Neurobiology
I’m a very common excitatory neurotransmitter.
What is Glutamate?
Thanks to ___________ young children have many more synapses than adults do.
What is synaptogenesis?
A non-invasive technique using electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain.
What is an EEG (electroencephalogram)?
Lobe of the brain important for hearing.
What is the temporal lobe?
“I’m currently the director of the undergraduate program in Neuroscience at BU.”
Who is Mario Muscedere?
The phase of an action potential that is characterized by an initial increase of the membrane potential to the value of the threshold potential.
What is hyperpolarization?
The process in which neurons take on particular functions during neurodevelopment.
What is differentiation?
This imaging technique uses magnetic fields and radio waves and is useful in diagnosing a number of conditions.
What is an MRI?
I was a railroad construction worker who miraculously survived an accident in which a rod was driven through my head, destroying much of my left frontal lobe.
Who is Phineas Gage?
“Though I teach at BU, I live in Maine.”
Who is John Tullai?
The electrostatic forces crucial for life.
What are hydrogen bonds?
A major cycle of the homeostatic & stress response. Regulation of this system is believed to be linked to a number of affective disorders such as anxiety and depression.
What is the HPA Axis?
This type of technology uses electrons as an illumination source, allowing us to see cell structures in the brain.
What is an electron microscope?
These are the 5 basic tastes.
What are sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and umami.
“I’ve taught / been a part of a neuro lab at nearly every major university in Boston, and I once saw Malia Obama at Barry’s Bootcamp.”
Who is Kyle Gobrogge?
These two types of movement drive ions across membranes.
What are diffusion and electrochemical drive?
This is the inability to recognize faces, suspected to be a result of dysfunction in the fusiform face area.
What is Prosopagnosia?
Scanning method that detects radioactive material that is injected or inhaled to produce an image of the brain.
What is PET? (Positron Emission Tomography)
Disease characterized as an electrical “brainstorm.”
What is epilepsy?
“I’ve performed groundbreaking research in the biology of Alzheimer’s disease, and students in one of my classes repeat my work in their lab.”
Who is Lucia Pastorino?
I’m a type of molecule believed to be > 1 billion years old, shared by all animals and even protists.
What is an ion channel?
Evidence of neurogenesis in adult brains is present in these two areas.
What are the hippocampus and olfactory bulb?
This decade-long billion euro project required supercomputers to map and simulate activity in less than one cubic millimeter of a rat brain.
What is the Blue Brain Project?
A disease that causes weakness, paralysis, death of neurons in the motor cortex and spinal cord; named for a famous baseball player.
What is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease)?
“I love to run!”
Who is Kristen Bushell?