Return to Main Menu

Think about it...Brain Awareness Week March 11-17  Think about it. The brain is where all this thinking occurs, yet it’s the very place few people think about—until something goes wrong. To get more people to think about the brain, how it works and what neuroscientists are doing to prevent and reverse damage to the brain, MUSC’s Department of Physiology/Neuroscience and the Neuroscience Institute will observe “Brain Awareness Week,” March 11-17, with a day-long seminar in the Institute of Psychiatry Auditorium on Friday, March 15. “Frontiers in Neuroscience, Learning and Brain Plasticity” will include presentations from research scientists on addictions, aging, Parkinsonism and memory. It will be MUSC’s opportunity to participate in the week-long international campaign coordinated by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. MUSC, in recent years, has grown its neuroscience program from a small number of biomedical investigators with individual neurologically related research projects to its present-day Neuroscience Institute. The institute offers a coordinated approach to research in neuroscience with enhanced opportunities for collaboration and sharing of core technologies. MUSC’s physiology and neuroscience research includes projects in addiction, affective disorders, deafness, blindness, memory and learning in aging, the brain’s role in organizing movement and what happens to the brain in diseases such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of shock, spinal cord damage as it relates to diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and neuroimaging to study brain circuitry and cellular function. Currently, MUSC’s training in physiology and neuroscience includes 12 Ph.D., two M.D./Ph.D., and five M.S. students all supported by the College of Graduate Studies or National Institutes of Health funding; more than 30 postdoctoral and clinical research fellows, supported by two NIH training grants, plus individual grants; and National Science Foundation undergraduate research grants to train S.C. minority students in neuroscience and to bring students to the university for summer research training. Since its inception in 1996, Brain Awareness Week has emerged as a unique vehicle for reaching young people. To communicate the importance and excitement of brain research to the next generation of neuroscientists, MUSC will host pre-college students to the campus on Thursday to tour institute laboratories and even do a little hands-on brain activity themselves. The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives is a non-profit organization of more than 200 leading neuroscientists, including nine Nobel laureates. It is a unique global partnership of more than 1,300 scientific institutions, patient advocacy groups, government agencies, service groups, hospitals, universities, K-12 schools and affiliates in 46 countries. For information and schedules, visit the Neuroscience Institute Web site at http://www.musc.edu/neuroscienceinstitute/.