Neuroscience at Macalester

banditmag
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:57:48 +0000

Article that appeared in the Mac Weekly only last week.

The brains behind the brain: A closer look at Mac’s neuroscience department
By: Kristin Riegel, Features Editor
Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: Features
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Media Credit: Liz Henry, ■■■■■■■■■■
Despite weighing only three pounds, the brain is the most complex structure in the human body.

Media Credit: Kristin Riegel
The more brains the better: Neuroscience students finalize events for Brain Awareness Week.

In the last ten years researchers have learned more about the brain than they did in the previous century; in my first ten minutes at the Brain Awareness Committee meeting I learned more about neuroscience and the “brains” behind it than I had in my year and a half at Mac.

Tucked away in a small conference room with gray walls and little room for more than a table and a few chairs, the Brain Awareness Committee met on Tuesday to discuss the final events for National Brain Awareness Week. The committee, comprised of students in the neuroscience department’s senior seminar, has spent the last week trying to bring recognition to the most complex structure in the human body.

“You are your brain,” said Tony Carr '08. “Your brain is everything you have ever thought, you have ever heard, you have ever seen.”

With the idea that neuroscience is a perspective for viewing the world, as well as a “hard” science, ten students in the neuroscience department’s senior seminar are reaching out to Macalester and the larger community. From “brain factoid” table tents in Caf