For a long time,
ever since I was a little kid,
I wanted to be an astronaut.
I wanted to explore space,
and help expand the human frontier.
And I’ve always been interested in science.
And knew I wanted to be a scientist
since I was about 12 years old.
As a teenager, studying space
represented a chance to understand
our place and my place in the universe.
When I left for college at MIT,
planning to study aerospace engineering,
I was ready for liftoff.
But what happened next surprised me.
I discovered neuroscience.
As an undergraduate,
I took introductory courses in
psychology and neuroscience from
passionate professors who
loved what they taught.
And the facts and topics they discussed
were just so amazing.
Like how the patient H.M.
couldn’t form new memories after
having his hippocampus removed to
treat his epilepsy.
Or how there are more synaptic connections
in your brain than there are
stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
And it seemed like every time I learned
something new about the brain,
I had ten more questions.
Questions that science couldn’t answer yet.
See, that’s what really drew me into neuroscience.
I discovered that studying neuroscience
is a chance to understand ourselves.
It presented these huge questions about
what it means to be human.
Are we really the only intelligent beings?
Will we ever be able to pinpoint the seat of
consciousness in the brain?
Can we figure out what exactly makes me...me?
Through my undergraduate courses,
I kept getting more and more interested
in the microscopic, unseen processes
that make up our brain.
Ultimately, my curiosity about
how our brain develops led me to
pursue a PhD in neuroscience,
and I’m now in my 5th year at UC San Diego.
And now, every day, I get to work on
those big questions.
For my thesis work, I’m studying
the roles of astrocytes.
Cells that make up about half of
all the glia in the brain, and provide
support and resources to neurons.
Even though I didn’t plan on studying
astrocytes when I got to grad school,
I absolutely love my research.
Astrocytes are fascinating because
we know so little about them.
While scientists have spent decades
identifying different types of neurons
and their connections in the brain,
it’s only been in the last 20 years that
glial cells have gotten much attention at all.
For example, we know that astrocytes
are important for helping neurons form
connections with one another.
When neurons are grown with
astrocytes in a dish,
they form five times as many synapses
as they do without astrocytes.
But we’re still figuring out why
astrocytes are important for
forming those connections.
And in fact, that’s the main focus
of my research!
I’m trying to figure out how the proteins
astrocytes spit out influence the ways that
neurons grow and connect with one another.
And how changes in those proteins
caused by genetic mutations can lead to
problems with growth and communication.
Even though a lot of my work would seem
boring to many other people
because I spend so much time setting up
for experiments, counting cells, and
dealing with mice,
I love working on this question every day.
See, neuroscience is rewarding.
It’s like I’m at the edge of the
vast expanse of human knowledge,
and I’m carefully chipping away at
this small question.
But that small question is connected to
a big one.
Because if I can figure out how
genetic mutations change how astrocytes function,
it might open the door to new therapies
for treating genetic neurodevelopmental disorders.
Someday the work that I do might help
people who are struggling with
serious medical conditions.
It really is a kind of exploration.
Not on the surface of another planet,
but of the human mind.
I am boldly going where no one has gone before.
And at the end of long days in the
tissue culture room or analyzing data,
sometimes there are moments of discovery.
I get excited because I found a
really interesting protein in my data set,
or discovered that my candidate testing worked.
These are moments when I am
literally the only person in the whole world
who knows a new thing about the brain.
And that’s pretty amazing.
That’s a huge part of why we started
this YouTube channel in the first place.
Because I wanted to have the chance to
share all of those amazing moments with you.
I can’t share my own research yet,
but I love getting to talk about neuroscience
and helping other people understand their brains,
and therefore themselves,
just a little bit better.
Thanks for watching this episode of Neuro Transmissions.
If you liked it, hit that thumbs up button,
and subscribe to learn more about
your brain in the future.
Until our next transmission, I’m Alie Astrocyte.
Over and out.