Science, biology and the brain

I didn't expect to be writing a blog post today because I was due to have chemo treatment number 3 on Tuesday, which pretty much wipes me out for at least a week. 

But... a regular blood test at the weekend showed that my neutrophils (type of white blood cell) are too low, so my oncologist has postponed treatment for a couple of weeks to let my cell count recover. I'm not unduly worried by this and it's nice to have a bit of breathing space!

It also gives me an opportunity to update the blog and today I'm going to share the first of several blogs (I hope) about some of the things that have made me who I am. My passions and interests and with them some memories of special times and people.

So this blog is going to be all about my interest in science, and particularly in biology and  the brain.

Growing up, discussion of scientific ideas was very much part of family life. My father was a physicist, and both my older sisters studied science subjects at A-level (and went on to become a dentist and a vet respectively). I remember really looking forward to studying biology as a proper subject when I went to secondary school, rather than the rather tame 'nature studies' we did at primary school. The school I went to up to O-levels (private, girls only, yes I know) was very small and there was basically just one science teacher, the marvellous (and aptly named) Mrs Gaskill.

Mrs Gaskill had something of a reputation for being strict, and she certainly didn't suffer fools gladly, but she loved her subject and she was an excellent teacher. I can still remember her beautifully clear diagrams and her explanations of how the heart works, or the structure of the cell. She also taught physics and chemistry and I remember the very distinct smell when she prepared chlorine gas; the fun of chasing a drop of mercury around the desk; and the excitement of watching her put potassium on water. I have a feeling that these things probably aren't allowed in schools any more!

Thanks to all that, I happily went on to do A levels in biology and chemistry, along with maths. (Not sure if my father ever forgave me for not taking physics!!) Some time during my A-levels, my then biology teacher Mr Williams arranged a trip to visit a lab somewhere in London where a friend of his was a research scientist. I can't remember much about the trip except for one thing - seeing a human brain for the first time. 

It was a lump of solid, browny-grey tissue, smelling strongly of formaldehyde preservative. You could see the folded structure of the outer cortex. And I remember thinking about everything that that brain had done - all the memories it had held, and all the thoughts and emotions it had mediated. And then thinking that it was my brain in my head which was thinking about what this other brain had thought...

Wow. I still find it amazing.

So biology was a given when it came to university, and I got a place at New Hall (now Murray Edwards College) at Cambridge to do Natural Sciences, specialising in Zoology in my final year.

As I headed into my third year at Cambridge, I really had no idea what I wanted to do afterwards. I knew what I didn't want to do - be an accountant (as around one in ten graduates did) or a doctor (as almost every adult I ever knew had suggested since I was about ten). For a brief while I looked at nursing - which frankly would have been a disaster - luckily the admissions team at the training hospital I applied to spotted this before I did. So in the end, by a process of elimination, I decided that I might as well go on doing what really interested me - studying the brain.

I'd left it too late to get a PhD scholarship, so instead I wrote letters to two eminent brain scientists - Professor Larry Weiskrantz and Professor Colin Blakemore - and asked if they would give me a job. To my amazement, they both wrote back, and invited me to come and visit them. 

Looking back, I'm perhaps even more impressed now that they were both prepared to give me their time, their advice - and offer me the opportunity of a job in their department. Which was how I ended up working for a year as a Research Assistant in the University Laboratory of Physiology in Oxford, as part of a team looking at how the brain controls eye movements.

Actually to begin with I was thoroughly miserable. After three wonderful years in Cambridge, surrounded by all the support you get as a student, Oxford was just painfully not Cambridge. As a research assistant, I wasn't a member of a college and it took me a while to find friends and social support.

But... I did enjoy the work. It was practical - sorting out a piece of equipment - but also stretching - calculating the result numbers and working out what they meant. The academics were all enthusiasts for their science and more than willing to share their ideas. I decided that I should give science a go - and to do that, I needed to get a PhD.

A PhD (doctorate in philosophy) is the training degree you need to do to become a research scientist. If you do it full time, as I did, it typically takes three plus years and in that time you are expected to do a piece of original research which is written up as a thesis (AKA big fat book.)

After looking at various options, I went back to the Department of Zoology in Cambridge to do my PhD, working in a research group under Professor Gabriel Horn on the neural basis of imprinting in chicks. Imprinting is a very specific form of learning which happens in newly hatched chicks and the group was looking at what structures in the brain changed through this learning process.

My research focused on connections between two areas of the brain in newly hatched chicks - one of which was known to be involved in vision, and the other in learning. 

I'd like to be able to report that my ground-breaking research resulted in cracking the conundrum of the neural basis of memory. However this didn't happen. I did some little bits and pieces of very specialist research which I very much doubt has advanced the sum of human knowledge in any meaningful way.

I did get a PhD out of it (always a handy trump card for people obsessed with titles - is it Miss, Mrs, Ms? Well, Dr actually.) and a handsomely-bound thesis with gold lettering on the spine.

I also learned a lot about problem solving, about dealing with data and about communicating clearly, all of which I have continued to draw on for the rest of my professional life. 

I have some great memories - of listening to the electrical activity of a single nerve cell; of sitting in a dark room developing images of bits of brain showing the connections between different areas. And of doing some daft things like trying to measure the pH of a solution containing bleach using litmus paper - it just gets bleached, I should have used a pH meter instead!

But what I really got was the privilege of working alongside some incredible people with a genuine curiosity about the world. None of the scientists I knew fitted the stereotype of people narrowly focused only on their work. It was a great team and we had a lot of fun. We discussed music, art, books, politics, ethics, religion - and of course learning, memory and the brain.

By the end of three and a half years, I came to the conclusion that the scientific life was not for me, and I went off to do other things (that's another blog). But I'm still fascinated by the brain. I still wonder how this lump of neurons and chemicals can mediate what I'm thinking, what I'm writing right now. I discovered that I didn't have the tenacity nor to be honest the intelligence to be a professional scientist in the long term. But I'm glad I gave it a go.

This blog is dedicated to the Neuro 3 team 1988-1992: Brian, Jane, Grant, Johan, Barrie, Chris, Esther and the rest, and of course to the memory of the one and only Professor Gabriel Horn.