About usMy name is Tiantian Chen, from Rangi Ruru Girls’ School.
This year, I was extremely lucky to travel down to Otago University for the Brain Bee Neuroscience Internship Day. My experience was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that gave me an unforgettable glimpse into the world of neuroscience.
I have always had a passion for maths, but diving deeper into the inner workings of our bodies and the environment has made me realise the beauty of biology. There is just something incredible about how everything works seamlessly, constantly, and without failure – particularly in the brain. Spending a day as a neuroscientist allowed me to explore the possibilities neuroscience can provide for the world in the future.
After some introductions and a health & safety briefing, we immediately split off into three groups to participate in our first mission of the day: spotting neuroendocrine cells in a mouse brain. This was my favourite part of the day. My group was fortunate enough to start off by watching Professor Greg Anderson carefully take out the mouse brain; I’ll spare you the details, but I learnt an awful lot about how scientists prepare brain tissue from the scarce 20 minutes we had.
Then, we moved on to practice mounting thin slices of an actual mouse brain onto a microscope slide – a therapeutic yet extremely angering activity – and proceeded to try and find GnRH neurons that were supposed to be shown as fluorescent, green dots through the microscope. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any of these neurons in my slices of mouse brain; my extremely bad eyesight also did not help with identifying what was actually green and what was a trick of the light. The only time I managed to identify something green was when the camera glitched and caused the entire screen to turn fluorescent.
Another highlight of the internship was when we got to tour the animal research facility, Eccles. This involved covering up every single inch of skin and clothing exposed, by putting on a large paint suit hybrid, shoe covers, gloves, a hair net, and a face mask. The detail in the variety of safety measures was incredible, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the amount of consideration put into the building’s design. We were also able to cuddle the rats and mice being used in the studies – something which I definitely would not have done on a normal day. This, along with my experience with the EEG (electroencephalogram), just shows how Brain Bee pushed me out of my comfort zone.
We were shown how the EEG is able to essentially “train” the brain by rewarding it with a sound if a certain threshold was reached. In order to try this out, we had to agree to have electrode gel put in our hair. Now, I had just washed my hair the night before, so I wasn’t particularly keen on having a go. However, I decided that since this would be the only time I would be offered an opportunity like this, I might as well try everything. It turns out the gel was not nearly as damaging as I thought it would be, and I had a lot of fun trying to make the machine beep as much as possible!
Our last activity of the day was a tour of the famous Anatomy Museum. We got to explore every inch of this amazing building, and my personal favourite was the pathology room. Ms Sharon White explained the various different specimens and diseases, and it was fascinating while also extremely scary to witness what could go wrong with our bodies.
Brain Bee was such a rewarding experience that gave me much more than random brainy facts. I’ve made some of my closest friends from Brain Bee (you know who you are; you are all the best!), as well as memories, funny quotes and inside jokes that I will forever reference whenever I can. Most of all, I walked out of Otago University being infinitely more interested in a career in science.
Thank you so much to BrainSTEM Otago, the Neurological Foundation, and all of the scientists, teachers and staff who made this amazing day possible. Of course, a huge thank you to Otago University for hosting us. I am so grateful for this experience, and if you’re trying to decide whether to do Brain Bee or not, I will make that decision easier: you should! I promise you will enjoy every minute of it (yes, even the long hours of learning the content were fun), and I hope you find it as amazing as I did!
P.S. Special thank you to Cicy Chen, who was my fraternal twin for the trip (and now one of my best friends!)
Tiantian Chen, Rangi Ruru Girls’ School, Christchurch
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