The Brain
Today I attended a lecture by Professor Susan Greenfield of Oxford University, who happens to also be a Baroness and head of the Royal Institution. Rather an illustrious personage, really – she’s one of the leading researchers in the world on Alzheimer’s disease, and was here to talk to us about the brain.
Now, I’m not a biologist so I wasn’t quite sure why exactly I was going along to this lecture when I had plenty of work to be getting on with. I soon found out that it was worth it though. Professor Greenfield is a very engaging speaker, and as she reminded us near the beginning of the lecture, not all scientists are middle-aged white men with beards. (She didn’t mention beards, but I’m including it in the stereotype anyway.)
The talk was based around what makes the human brain special and unique. (Of course I know why it’s unique, but the science of how is of course interesting.) We worked top-down looking at different sections of the brain, and bottom-up looking at neurons. I learnt quite a lot, but the interesting thing was to do with what drugs actually do to the brain: it seems brain-drugs don’t just change our outlook or mood temporarily but their residue always leaves a mark. (This isn’t just the case with cannabis or ecstacy but with prozac and other prescription drugs as well.) The drugs mimic our natural brain-chemicals (for want of a better word), but instead of breaking down after sending a message they hang around. So people’s personalities can actually change – and even if cannabis smokers then stop after using it heavily, it can permanently affect their memory and/or reaction times. Scary stuff for any drug users in the audience (as I’m sure there were – nicotine counts).
It feels like quite a privilege really, having such a well-known figure come to give a talk to you and your peers. We’ve done quite well really – had Wendy Woods, the wife of Donald Woods last year, as well as a guy who’d made it to the North Pole with quite a public expedition. No Radiohead members though. Ah well.
So yeah, good talk, interesting speaker, almost wish I was doing Biology. I always say that though – I guess I just find almost everything too interesting.
Matthew @ 19:36, March 16, 2005 to Science/Nature | Comments (9)
Comments:
Sheepie
What about caffeine?
Comment added at 19:02, March 17, 2005
Matthew
Interesting. Can’t remember. I’d imagine the effect would be negligable – otherwise we’d have heard about it long before.
Comment added at 12:08, March 18, 2005
Mr E
Caffeine is not as dangerous as most other drugs, but it still has an effect, I’m sure. Nearly anything can kill you if you have too much. Chocolate is lethal, but only if you eat about a tonne of it. Apparently the effects are much more noticeable on animals.
I also find I’m interested by most stuff.
Comment added at 16:25, March 18, 2005
Matthew
I think the point was that caffeine, as a mind-altering drug, must leave a residue and change your personality etc. permanently.
Comment added at 15:30, March 19, 2005
Verity
Look, as everybody’s favourite ‘biologist’, I must speak out. Not all drugs leave a residue, that wasn’t what she was saying.
Comment added at 19:48, March 19, 2005
Matthew
No, she wasn’t, she was saying that any drug that affects the synaptic pathways does – unless I misunderstood her completely. And caffeine does affect the synaptic pathways I believe – again, unless I’ve misunderstood her completely. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Comment added at 22:25, March 19, 2005
Verity
I supppose it all depends whether we were talking about prolonged use or not. I think drugs can leave a permanent affect, not necessarily because they don’t get broken down (although this is probably the case sometimes), but more because they change the way synapses work. Although I think I possibly lost my train of thought somewhere and I don’t really know, myself.
Comment added at 12:49, March 20, 2005
Bob
Heavy caffine users need a certain amount of caffine (dependant on how heavy a user they are) just for their brain to function ‘normally’. Scary stuff.
Comment added at 10:41, March 24, 2005
Matthew
You can come off that though, can’t you? I’m still not sure about the residue thing. Ah well.
Comment added at 22:56, March 24, 2005