 --> 00:16:54.205
but this made

00:16:54.205 --> 00:16:57.415
this flow of anxiety go away.

00:16:57.415 --> 00:17:00.749
So he filled notebooks and notebooks

00:17:00.749 --> 00:17:02.709
with these kind of solutions,

00:17:02.709 --> 00:17:07.440
and he came to present these
at a conference with 100 teachers.

00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:10.869
We had prepared him, mark my words,

00:17:10.869 --> 00:17:16.554
to avoid moments of unfavourable
reactions to a big audience

00:17:16.554 --> 00:17:20.935
and we trained the teachers
to not spook him.

00:17:20.935 --> 00:17:23.272
But at some point, while he was talking,

00:17:23.272 --> 00:17:26.513
one of the teachers gets emotional,
she starts crying,

00:17:26.513 --> 00:17:27.920
she stands up and applauds.

00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:29.469
So all the teachers,

00:17:29.469 --> 00:17:31.713
100 teachers, start to cry,

00:17:31.713 --> 00:17:34.884
they stand up and applaud, 
they get emotional.

00:17:34.884 --> 00:17:39.030
So he panics and runs behind a curtain.

00:17:39.030 --> 00:17:42.804
I go get him, we stomp our feet,
I take him by his little finger,

00:17:42.804 --> 00:17:46.223
we take a hot chocolate -
and I must conclude quickly -

00:17:46.223 --> 00:17:47.663
and he tells me:

00:17:47.663 --> 00:17:50.063
"Lucangeli, did you see the multiplier?"

00:17:50.388 --> 00:17:53.104
I say: "No, not really. What do you mean?"

00:17:53.104 --> 00:17:57.384
"There were 100 teachers, Lucangeli,
some young, some not so much.

00:17:57.384 --> 00:18:00.665
On average they will work
another 25 years in school.

00:18:00.665 --> 00:18:04.536
Each one of them will have
at least 25 students in class.

00:18:04.536 --> 00:18:06.905
So, with this hour of lesson,

00:18:06.905 --> 00:18:11.435
I've helped, during my life,
62,500 children."

00:18:12.418 --> 00:18:14.597
And I'm here for this.

00:18:14.597 --> 00:18:18.297
(Applause)

00:18:23.387 --> 00:18:25.557
I'm here, and I want to say it,

00:18:25.557 --> 00:18:30.327
so that you'll help me practice
a helpful kind of science.


00:18:30.327 --> 00:18:33.869
I'm here, and I want to say it,
so that you'll help me -

00:18:33.869 --> 00:18:36.061
and help us, because we're many people,

00:18:36.061 --> 00:18:38.625
to practice a helpful kind of science,

00:18:38.625 --> 00:18:44.318
so that we'll become much
more than 62,500 people.

00:18:44.318 --> 00:18:45.815
Thank you, have a good life.

00:18:45.815 --> 00:18:49.015
(Applause)