Visual Analysis of Neuro-science: Dr.

Krishna
Pablo Enriquez
University of Texas at El Paso








Rhetorical Analysis on Neural Prosthetics: Krishna Shenoy
There are many people with movement disabilities that have never in their lives been
able to talk, play, or simply just enjoy life with their loved ones. Thanks to doctors and scholars
dedicated to helping come up with tools for these people, they have eventually reached the
tools to help the human brain itself control the body. A chip approximately 1/5 the size of a
penny can help a person communicate with a loved one through a computer screen. Dr. Krishna
Shenoy explains all of this in his speech about his research at Stanford University. Dr. Krishnas
speech was a very well-constructed and effective speech. Just with his intro he already
captured his audiences attention, as it should be of course.
He followed his intro by stating that we know enough to get started with some
examples of diseases and disabilities that involve activity with the nervous system or the brain
that have been treated such as a bionic eye for blind people, cochlear implant for deaf people,
Parkinson disease, and epilepsy. He then goes into his following statements about Christopher
Reeves and the patients that he wishes to help. He then talks about some machines that have
already been created to help physically disabled people such as the robotic arm and the cursor
on the screen, which brings him to how the technology reads the body and some examples.
Then he finally concludes his speech with what he thinks will happen in the near future with
brain prosthesis. Dr. Krishna is a man of many academic achievements and a lot of years of
experience in the field of neurobiology/neuroscience/neuro-prosthetics which gives him a lot of
credibility for his work. What gives Dr. Krishna his credibility is how he explains in the
description of his video that he is the Director of the Neural Prosthetics Systems Lab, Co-
Director of the Neural Prosthetics Translational Lab, received a doctoral degree in electrical
engineering, a Neurobiology postdoctoral fellow at Caltech in Pasadena and is currently a
professor at Stanford University. So as a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, an instructor, and
someone who has had 28 years of education/training with numerous awards gives him enough
credibility. In his presentation he shows his audience a few visuals explaining what his research
has brought and what it could bring to the future of the research of neuroscience. These visuals
show the audience that the brain prosthetics do work and how they work. In the video it shows
that people can move a cursor on a computer screen by just thinking it, and that this technique
can be used for communication for someone with communication disabilities. This is another
logos that Dr. Krishna uses in his speech as well as the picture he shows his audience of a
paralyzed woman who was able to operate a mechanical arm with just her thought. Lift up a
coffee and serve it to herself all on her own, and as Dr. Krishna mentions that sense of
independence is important.
What gave Dr. Krishna Shenoys presentation a lot of strength started in the beginning
of his speech, he used the mentally handicapped as an example of why brain prosthesis is so
important and needed today so that it can be better for future disabled patients. As he explains
at (time 5:02) he talks about a scientist named Christopher Reeve who had an accident falling
off a horse when he was young and became paralyzed. Dr. Krishna says he broke his neck and
from that day forward he was not able to walk, move his arms, perhaps less appreciated and
was not able to breathe clearly and needed aid in breathing. This example makes the
audience sympathetic, especially when he explains that this man passed away without ever
being able to move again. This is a good example of the appeal to pity rhetorical Fallacy
because it is like he is trying to make his audience agree to his cause by making them feel sorry
for patients thus wanting to help them. Though later in his speech he tells a few jokes to
humor the audience shortly after he talks about Christopher Reeves, this can be identified as
the Pathos because he is attempting to change the emotion of his audience. Dr. Krishnas
method of swaying the mood of the audience is very successful and well planned because he
does so by not making the audience too emotional or too comical. He has the necessary
amount of jokes or stories to get his point across to his audience quick and effectively.
Dr. Krishna also talked about some of the future hopes and dreams for his research,
plans that may actually work due to the rate at which these studies are producing results. He
hopes that since the brain is composed of different parts, there will be away to relay
information from one part of the brain to another part of the brain by actually installing
implants for specific parts of the brain. You can tell that the perspective here is very serious,
whether it is from a disabled person or a scientist, because these researchers just want to help
and make others happy. Going back to his examples of the physically disabled people,
Christopher reeves, and when he told his audience about the lady who was able to serve herself
coffee for the first time in her life, are all examples of proof of why he does what he does. Dr.
Krishna said that she looked happy. This is the reason why he wants to create these
prosthetics because he wants to be able to help people and he wants them to be able to live
happy, this is Dr. Krishnas logic. What makes Dr. Krishnas logic so agreeable is that there are
accidents happening every day and its not something that can be controlled but it can be taken
care of. The construction of his visuals were very well planned out, it started with a simple
explanation of what he was going to talk about followed by some examples of disabilities that
have been successfully treated and finally last but not least an explanation of future plans.
In conclusion Dr. Krishnas speech was really effective very well set up and he shows
Logos, Pathos, and Ethos throughout his presentation. He captured the audiences attention
straight from the intro and kept it all the way through. He brought a little bit of emotion to the
audience but not too much and makes up for it anyhow with a small joke here and there to
ensure that he still has the audience with him.













REFERENCES
Awards and experience (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://www.stanford.edu/~shenoy/Biosketch.htm
Speech/presentation (Artifact) (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuATvhlcUU4
Information on Dr. Krishna Shenoy (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://embc2012.embs.org/program/keynote-speakers/krishna-shenoy