"My names Nicholas Au Yong.
We are at UCLA medical center, I am a neurosurgery resident, and I do research with Dr. Perottian
in his lab.
We study brain signals from Parkinsonian patients.
We record brain signals while we're operating on these patients by placing electrodes into
the brain to stimulate them to help alleviate these symptoms.
I grew up in Pennsylvania.
You know, I was always interested in science.
I think I was in second grade.
I saw these kids, I think they built a circuit on a piece of wood.
There was a light bulb, there was a switch, and the light would come on, and I remember
going home and taking apart my toy tank and touching the battery to the wires of this
light bulb and it lit up, and it was almost magical, this piece of solid substance that's
lighting up this light bulb.
I didn't know how it happened, I just knew that when I did it, it happened.
I think ever since then I've always been curious about how things worked.
I've taken apart a lot of things that my dad wish I had not taken apart, and I think that's
the way it works.
I think most scientists will agree with me, when you first look at a piece of data that
no one else has looked at, and you are seeing something significant, it's very exciting.
It's very exciting because you could think of the implications it may have, whether it
be big or small, it's just the fact that you were the first one to look at it, the first
one to lay eyes on it and have that kind of awe.
I think that was certainly what drew me into science for the long term.
But other than that, I think it's rewarding.
I wanted to have a profession that I could make a difference.
Even in a small way that could help someone live a better life free from a disease, then
its a worthwhile profession.
One of the most amazing things about the surgery is when you turn that stimulation on the symptoms
go away.
It's almost like a magical event.
I think that's what draws me to the surgery, is the instantaneous effect of this stimulation,
this therapy, and there's not many things in medicine that does that.
There's not a drug that works right away, there's not many treatments that work right
away, but for this type of therapy it does, and that's pretty remarkable.
The goal is to learn as much as we can right now from these chances, these very special
opportunities we have to record from the human brain in these medical conditions and maybe
develop new therapies in the future so that we don't really need surgery to treat them.
Now the stimulation and the electrodes that we place, it doesn't stop the disease, it
really reduces the symptoms.
The disease of Parkinson's really goes on indefinitely.
The battle is not over, the war is not over until we kind of find a treatment, a permanent
treatment for the disease.
I think in this age of science, we're no longer back in the day, where you alone as a single
person can really come up with something that is impactful.
It takes a team of people to put the electrodes in, it takes another person to record the
data, and it takes some really good smart colleagues to get together, put your minds
together, and figure out how to best tackle each and every problem.
That's the lab that succeeds, is when people work together.
One trait I think is important from my perspective is the ability to be flexible, and also the
ability to be persistent in tackling something.
It may take a long time for you to find the answer, but once you find the answer, it's
a great feeling.
It's very rewarding.
But it's a lot of work to get there at times.
And the ability to just keep going with one wrong solution after another, just to have
the instinct that there is a solution, it's only a matter of time when I find it, and
how I find it, is part of the characteristic of being
a scientist."