This TED Talk features neuroscientist and engineer Greg Gage, recorded live at TED 2017.

I'm a neuroscientist and I'm the co-founder of backyard brains and our mission is to train the next generation of neuroscientists

by taking graduate level neuroscience research equipment and making it available for kids in middle schools and high schools.

And so when we go into the classroom, one way to get them thinking about the brain, which is very complex,

is to ask them a very simple question about neuroscience, and that is, what has a brain?

And we ask that, students will instantly tell you that their cat or dog has a brain.

And most will say that a mouse or even a small insect has a brain. But almost nobody says that a plant or a tree or a shrub has a brain.

And so when you push, because this could actually help describe a little bit how the brain actually functions,

so you push and say, well, what is it that makes living things have brains versus not?

And often they'll come back with the classification that things that move tend to have brains.

And that's absolutely correct.

I mean, our nervous system evolved because it is

electrical. It's fast. So we can quickly respond to stimuli in the world and move if we need to.

But you can go back and push back on the students. You say, well, you know, you say that plants don't have

brains, but plants do move. Anyone who's grown a plant has noticed that the plant will move and face the sun.

But they'll say, but that's a slow movement.

That doesn't count.

That could be a chemical process.

But what about fast-moving plants?

Now, in 1760, Arthur Dobbs, the royal governor of North Carolina,

made a pretty fascinating discovery.

In the swamps behind his house, he found a plant that would spring shut every time a bug would fall in between it.

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