Straight Talk About Brain Slices

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More About

• Aubrey Gilbert
• Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
• University of California-Berkeley
• Cognitive Science
• Life Sciences

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Most of the time, our brains are a big mystery. One minute, sparkly synaptic action urges our bodies to become one with the mid-'90s rhythms of La Bouche, and the next minute we’re sitting on the couch with a bucket of fried chicken, a splitting headache, and no memory of the previous sixteen hours. One minute we’re contemplating the psychological realism of Stendhal’s novels, and the next our mind’s eye is overwhelmed by the image of a life-sized banana wearing sunglasses and floating down a river in a flaming inner tube. “Why, why?” we cry. All this and more faces explanation at the science lecture "Take a Tour of Your Brain," one in a monthly series put on by Ask a Scientist. Real scientist Aubrey Gilbert, who holds a Ph.D. from the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley, holds court, blowing the audience's minds by filling them with scientific information about themselves, addressing such mysteries as how the brain and nervous system interact, animals that can put half their brain to sleep, and what your right brain and your left brain talk about behind your back. She will also bring several human brain slices, which the audience can pass around or nibble upon, as they see fit.
Tue., Sept. 1, 7 p.m., 2009