Brainy

After all, mind is such an odd predicament for matter to get into. I often marvel how something like hydrogen, the simplest atom, forged in some early chaos of the universe, could lead us and the gorgeous forever into consciousness. If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, dream and electric, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know that it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart? What is mind, that one can be out of one’s? How can a neuron feel compassion? What is self? Why did automatic, hand-me-down mammals like our ancestors somehow evolve brains with the ability to consider, imagine, project, compare, abstract, think of the future? If our experience of mind is really just the simmering of an easily alterable chemical stew, then what does it mean to know something, to want something, to be? How do you begin with hydrogen and end up with prom dresses, jealousy, chamber music? What is music that it can satisfy a mind, and even perhaps function as language?

by Diane Ackerman

What a nice poetic-scientific mixture! I heard it at a Neuroscience lecture I went to earlier this week. Lately I've been indulging the nerd within and been going to some science lectures in my free time. Here is a sign that I shouldn't stay in research: I am often more interested in fields far removed from mine - Immunology - right now I am in this phase of fascination with the brain. The talk this week was more of a debate, between two Neuroscientists who believe two very different approaches for studying neurons. One of them thinks we should focus on studying the connections between neurons - the Connectome - while the other believes in looking more closely at individual neurons and studying what's going on inside them. Or at least that's the very simplified idea I got from the lecture.

Last week, I happened to fend myself at yet another talk about the brain: it was a lecture by the Nobel laureate Eric Kandel - he won the price for being one of the people who first described neurons to be responsible for memory storage. Pretty cool stuff. He's about 80 years old but looked as fit as a 40 some year old. It's really worth reading his autobiography on the Nobel website; it's a brief history of 1930's Vienna, WWII, immigrants in New York, etc. He's a great writer; no surprise a book of his has just been published, titled THE AGE OF INSIGHT: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, From Vienna 1900 to the Present. I just find people who have such varying interests - from hardcore bench science through history to art - so fascinating. I wonder if he ever goes to Immunology lectures.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my boss. For the first time in months I was actually excited to show him some new data, which looked pretty nice and consistent, wow, consistent results?? What the hell are those? Haven't seen any in, umm, I can't even remember how long! His reaction: Well, you know I don't care for mice. Well, my whole project being based in mice, fuck you! He is the kind of scientist who gets obsessive about a certain issue. Right now that issue is what's called epigenetics. The idea is that beyond the sequence of our DNA (genes) there is so much more going on in the genome. So much we don't understand. DNA is wrapped around these molecular structures called nucleosomes and those are super dynamic. And we understand very little about what it means when those structures change and what the consequences are for how genes are expressed and regulated. It's obviously a fascinating area of research, but I have some conceptual problems with it. Without going into those, I can just say that I am more interested in what's going on in a whole organ; rather than looking at the minute little changes that happen inside the nucleus. Because ultimately, we are pretty far from having any clue as to what the biological significance of those changes are. Until then, I'd like to work with mice. As close as we can get to something physiological these days.

But anyhow, back to my boss' comment. He is currently obsessed with epigenetics and our whole lab is quickly moving towards that field. Which is totally fine, especially that I am leaving in a couple of months. But it would still be nice if he could show some slight interest in other topics that are also relevant to his work. That are going on in his lab. At least lie. Just a little white lie. "Ooh, that looks interesting, yes, you should pursue that lead." Something along those lines. But no. Just a yawn. That was the best he could do. Countdown to my last day in the lab: 69 days!