An Opportunity to Learn How the Brain Works

Brain Awareness Day will take place on March 15 at UC Riverside; free event is open to the public

By Iqbal Pittalwala on March 14, 2012

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Neuroscience graduate students at the University of California, Riverside will present their current research at “Brain Awareness Day” — a free event on March 15 that is aimed at educating the public about how the brain functions.

The event will be held in the courtyard of Spieth Hall from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.  Parking costs $6.  Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about the workings of the brain by communicating directly with neuroscience faculty and graduate students.

Hosted by the Neuroscience Graduate Student Association (NGSA), with help from some faculty members in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Brain Awareness Day is a part of Brain Awareness Week established by the Dana Foundation.

“The purpose of Brain Awareness Week is to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research on a global scale,” said Jonathan Charles, president of the NGSA, who is helping organize the event. “Our goal for Brain Awareness Day is to stimulate further interest in neuroscience and foster more involvement in brain research.”

The event, according to Charles, is part neuroscience literacy, part current research and part barbeque.  The NGSA will provide food, organize games, offer body paint tattoos, and unveil UC Riverside neuroscience merchandise.  Posters with information about the brain will be on display.

“This will be our second year hosting this event,” Charles said. “With further support and funding in the future, however, we would like to expand it to a campus wide event with attendance from middle and high school students.”

Michael Adams, a professor of entomology and cell biology & neuroscience, is one of the faculty members helping organize the event.  He noted that great strides are being made to understand the brain and repair its injured and diseased states.

“Brain Awareness Day will inform on these topics,” said Adams, who also is the director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program. “It is a great opportunity for students, faculty, and the general public to learn about our most complex organ, perhaps the most complicated in the universe!  The brain gives us our personality, makes us human, allows us to communicate, socialize, and to learn and plan based on experience. That the brain is the ultimate knowledge machine comes from the fact that the brain is able to think and reflect upon itself and to influence its own structure and function through use.”

Archived under: Health, Science/Technology, brain, Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Neuroscience Graduate Student Association, press release

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