Voyage within: Navigating the brain and its memories

An understanding of the brain has eluded scientist for over 100 years. Unlike physics—where solutions can be written down in a small handful of equations—neuroscientists regularly struggle to make head or tail of the signals emerging from the mushy biological computers living inside our head. This problem is compounded: Perhaps if we knew what the brain was thinking, we could understand how it thinks it. But do we even know the former? In this talk we’ll see some of the techniques scientists have used to make progress on these issues and what secrets of the brain they have uncovered.

The brain is a complex organ serving many purposes in the body, including storing our memory. Cells of the brain, called neurons, are important for this function. Their activity is regulated by particular molecules. Some of these molecules, called proteins, can form clumps in the brain. This dangerous phenomenon can kill the neurons, irreversibly damaging the brain and its ability to store the memory. This is what happens in dementia. I am going to tell you about the work we are doing in understanding how these clumps generate, for catching them as soon as they form or even preventing or reverting their formation.