Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas

9th: Scientific techniques to study the brain. Undergraduate and master students (50 participants). The main goal of these conferences was to introduce students to neuroscience research. Lectures were about superresolution microscopy, analysis of calcium movements in the brain, memory evaluation in rodents with behavioral studies and histochemical techniques in nervous system tissues. 14th: What is in your brain? Create a neuron. 75 students from Patriarca Obispo Eijo-Garay Primary School joined us. This activity was meant to show children the intracellular structure of the neurons. They created a neuron from candies. We also explain them the gross brain anatomy and the different functions of brain lobes. 15th: Observe the brain with your mobile phone. 31 high school students. The goal of this event was to inspire interest in brain research. We introduced brain morphology and performed classical histologic staining procedures on rodent brains sections. Next, they observed stained samples under a microscope. Finally we created a system to take photographs with great magnification using a mobile phone. We used small lens placed in a 3D-printer made support created by us. This gadget acquire images augmented more than 30 times. Participants loved this simple gadget and took it home to capture wonderful micrographs of everyday objects. 16th: How do scientists study brain disease? General public. Lectures were focused on different animal models used to study brain diseases to make people aware about the crucial importance of brain research. Four researchers from our Nervous System Pathophysiology Department explained to the audience how they study Parkinson´s and Alhzeimer´s disease, and also cerebral ischemia.

Make researchers and their job visible to all the people and especially to children and students is crucial to arouse interest for science in future generations. We had a great feed back in all activities that we developed in BAW2017. Children are always very enthusiastic and teachers already asked us what activities are we going to do next year.

It´s a great experience. You have to work hard and start planning everything with a month in advance because organization is very time consuming. But it is really worthwhile.