so you have these neurotransmitters coming into the synapse and what happens
with them? the receptors have to do with it what happens to the neurotransmitters and the receptors?
The Zuckerman Institute is conceived of being a cross-campus, interdisciplinary neuroscience Research
Institute and we consider our mission to include engaging with the public and
increasing people's awareness about brain and brain science and to do that
we have a number of programs that interface with the public and one of
them is the Brainiac program. This is our signature program for high school
students in which we admit about 14 or more students each year to train them in
neuroscience concepts, how a lab works, we give them safety training, they learn a
little bit about the campus and about science in general.
Coming into the lab I
didn't really know what to expect. Working with people older than you, more
educated than you, I was a bit nervous and then coming here and having everyone
so willing to help and so cooperative it was really eye-opening and inspiring to
see like people so willing to help you out
I've never really knew a career I wanted to pursue, so when I heard about research I wanted to like sort of
explore to see if I would like it and it turns out that I really do like it I've
been working with different proteins to see how they behave like compared to
other proteins that they already found before so it's really cool to see
something that nobody else has seen like it's just research that I've been doing, and it's all new
research is very much an art you know a lot of people have a
misconception about science then if you memorize a lot of facts and you organize
them together well that you'll be a good scientist right that's how high schools
teach science it's our schools tend to teach science but science is an art it's
very much a creative process where you imagine how things are moving you make a
hypothesis then you test it and because it's such an art it's important to have
diverse opinions so you know the students that we have in our lab
I want their input I want them to put their paint strokes on
the on the painting because their input into this this movement is critical when
I first met him he told me what his lab was about and he did it with a drawing
and it's like a-- you don't really expect that from a doctor like to draw
something in front of you and make it like put into terms were a kid would
understand it so it was like an experience I've really cherished
I think it's absolutely essential for me to open up the lab first of all it gives me
great pleasure but second of all because it recapitulates my own life there was
no one less likely to do science than I I didn't know what the lab was like a
social environment you and me interacting talking about things
designing simple experiments that you then do with your own hands you see the
results of your own ideas are the ideas right are the ideas wrong it's a
wonderful experience this is what I think Brainiac is about I think it's to
bring kids into environment where they see the intellectual excitement the
social engagement that goes on
you essentially see the little scientists in
these students growing at the very beginning they think I can't do this I'm
not smart enough this is too hard and many of them by the end actually want to
stay in the lab we try to prepare them for their summer experience from the
very practical things like pipetting making measurements making solutions to
more theoretical things like what is a neuron
I want to become a neuro surgeon
and Brainiac has just educated me about the parts of the brain and I just know
more about neurology and it's helped me a lot
one of the nice things about this program is it allows you know the students to learn a lot about research
but it actually helps me because she's doing valuable work so Cheyenne was
identifying the or creating three-dimensional representations of the
areas of the brain that were removed by neurosurgeons in some sense she was
doing a lot of the same kind the things that any graduate student might actually be doing in this lab
I think it's important to realize that the
function of university makes the teaching and research it inseparable
this is another generation of colleagues that we're bringing in to help the work
and as they work they learn now with the Zukerman mine brain behavior initiative
we're going to be in Manhattanville we're going to be sort of opening
ourselves up so we can really have a useful in fact in the community and try
to get young people interested in some of the most exciting scientific
questions of our time