• Question: 4 what have you found in the brain

    Asked by anon-186958 to Stewart, Miriam, Marton, Laura, Kathryn, David on 6 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Miriam Hogg

      Miriam Hogg answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      I personally don’t do anything to do with the brain. However I can tell you about some work that has used computing to study the brain!

      A few students at my university used a special computer code to model the arteries in the brain. They made a simple model of the blood flowing through the brain and then made a blockage to see how the blood reacted. There are lots of brain injuries than can happen when the brain doesn’t have enough blood flowing in it so its an very important topic. Using a computer to model this is much safer than looking at humans and we are able to test lots of different situations using it! It’s a fascinating use of computers

    • Photo: David Ho

      David Ho answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      Unfortunately the brain is made of so many particles it’s too difficult for particle physicists to study at the moment. Maybe one day we’ll be able to, though I think that’s very far off!

      I have learnt quite a bit about my own brain while doing science, though. One trick I’ve found is that I can be stuck on a problem for a week, then if I take a break and think about a different problem for a while I can often come back to the original one and solve it

    • Photo: Marton Olbei

      Marton Olbei answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      I don’t work with brains currently, but I did work in a neurobiology lab for a while, whose main focus was trying to find out why and how animals sleep. It was really interesting!

    • Photo: Stewart Martin-Haugh

      Stewart Martin-Haugh answered on 8 Nov 2018:

      The main thing I have learnt about my brain is how difficult it is to make it work when it thinks it’s time to go to sleep. The Large Hadron Collider (the experiment I work on) works 24 hours a day, so people have to check it’s operating 24 hours a day. I’ve spent many nights working in the control room and found it difficult to stay awake, even with enough sleep during the day. Walking around regularly, espresso coffee and KitKats are the key. Nowadays I try to work at more normal times: 9am to 5pm usually.

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