Rachel Carlson

So one day, he's at a big medical conference on brain-machine interfaces.

Naturally, he's eager to show off all the strides he's made in his research.

So he pulls out his phone and starts to show these industry guys a video of his work.

And he's like, OK, let's talk about patenting and licensing.

They told Paul it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to create a medical device that could be sold to people who were paralyzed.

And even if they sold a device to every person who needed it, they'd never make back their investment.

So after a decade of research, he had to pivot.

Meaning problems affecting more people.

And one problem that affects a lot of people?

Stroke.

One in four adults are predicted to have a stroke in their lifetime.

That's according to the World Health Organization.

So...

Paul pivoted.

Today on the show, how does the brain recover from stroke?

We go down to the individual neuron level with Paul to see how studying single cells could be the key to getting a bigger picture of the brain.

You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.

We're talking to Paul Niyajukian, whose lab at Stanford Studies had the brain controls movement, including after neurological events like stroke.

See, brain tissue needs blood flow to function.

And when that blood flow is interrupted, like in a stroke, that tissue starts to die.