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Question: Who or what got you into brains?
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Nina Rzechorzek answered on 21 Jun 2019: last edited 21 Jun 2019 8:29 pm
Great question – I could answer this is so many different ways! I am besotted with brains, brains of all shapes and sizes; how they work, how they stop working, and how we can try to fix them. Here are some of the people and ‘things’ that got me into brains:
(1) Family and friends – people close to me who have suffered with brain trauma, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and seeing the impact this has had on their lives
(2) Scientists – neuroscience is a fascinating and ever expanding subject; there is so much left to learn about how the healthy brain works, let alone the myriad ways in which that can go wrong. There have been many great neuroscientists; here are just a few who inspired me…
Santiago Ramon y Cajal made some of the most beautiful observations of the brain that are still widely admired today: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1906/cajal/biographical/
Hodgkin and Huxley discovered how the action potential is generated in the squid giant axon:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1963/summary/
Rita Levi-Montalcini who discovered nerve growth factor and lived to 103!
https://www.nobelprize.org/womenwhochangedscience/stories/rita-levi-montalcini
Thomas Arendt who discovered how beautifully plastic the brain is under hibernating conditions; this work inspired my PhD on how cooling protects human brain cells.
http://pfi.medizin.uni-leipzig.de/pfi.site,postext,scientific-staff,a_id,953.html
My PhD supervisor Siddharthan Chandran who taught me how important ‘glia’ are in the brain:
https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/professor-siddharthan-chandran
(3) Patients – particularly the human and other animal patients I have met with devastating brain disorders for which we have no treatments such as intractable epilepsy, aggressive brain cancer, motor neurone disease and other neurodegenerative disorders
https://www.euanmacdonaldcentre.org
(4) Work experience – my first ever work experience placement was my ‘official’ week at school which I spent at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (the government department now known as DEFRA). I worked in the Neuropathology Department on prion diseases (devastating infectious neurodegenerative disorders that affect humans and animals – including BSE, and variant CJD). This was my first opportunity to actually touch brain tissue and also to see how animals were affected by these diseases – it left a lasting impression. Later in preparation for vet school I spent time in Edinburgh working at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies where I came across another devastating neurodegenerative disease in horses – grass sickness. In this disorder the ‘flight or fight’ part of the nervous system is mainly affected and patients become unable to digest food because their gut stops working. Seeing these animals gradually waste away with little hope of treatment was heartbreaking.
(5) My own extremely late chronotype – I am naturally a very ‘late night owl’ (which has its advantages and disadvantages), and have often wondered what effect this has on my brain, and whether my brain cell clocks are involved. Now we understand that circadian rhythms are disrupted in many brain disorders from epilepsy to dementia, I want to learn as much as I can about how brain cell clocks work so that we can control them for therapeutic benefit.
Comments
anon-221042 commented on :
If wanted to get into brain surgery what do you think would be the best University to get the best hand on experience?
Nina commented on :
Hi there emmzyx23x!
If you want to be a brain surgeon for humans, you need to do a general medical degree first (i.e. go to medical school) which takes 5-6 years (depending on whether you do an intercalated BSc or not), then complete 2 foundation years (FY1 and FY2) during which you would ‘state your intentions’ to focus on neurosurgery. During FY2 there is an intensive selection process to apply to get onto specialty neurosurgical training, but once in, it is then another 8-13 years of specialty training (depending not whether you include a PhD). Very long process but highly rewarding career! Here is a nice video summary of this process (skip the ads!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV5KLDx5cms
If you want to be a brain surgeon for animals, you would need a general veterinary medicine degree first (5-6 years as above) then at least a one year rotating internship (in a referral hospital) or 2 years in general practice, then you can apply for a specialty residency training programme which takes 3-4 years to gain speciality status in Neurology & Neurosurgery (this is the only specialty in veterinary medicine where you still get to do some surgery and medicine but also work with both small and large animal species).
The main difference between ‘human’ and ‘vet med’ is that for humans, you need to decide quite early in speciality training whether you are going to see just patients with medical brain/spinal cord problems (Neurology) or whether you just see patients that need surgery (Neurosurgery). Be warned that even if you love brains, many surgical case in both human and vet med are spinal cases. For both human and veterinary neurology/neurosurgery there are also several more exams to sit after medical/vet school to obtain specialist status.
Now if you have your heart set on working with brains, I strongly recommend that whether you go to med school or vet school, you do an intercalated BSc in Neuroscience (which will teach you a a lot about how the nervous system works) or Developmental Biology (which will give you a great overview of how stem cells might be used in regenerative neurology in the future), or Physiology (I did a Physiology degree before vet med, and during my final year of Physiology I chose courses that were biased towards the brain).
In terms of Universities – there are many great medical and veterinary schools in the UK so you are spoilt for choice. None of these will focus on the brain during general training, but you will get some basic training in neuroscience and neurology (along with everything else). My first degree was at Edinburgh in Physiology and I loved it – in final year I did a course on neurodegeneration and brain plasticity which was life-changing. Then I did veterinary medicine as Cambridge, followed by some time in practice, then was awarded a Wellcome Fellowship to spend 6 years back at Edinburgh where I did a PhD focusing on neuroscience (mainly working with human brain cells ‘in a dish’), and finally 3 years of specialty clinical training in veterinary Neurology & Neurosurgery.
Whatever path you choose it’s a marathon rather than a sprint – so stay focused and go steady and you’ll get there!
Wouldn’t hurt at all to get some experience in a neuroscience lab before applying to uni – might give you an edge! If you are interested in dementia, there is a great hub of Universities that are now part of the UK Dementia Research Institute – all of these universities have a wealth of clinicians and scientists working in neuroscience. Check out the ‘Centres’ section here https://ukdri.ac.uk
And good luck!