I recently finished a Neuroscience major at Brigham Young University. And oh my goodness, you guys. I found my thing. At least my undergraduate thing. I'm still excited and adamant about pursuing a Masters Degree in Occupational Therapy, but if I had multiple lives, I'd love to also be a researching Neuroscientist, and a Biochemical Engineer, and a Doctor... There is so much cool stuff to learn in this world.
Neuroscience is a hot topic in the world today, and my major has something of a "wow" factor to those I meet. I think people are curious and intimidated about the subject, and I thought I could try to satiate some of that curiosity and lessen that intimidation. I also think it adds so much to all our lives when we record and share what we learn when we can, so this is also an effort for me to do that. I personally wish I could see the personal reflections of History Majors, English Majors, German Majors, Human Development Majors, and all you other majors - and workers, and parents, and friends. There is so much we can learn from each other, and I hope there is something here I can share that can be enjoyable for you to learn.
A large purkinje neuron of the cerebellum between the molecular and granular layers - a picture I took using a microscope in class!
So, here goes. Things I learned from my undergraduate experience:
Your body is a miracle
Another human body was created in my body this past year. We all know a little about how that works, but the more I learned, the more in awe I became. The baby itself is what signals the mother's body to be a good environment for it to grow. The baby creates the intricate nourishing mechanism that is the placenta. Within this environment, the baby is a single layer of cells, and then three. A signal from the second layer signals part of the top layer (the ectoderm) to become the brain and not - wait for it - skin! Neurons are born near the ventricles and then migrate outward, forming the layers of the cortex, and a complex combination of signals released in gradients from specific directions help each cell know what it should become. Signals released from neural progenitor cells interact with neighboring cells to help them know if they should become neurons or the supporting glial cells. All of this - and SO much more - happens without the conscious decision of the mother or the baby.
The baby's cells basically create itself - the most complicated, evolutionarily advanced being on the planet. This is a being that is able to think for itself and can choose someday to study for years to try to find out how its brain is able to think so efficiently and effectively as it does.
The evolution that led to that kind of a being and the ability for simple cells to create such amazing life so beautifully and with relatively few mistakes when there is SO much that could go wrong, is an absolute miracle to me. I know that my body helped to sustain the life of our beautiful Charlie as she grew, but I feel like the more I learn, the more I believe it was really God who created her - or orchestrated her creation to be able to be so wonderfully perfect - and not me.
On a similar note, I have also become really grateful for homeostasis. That my body is able to balance all its complex systems in different environments so effectively is amazing! Not to mention the fact that molecules like hormones can be used in our brains and our bodies and trigger receptors on very different organs and that the same neurotransmitters can trigger very different effects in different neurons of the brain and all this is happening seamlessly without our awareness. It's incredible.
How to be a happy old person
Human development, psychology, and behavioral neuroscience classes all touched on aging and what makes people more likely to be happy or more or less likely to have neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's Disease. I found these insights fascinating, because I feel like as we are trying to get the most out of life and live it to its fullest, we should all aspire to be happy old people. These classes, as well as comments from wonderful TED talks and insightful people, all came back to the same patterns.
I have mentally noted these patterns as a recipe to help me become a happy old person (not to mention a happy any-age person in the process): meaningful relationships, activities, and learning. Having healthy and meaningful relationships, even with only a handful of people, does wonders for your mental, emotional, and physical health. They can improve mood and perspective and help people be happier no matter their physical condition. "Activity theory" in psychology is the idea that when the elderly are engaged in activities that are meaningful to them (volunteering, being involved in the community, visiting family, traveling, bingo night - all sorts of things) it adds to their meaning and purpose. These activities are often inextricably intertwined (those are actually the words that came to mind there - how fun!) with social groups, and they can also play a role in the last ingredient to my happy-old-person recipe: learning. While doing or not doing a crossword puzzle a day may not tip the scale between you developing or not developing Alzheimer's Disease,
doing something new and exercising our brains works wonders, and can potentially be protective against neurodegenerative diseases. The notion that you "inevitably" lose your memory with age is mostly not true, and your brain - like an ax - can serve you well as you continue to use it as a tool and keep it sharp. You can learn new things at any age, and doing so helps you be healthier and happier.
You're not cursed to be clumsy, forgetful, or bad at cooking
While growing up, there were times I felt I was incurably clumsy, forgetful, or bad at cooking. It is so tempting to accept that something is "just the way I am" and we'll just have to work around it. But that is simply not how our brains work. In fact, when we think we think we are stuck in a habit, our brains and bodies are more likely to accept it. There is a big difference between focusing on what we do and who we are. I have seen this again and again - in the "Super Brain" book (that I will mention again later), in "Daring Greatly" by Brene Brown, and in effective and positive parenting strategies like those taught by @simplyonpurpose. When we tell a child (or ourselves) they are forgetful, it is reinforced to them and their brains may feel resigned to that fate. However, when we say they have forgotten something and should think about what they can do next time, the power of the brain is harnessed to help with learning. Just like we aren't inevitably forgetful in old age, "Mom brain" and "pregnancy brain" aren't inevitable either.
No one is inevitably resigned to be bad at something (with the possible exception of diagnosed disabilities). Our life circumstances may change drastically and give us more to think about, but we are still people who forget sometimes and not forgetful people. This idea has been really empowering to me. I didn't feel resigned to doing worse in school when pregnant and when I had a baby, and I honestly did very well in school. I don't feel like I will be inevitably worse in graduate school, though it may be the challenge of a lifetime. I don't feel clumsy or forgetful or bad at cooking anymore. I have chosen to work on those things, and on the occasion that I do forget something or the kitchen is a little smoky, I can laugh and know I can try again. Forgetfulness and clumsiness and "not being able to draw" (or do any skill) are not medical diagnoses and are things we very much have control over and can change if they are important to us.
Memory Strategies
My Cognition class this last semester talked in depth about various memory strategies that can help us improve our memory and be more likely to remember something. These were such fun and useful things to learn. When wanting to remember something,
deep processing is better for your memory than shallow processing. For example, thinking about why the uncertainty principle in Chemistry is important will probably help you remember it better than simply trying to memorize what it is. Deep processing can include
elaboration (connecting it to other ideas and things you have learned before and learning more about it) and
distinctiveness (thinking about how it is different from other things you have learned and what makes it unique. Similarly,
testing yourself and making yourself
recall information (like flashcards where you can only see one side and have to fill in the answer) is more effective than repetition and recognition (like scanning over a page of notes and feeling like it is familiar so you should be okay).
Visual imagery can be a powerful memory technique. Creating a vivid picture is a powerful way to elaborate on an idea or remember it. I have personally found this really useful for trying to remember lists without writing them down and referring to them (which I don't do often, but is a good exercise). Organizing the information (especially when it should be in a certain order) in a
hierarchy/chart or in a vivid
narrative story can be powerful as well. This is where the "mind palace" idea from Sherlock Holmes comes into play (:
Interestingly, we also talked about
external memory aids in this class - like a calendar, a phone, and lists when necessary. Learning about strategies like these gave me insight into how I worked to remember different things in my life. Personally, if I need to remember something for a short amount of time, I simply rehearse it in my head and practice testing myself for recall as many times as I can (not the most effective strategy for long-term retention, but effective in the short term). For learning in classes, I try to process the information I learn deeply so it sinks in and feels like it makes sense rather than is a list of things I need to remember. When I do need to memorize things to fill in the gaps of my learning, or when trying to remember something specific in a daily setting like a name, a street name, or something I need to remember to do in the future, I use visual imagery or (for daily remembering) an external memory aid. I loved thinking more about how I think, and thinking about how I can improve my retention in the future.
Scientific Literature and Critical Thinking
One of the "scariest" but most important things I learned in my undergraduate education was to
become familiar with scientific literature. I went from feeling the dread of having to read through a paper and try to dissect out its meaning to being assigned a research paper for a class like Sociology or General Psychology and including way more than the required three references to peer-reviewed articles.
Scientific literature can be dense and confusing, but it is powerful, and you usually don't have to really understand every nuance of the procedure. Having somewhere like Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) where you can go and find sources that have been vetted for validity and reliability is empowering. You have so much good knowledge at your fingertips. If you want to know more about how the brain works, you can probably learn more than I know by reading articles like these in your spare time. The Google Scholar database includes many of the very articles my capstone Neuro 481 (Advanced Neuroscience) class read through, such as
this one on depression and dendritic spines or
this one (one of my very favorites) on how oxytocin (or social bonding) helps lessen the stress response.
We live in a day where saying anything along with the words "research shows" or "studies show" gives you immediate credibility. That is both wonderful and scary. It is wonderful to have this research and be using it to improve knowledge and actions, but it is scary to feel like you always have to conform to what someone is telling you when "research says...". You don't have to feel that way!
You can always look into it yourself, and you really should when you can - especially when regarding an issue that is important to you. You can go to Google Scholar and type in anything you are interested in (I usually start with a word like "parenting" or "autism" because those always spark my interest).
It is also important to be careful with what some articles claim. While people work very hard on research and usually have the best intentions,
not all studies are repeatable with the same results. Other studies can be attractive by showing significant effects, but not all those significant effects are clinically useful or significant in real life. (For example, one article my Neuro 481 class read showed significantly more regrowth in a spinal cord after injury when certain receptors were inhibited, but this significant growth amounted to .04 more axons per animal in the severed tract of the spine, and extending only 2500 microns or so down the spine past the lesion.)
Statistical significance is important, but the usefulness of that information in life is really what we are looking for. I owe a wonderful professor (Mike Brown) credit for reminding us students of that.
It's all in an ion channel
Chances are that you, like me, learned in some entry-level science class or kitchen-table experiment that when there is a hole in a membrane and more of something (like food coloring) on one side, it will flow down its concentration gradient until both sides of the membrane have equal concentrations. Replace that food coloring with charged particles (ions), and this is kind of how the neurons of your brain work! The neurons of your brain have channels for sodium, calcium, chloride, and potassium ions, and when these channels are open, the ions flow through the channels according to their concentration gradients until that concentration gradient is exactly balanced out by a competing electrical gradient (because they're charged particles). The proper regulation of these ion channels helps you do all the thinking and moving you please. Too much stimulation of channels, too little, or improper closing of the channels can lead to things like epilepsy, the inhibiting effects of alcohol, or the euphoria of other drugs. Neurotransmitters come into play in between the neurons to help them communicate with each other and open and close the proper ion channels on their membranes. The actual flow of these ions - which are charged - is what makes up the electricity of our brains that can be picked up by things like an EEG.
To be fair, there are other complications, but the fact that something as simple as ion channels working together has such a big effect is pretty cool to me. Sodium channels are the main excitation channels, and some sea creatures can use these channels to cause such strong ionic currents
inside their bodies that it causes other creatures outside of them to get shocked. That blows my mind. Blocking these sodium channels are what allow us to be numbed by epidurals or lidocaine shots (and I'm sure grateful for that!) If you wondered about the secrets of how the brain works, a whole lot of it comes down to these tiny food coloring gates. One of my favorite things I learned this last semester was how the voltage-gated channel sensor works. If you're curious, I'll explain it in the next little paragraph below. If you're tired of these channels at this point, I understand.
The fact that something so small can make so much sense and be so important is just beautiful to me.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/General-architecture-of-a-voltage-gated-ion-channel-A-Each-subunit-is-composed-of-six_fig1_23457002
The "voltage sensor" of a voltage-gated ion channel is a positively charged section of protein that (like the channel) goes through the membrane of the neuron. When the neuronal membrane is at rest, the inside of the neuron is more negatively charged than the outside (about 70 mV less than the outside). This negative charge pulls the positively voltage sensor (the S4 region shown above) toward it (or downward according to the picture) and keeps the channel shut. When the inside of the cell becomes depolarized (because of other channels opening, or depolarization coming from another part of the neuron), the more positive (up to 60 mV more positive than the outside of the neuron) inside of the neuron pushes the voltage sensor up. This pulls on the S5 region of the channel which then bends and opens the channel! It can close using this same mechanism and a lack of depolarization, or be closed early by something like a blocking particle. I hope that explanation made some sort of sense. Mom if you read this, this is something I'd love to tell Dad. He's like me in liking to explain cool things that make a lot of sense to him, and that's totally what I'm doing right now :D
There's a whole lot we don't know
As you can imagine, with billions of neurons with their own set of ion channels, neurotransmitters, and intricate connections, the specifics of every neuron and every connection is still unknown (though there are projects like the "Connectome" that are working on it). Bigger pieces of the "secrets of the brain" puzzle are still missing too. It has been really humbling to learn about the mechanics of the brain and the psychology and see the many (sometimes obvious) holes that remain. We know that the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe are involved in the formation of new memories and memory storage, but we don't know all the details. We keep dancing the line between biology and psychology, known and unknown.
Continuing to learn has brought about some really neat discoveries! Those diligent researchers working so hard and long to work at such a tiny scale deserve a lot of credit. Recent discoveries I have found particularly interesting are
"glymphatics" or the idea that your brain literally washes itself with fluid as you sleep (yes, there is truth to that!) and this can be important for your brain's health. My favorite recent discovery is that
the supporting glial cells around neurons also signal to neurons and other glial cells. When I heard this, I first thought, "What?! There's no way." It didn't take long to move to the thought, "Well of course. It's always more complicated than we think." You can read more about glial signaling in articles like
this one. I personally don't find this unknown disappointing, but rather see it as beautiful.
We can travel to Mars but haven't figured out how we think yet. How cool and complicated are our brains?! I think this unknown also brings a spiritual element to it. I recently read the book "Super Brain: Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-Being", written by a Ph.D. and M.D. working together. I highly recommend it, by the way - it was perspective changing for me and provoked a lot of thought. They proposed that we are not our brains - that we use our brains and are affected by their circuitry, certainly, but that we can't be reduced to the workings of our cells. That
who we are, or what our consciousness is made of, is ultimately separate from our brains and more powerful. I found that incredibly beautiful and inspiring. I believe it.
Respect and a Desire for Conversations
The very real unknown in Neuroscience combined with the feeling - very real for me - that "the more I learn, the less I know", has interestingly given me a lot of respect for... well, everyone. We're all learning and doing our best with what we know. I came to college drawn to the "hard sciences" where you think you can explain away everything. And to be fair, you can explain a lot, and the research that helps us find more explanations is so valuable. But I've come to see that
even when we wish life were black and white, there is so much gray. I sometimes became frustrated or would laugh at my Cognition textbook which would explain multiple psychological theories for something like mental imagery and then ultimately come to the conclusion that multiple theories were at least partially right. Though I still sometimes wish we could draw more distinct lines, the researchers that work in the grayer area of the "softer sciences" have gained so much respect from me. What a difficult task.
This has only increased my desire to have meaningful conversations with those around me. I know my neighbor, my professor, my little sister, and the garbage man all have something inspiring to teach me. Humans of New York is a great example of this.
We are around each other so much, but do we really pick each other's brains for the different and important knowledge we all hold? Getting together with family, high school friends, or groups of moms alike, I come back to wondering what everyone thinks and knows. These kinds of conversations are so valuable, and I've been inspired to start them more when I can.
I can do anything... and so can you.
The VAST majority of Neuroscience majors at BYU are Pre-Med. Going Pre-Med is something that I considered for my life, but ultimately felt wasn't the path meant for me. Learning alongside, studying with, and helping to teach (as a TA) these many Pre-Med students has been an amazing experience for me. I have learned that I could honestly become a wonderful doctor if I wanted to, and I have good friends accepted to medical schools and wonderful professors with M.D.s and Ph.D.s who would back me up in saying that. I never thought I would be able to be close enough to the process of applying to medical schools to be able to say something like that with any sort of confidence.
I saw ALL sorts of people who are going to become dang good doctors. Those who flew through classes with straight-As, those who really struggled to get those kinds of grades but were incredibly kind people, and those who retook classes several times and were sometimes kinda bummed out but still holding onto their dream. I know the process of getting through medical school is a world all its own, but these people have made it into medical schools and are working hard to pursue their dreams, and they're going to get there. I loved this. It helped me see I really could do that too. I could really do anything I wanted to if I put my mind to it, even if it was hard or didn't come naturally at first. I know there are real limitations sometimes, and people can feel legitimately stuck and like there is no way out of their niche of life (if this is you, I'd love to talk to you and see if the resources we both have and the people we know can't help us come up with something). But generally,
if you want to be a doctor, do it. If you want to be an artist, do it. If you have always wanted to try out that new skill or develop that new talent but aren't very good at it, try it and work on it. You can totally do it. If you want to be a chef, do it. If you want to be a stay-at-home mom (which is a complicated and difficult task all its own), by golly, do it. Do you and do it well.
I love teaching
Inevitably, my time as a Neuroscience major taught me many things about me. It taught me surprising things - like that it really was possible to get 100% on a test at college and be the highest grade in your class sometimes. (But really, who knew?! That is so crazy to me.) It taught me it's okay to let go a little and wear PJ's to test reviews on campus. And interestingly, it taught me that I love teaching. I felt drawn to leadership positions in high school, but I always saw my older sister as the teacher of the family, even when we did humanitarian work together in Peru and both led regular classes teaching English. My first semester, I took Chem 105 (a life-changing class for me, by the way. It's where I met Andrew!). Twice a week, we met with a TA in "Recitations" where we went through practice problems and could ask questions and work together. I had an awesome TA, and was drawn to what he was doing. I became a TA for Chem 105, then Chem 106, and then Chem 351 (O Chem). I loved Recitations, whether we went through a practice sheet or I came up with my own problems to go through. Preparing material for recitations (and test reviews) was a challenge, and I definitely had my humbling experiences of messing things up and being corrected, but
I felt so alive in a position where I tried my darnedest to use my knowledge to prepare material and explain things in a way that would be helpful and make a difference. This has made me only more excited for my dream of becoming an Occupational Therapist, where I can build on my love for the sciences and use my knowledge to work with and help people.
Final Thoughts
These are the reflections from my Neuroscience Major that stand out the most to me right now. I will likely continue to learn from and reflect on different things I have learned, because - like with any big endeavor - I've come out a different (and hopefully better!) person, and different things often stand out to me as I continue to experience life. I'm so grateful for the experiences I had to learn, and that we all have so many opportunities to learn through education, work, experience, families, and relationships. I hope to be better at asking for and tastefully sharing meaningful things learned with those around me, so we can all learn more and be better because of each other.
