"Modern technology is changing the way our brains work”, says neuroscientist Susan Greenfield1. But, can the brain change the way technology works?

A most brilliant mind suggests more than just a brain. We study what happens to the brain and how, often the brain itself can open new links for us within different fields.

Dr Richard Tomsett from IBM Emerging Technology Services2 and our guest speaker also agrees and kindly took the time to talk to us about his work on the possibility of a brain-inspired chip3 which can be designed to transform mobility and the Internet of Things through sensory perception4. It was a very interesting and insightful talk giving us as future neuroscientists’ ideas of the routes we could pursue following our degrees.

As a society were able to host an online webcam conference, an event held to celebrate Brain Awareness Week. We were fortunate enough to have Dr Tomsett speak due to previous contact I had with him where I interviewed him 2 years ago for an OCR Extended Project I completed at Blackburn College on the subject of neuroscience. He was delightful then and he surpassed himself this time around when he spoke to us.

After months of planning and communication a date was set with posters put up around the university ready for the event (see below).

As well as providing information about his current research, Dr Tomsett also gave students advice which included these helpful points:

1.     Don’t be afraid to ask questions because that is the best way to learn.  
2.     Make lecturers remember you (in a good way) it will allow you to get personalised references     that are true to you when you need them.   
3.     Tweet and blog (or follow interesting Tweeps and Blogs) this will broaden your knowledge and   open up novel ventures to look into. 
4.   And finally the point that made us chuckle in astonishment at each other …probability and      statistics are really useful and genuinely interesting (one day we too will be able to...agree? –    hopefully)

Students and staff both attended the talk which ended with a fantastic question and answer session. The audience included students from Neuroscience, Psychology, Biomedical Science, Physiology and Pharmacy, Biological Science, Robotics and Computing,

Dr Richard Tomsett wrote in his feedback, “Glad you enjoyed it, thanks very much for the invitation! Congratulations to you and your team for your organisation and getting such a diverse crowd.”

As the secretary of the Neuroscience society, 2015/16 I would like to thank everyone who showed an interest in the talk and a big thank you to Dr Tomsett for all the planning and effort he kindly put in for the fantastic talk.

Slides from the talk can be viewed on the following link kindly shared by Dr Richard:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fdvu3zdmv705wtj/BrainAwarenessSynapsePresentation.pdf?dl=0  

Don’t forget to follow the neuroscience society twitter account for future events.

@neuro_soc and @richardtomsett

Written by a Neuroscientist in the making…

Farheen Rokad

Secretary of the Neuroscience Society 2015/16

After finishing the mountain that was semester one, the neuroscience society took a trip down to London to take in the sights and to (hopefully) learn a thing or two along the way. We arrived on the Saturday and with most of us having travelled the 250 odd miles from Preston to London, we quickly bedded down for the evening. We woke on the Saturday and decided to do a bit of exploring before we began the timetabled events of the society trip and upon arriving in Covent Garden came face to face with a huge reindeer in the court yard section of the area. An ample selfie opportunity that Rosie and I took advantage of.

We began the weekend by heading over to Harrods1, not normally a place students are found! However, completely in awe of the food on offer I decided to treat myself to a bit of chocolate tea. Queuing up I nearly had the shock of my life when the person before me happily handed over £50 for 4 boxes of tea. £50!! To say I was shocked would be an understatement, however I picked my jaw up off the floor, proceeded to pay for my treat of chocolate tea and continued to window shop. Once I’d had my fill of viewing things I’ve yet to afford, the group headed over to the Science Museum2, a feat easier said than done. After taking the wrong turning, we found ourselves in a quaint residential London street, walking for a good 10mins we were finally helped on our way by a delightful old French lady and her French dog walker neighbour. The upside of our lack of navigational skills (momentary deficit in our hippocampi) was the adorable dogs we were able pet and lavish attention upon.

Once we had found the huge museum, we started out by snooping through the space section of the Science Museum. Rosie and I decided to race, competing to see who could put a nut on a bolt the quickest wearing the astronaut gloves which was harder task than initially thought! Time was of the essence as the Chair of the society had us on a strict trip program, so medicine obsessed individuals, Rosie and I quickly found the medicine section and it did not disappoint. Our group swiftly moved on from the Science Museum to the Natural History Museum3, which thankfully is next door. Again we didn’t have too much time to spare so we went on a whistle stop tour of the first floor attraction was about plate tectonics. The attraction included an earthquake simulator which allowed you to experience what it is like to be in a shop during a quake, the floor shook and although enough for me to stumble, I believe health and safety had a hand in ensuring I didn’t need to start crawling under any tables.

Following the Science and Natural History Museums we made our way over to the Southbank4 to find the Christmas Markets which were located near the London eye right on the River Thames. Despite most of the stalls being food based, we still managed to find some stalls offering gifts such as huge woolen scarfs and fairy lights. Some of us regressed back to 6 years old and decided a trip on the Merry-go-round was necessary!  As a society we decided some food had to be sought out after a long day of sight seeing and we sat down for a meal together in Giraffe5. Despite giving the staff a heart attack due to having to seat 15 odd students, we had a nice meal before heading back to the hotel.

Day two of our trip saw 4 of our members heading to the BNA symposium6 whilst the rest of us headed off to more museums. We took the tube across London to the Gordon Museum of Pathology7 located at the Guy Campus of the University of King’s College London8. Despite not being open to the public we were given access and allowed to wander around the place. The museum housed real human specimens stored in formaldehyde for preservation. There were examples of every disease from gunshot wounds, to cancer, and a whole wall dedicated to brain samples. It was amazing to see all of these samples and we even got to see Alan, from the Channel 4 documentary ‘Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last’ 9, it was a welcome surprise to see him tucked away in the corner of a lecture room. We left the Gordon Museum of Pathology after wandering round for a good hour and a half and headed over to the Wellcome Collection10 only to discover it closed on Mondays (had I mentioned it had been a long semester?)  After the surprising turn of events we decided to go our separate ways with people catching trains back to Preston at different hours and others deciding to continue to wander around London, I decided however to catch an earlier train and make the hour long journey back home to hibernate until semester two.

All in all it was a brilliant and informative weekend!

Abbie Tutt
First Year Neuroscience

 

In my earlier introductory post I spoke of the popular analogy used in likening the brain to a radio and just like in a radio, components of the brain also have the potential to stop functioning or function differently. So lets say that our radio has a damaged component or a part that isn’t functioning the way it should be. This could be the antenna receiving the information or a piece of machinery involved in processing the information such as a modulator. So what happens when I turn the radio on? Is there silence? Am I left looking at a box devoid of any activity? The answer is no.  When I turn that broken radio on it in fact we can tell that it still, to some degree, works; There is still electrical activity within it, lights are on and a static noise can even be heard through the speakers.  The point is that this altered state of 'higher functioning' rather than complete lack of function seen is exactly the same in the brain. What causes this to occur can vary from injury to genetics and the resulting conditions are termed  ‘Neurological Disorders’.   

Raising awareness of neurological disorders and providing support to families affected by one of the many forms of neurological disorder is extremely important. Individuals of all ages can be affected and a major impact on not only the life of the patient but also on their surrounding family members can be seen.  The Paediatric Awareness of Neurological Disorders Association or P.A.N.D.A is a charity built on the aim of raising such awareness and providing such support to families. Based here in Preston, this neurological charity uses a number of resources to achieve their goal such as producing reading materials, holding special events and creating powerful links with medical professionals to ensure the greatest impact possible. In this manner P.A.N.D.A creates better understanding of difficult and often complex neurological disorders within the community. It is, in my opinion, a fantastic endeavour and one that I feel deserves all of our support in the neuroscience community

It is partly for this reason that I am writing this post to you all today as at this moment in time P.A.N.D.A is in need of our help. Without premises and in need of a new home, this charity desperately needs our support in helping them get one and continue doing what they do best.  The UCLan Neuroscience Society support P.A.N.D.A fully and hope to work with them in the future in their work so help us take P.A.N.D.A off of the endangered species list and take a look for yourselves! 

http://www.contactpanda.org.uk 

You can also follow P.A.N.D.A on their twitter page: 

https://twitter.com/contactpanda 

Thanks!  

Tom Barrett  

NeuroSoc Blog Co-Editor   

"What course do you study..?"

“We’re Neuroscientists…”

“Is that to do with Rockets..?”

“…”

Chris: Believe it or not, this conversation actually happened to Tom and I. One thing you have to accept when you become a student of Neuroscience is the fact that you will always be explaining what it is you study. My Grandad still to this day has told his friends 1000 different courses beginning with ‘N’ in reply to what does your grandson study?. At one point I think I have even been studying something to do with Nuclear Science.

Tom: It’s true and be prepared for a wide variety of interpretations. I have even had someone mishear me and spend the night assuming that I was studying ‘Euroscience’ and that I was intensely interested in Europe and its many workings. I can assure you this is not the case!

Chris: The first thoughts I had about Neuroscience were those of dissecting brains in labs. I viewed myself conducting open brain surgery in labs for three years, learning how to control people’s minds with tricks similar to that of Derren Brown. However, it’s safe to say that I was slightly off.

Tom: For me the prospect of studying neuroscience was actually slightly daunting. I asked myself ‘How could we even come close to scratching the surface in studying the very thing that make us who we are?’ I was, to say the least, a little apprehensive of what lay ahead.

Possibly our favorite lab of all time - Sheep brain dissection  

Chris: My first lecture was just after the fresher’s fair, I forgot the time and got there a couple of minutes late so missed the quick introduction (Hopefully I can’t get punished 3 years later). All I remember was walking into a speech about Reiki and thinking, ‘yes, here come the mind control tips’. The lecture carried on to tell us about what else we would be learning this year, this is where I realised I would not become Derren Brown, but instead a ‘real scientist’. The course was evenly weighted between psychology and biochemistry, something which to be honest I was not expecting a first. Now however I am thankful for this as it has given me a much larger knowledge base, and psychology has always been something I have wanted to study since college.

Tom: That Reiki lecture was also my first lecture and having met Chris just before that (A friendship that still lasts to this day!)  I was wondering where he was… I was sitting in a lecture hall with a bloke teaching me the apparent ins and outs of healing with my hands and not a clue what to do… It was happening; here was all the complexity I had feared! However through all of this, with Chris showing up a little later and joining me, the fear I had built up simply melted away. What had appeared to be mysterious and a bit of mental trickery was in fact just a lecture with simple logic and reasoning explaining apparent theories behind this strange belief in front of me. I could relax….

Tom in the Neuroendocrinology Lab

Chris: Since becoming a Neuroscientist I have paid a lot more attention to the scientific world. From this I have started to realise how wide spread Neuroscience is, and how it is shaping the world. One of my interests before I came to Uni was sport which I thought was far from the lab based course I signed up for. I’ve realised now however that many of our advancements in sport come from Neuroscientists, a glance at any issue of Mens Health will have quotes and papers from leading Neuroscientists about advancing sporting performance. This is the kind of real world science I love to see, and hope to one day be a part of. Something I was doubtful about when I applied for university.

Tom: It’s true that Neuroscience has provided me with a broader perspective of the world and throughout my time here at the University of Central Lancashire I have developed a great appreciation for its many applications in science. I feel that here a great balance is created between lab work and lectures, making the content a lot more interesting and enjoyable. Great support is also a defining feature of the course with lecturers always on hand to provide great input and advice when asked. I have even been able to tailor my course to my own interests and conduct my dissertation on a topic of my choosing. This resulted in me partaking in a trip to the Everest Base Camp in the Himalayan region of Nepal (But that is a post for another time!). I feel that my studies in Neuroscience have had a great impact on me, developing me into the person I am today and providing me with a great number of skills applicable in a professional environment.

Brain Research Trust Fundraiser - David, Tom and Chris (left to right)

The idea behind this post was to explain a little about how our own interpretations of Neuroscience, after 3 years of study, have changed. From the beginning where we thought of the brain as something of intense complexity, almost too difficult to even begin to study to now where we realise that with enough effort and enthusiasm, anything is possible!

To those reading it will hopefully give a little feedback to how we have developed over our time here at UCLan and how we now see Neuroscience in the modern world.

Thanks for reading!

Chris Neil & Tom Barrett

3rd Year Neuroscience Students 

NeuroSoc Blog Editors

With the level of fierce competition in applying for post-graduate jobs and research positions these days, simply having a degree is often not enough to set you apart from the rest. It is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out of the crowd in the eyes of potential employers and this ability to stand out is ever more crucial in academic environments especially if your plan is to apply for postgraduate studies after your degree. Coupled with a good degree, earned through many hours of dedicated study and hard work, having research experience can often be the icing on top of the cake and be extremely  beneficial to your application. So let’s see what research opportunities UCLan currently have to offer.

Tip 1. Volunteering.

Offer yourself as a volunteer to help in any ongoing studies being undertaking by the staff. It is the best way to show your enthusiasm and passion for science and the good news is that it is very rare for you to be rejected. In addition, any relevant volunteering experience goes directly to your C.V. enhancing what I like to call your  `General Awesomeness`. Just ask your favourite lecturer about it. If she/he is not conducting any research at the moment, they could tell you who to ask. As an example we have BIL: UCLan’s Brain Imaging Lab. They offer research assistant positions every now and then and accept volunteers throughout the year. Check their Facebook page for the latest news!:

UCLan BIL

Tip 2. Internships.

UCLan offers paid internships every year through the Undergraduate Research Internship Scheme (URIS). Students that pass the selection process usually work for 8 to 10 weeks during the summer with qualified researchers on specific projects and even have the potential to be published in scientific journals.  I cannot stress enough how good it would be for your C.V. to have some real work experience in research. Unfortunately competition is tough but this is where your previous volunteering experience can make the difference and give you access to this valuable resource. Keep checking their webpage here:

URIS Webpage

It only gets better and better! If you are fortunate enough to get in to one of the projects you will end up giving a poster presentation on your work.

Presentation Day

On top of this, all URIS students are invited to present their work at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in USA. 1000 projects are selected for exposition from universities across America and Europe. The location of the conference changes every year with the conference being held in Kentucky last year and soon to be held in Washington this year.

http://www.cur.org/

Tip 3. Keep trying!

Didn’t get an internship? Don’t give up! Some opportunities won't be advertised through the URIS scheme but through the Job Portal of UCLan. Take a look!

UCLan Job Portal

It is well worth it to keep an eye on this page. In my case, I could not get one of the internships offered by URIS but some late projects were advertised at the Job Portal and I just took the chance. Enthusiasm and eagerness to learn are critical in the interview so don’t be shy and show how much you would enjoy working and learning. Thanks to this I was part of a project looking into the properties of Solid Lipid Nanoparticles (SLN) as drug carriers for the treatment of glioblastomas. My role was to test the toxic effects of a surfactant used in the production of SLN on U-87 MG glioblastoma cell line. As a result next April I will assist to the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Washington to give a poster presentation on the results of my summer internship. This is an incredible opportunity for me and I will try to get the most out of the experience.

I hope this small guide and personal experience could provide you all with a few tips on how to make the most of the research opportunities here at UCLan.  Good luck with it all!

All the best,
David Romero Perez 
3rd year Neuroscience Student

'I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.'

- Oliver Sacks ‘My Own Life’

A prominent figure in his field and a hugely inspiring gentleman, Dr. Sacks recently wrote a short piece about his diagnosis in the New York Times. It was, true to form, an immensely insightful and beautiful piece of writing. For those of you who haven’t yet read a book by Dr. Sacks we would strongly recommend that you have a look and see for yourselves what a fantastic writer he is and how interesting he makes the topic.

The article can be found here at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html?_r=0

Being an undergraduate student of Neuroscience at UCLan has allowed me to explore a plethora of opportunities and experiences that goes beyond studying for a degree. Here, I can show how I have benefited from one such experience, the Undergraduate Research Internship Scheme (URIS).

The URIS is aimed specifically at undergraduate students at UCLan, to offer the opportunity for a select number of students to work on novel research projects advertised by researchers and academics at the university, with about 5/6 annually allocated to the School of Psychology. I was fortunate enough to be selected to work on an exciting project titled ‘Attentional Focus of Motor Performance in Dentistry’.

You’re probably thinking what has dentistry got to do with Psychology and Neuroscience? I believe this shows an excellent advantage that a student of Neuroscience at UCLan can gain. The degree course offers a diverse range of skills and knowledge, including analytical and statistical knowhow, an eye for critical thinking and a simple passion to find an answer to questions posed from the science community. These are just a few skills that I have developed which aided my application to the URIS. I will now speak about what I experienced on the internship and, most importantly, what I have gained from the internship. As I have mentioned, the URIS advertises research project that recruits students to contribute to a ground-breaking piece of research. Research in academia has the potential to have a real-life impact, which exemplifies the importance and quality of work required by students working on these projects. During the 10 week internship, I was constantly incorporated into the work of the research project that aimed to study whether dental performance could be implicated by the way dentists think. The opportunity to be able to contribute to a piece of research that has the potential to impact a key area of public benefit is a unique opportunity offered by the URIS scheme at UCLan. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg when considering the benefits of this scheme.

Presenting my research internship work at the 'UCLan Research Exhibition' 2014

One such advantage of the URIS at UCLan has been the chance to work at a level similar to those in academia. This benefit has aided my development as a student of Neuroscience to help with my final year studies and has given me the confidence to pursue the achievement of getting a 1^stclass degree of Neuroscience. Being able to experience this level of academia also provides a unique experience to help my career ambition to enter a career in research following my undergraduate degree. Having the experience of the URIS on my CV augments my chances of securing PhD positions that will help my chances of becoming an academic researcher.

A second of many benefits to the URIS scheme is the one that is yet to happen. In April 2015, myself and 11 other interns (7 of whom study Psychology/Neuroscience) have been accepted to present our various research projects at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research, held at Eastern Washington University in the USA. For an undergraduate to be able to go to America and present the research I’ve worked on is an opportunity that I am grateful for, and all from the services that UCLan offer. This final adventure of the URIS is an outstanding way to end the scheme, sharing my research to an international audience with the great friends I’ve made at UCLan.

A final point I want to make in this blog post concerns the fact that only a select number of students are able to work on the URIS scheme. Nevertheless, the research opportunities on offer at UCLan are open to all Neuroscience students. That is, students are able to volunteer for academics who undertake their research projects throughout the year. The only pre-requisite needed to volunteer for these projects is the willingness and passion to work with academics. If you’re willing to put your time and energy into these opportunities at UCLan, then you will come out of your degree with experience that helps your life and career after graduation. From personal experience, I have utilised these opportunities to develop a passion within Neuroscience research in being able to use brain imaging technology to study human behaviour. I will blog about my passion for brain imaging in later posts so keep your eyes peeled for more posts!!

Thanks for reading!

Matthew Plummer
3rd year Neuroscience Student