Name: The Life of the Brain
Start: 2017-05-16T
End: 2017-05-16T
Location: The Castle Bar

The human brain is one of the most complex structures in the universe, and the journey it takes through development from foetus to adulthood is just as spectacular. But the brain must fight to complete its story, with hereditary and environmental problems around every corner. What can go wrong from embryo to old age? And what is research doing to let us live long and healthy lives?

Please note that this event takes place on the ground floor and is accessible for those with impaired mobility, however there is no accessible toilet.

Mini brains: What are brain organoids?

How do we study the remarkable human brain when we are not able to perform experiments on it? Or can we? I will be introducing you to organoids, a new technology that allows us to study human-brain development in a dish. I will show you how we grow miniature brains in 3D cell culture. I will also explain what aspects of the human brain we can study using these organoids, and what they are already telling us about neurological disorders.

Losing the left side of the world

The puzzling phenomenon of unilateral spatial neglect is a stroke-related condition that occurs when patients “lose” one side of the world – typically the left. These individuals fail to eat food on the left side of the plate, ignore people on their left and cannot, from memory, describe the left side of their living room. I will describe this puzzling condition and scientists’ attempts to restore the left-side to those who have lost it.

From bench to bedside: Developing Treatments for Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia and there is currently no known cure. What are we doing in the pharmaceutical industry to develop new medicines to treat this incredibly complex disease? I will explain how we follow the science to take ideas and experiments from the lab into the clinic.

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