Pint of Science brings the public and researchers together for themed evenings of science talks all over the world. The festival celebrated its 10th anniversary this year - Naomi Hannaway reports on her experience.
With some colleagues, I took a short walk after work to The Lucas Arms in London, to hear from researchers Dr Angelika Zarkali and Professor Selina Wray at the Pint of Science event Gone wrong! What happens when the brain starts to fail?
Science and beer enthusiasts were simultaneously coming together in pubs all over the world to hear experts talk on subjects from empathy to climate change. In the pub? Yes - Pint of Science is a festival that brings researchers from many different disciplines into your local pub or cafe. This year was the festival’s 10th anniversary, with events taking place across 22-24 May in 26 countries worldwide. Over the three days, fabulous teams of volunteers held events in 36 cities around the UK.
By bringing researchers and the public together in a relaxed environment, Pint of Science aims to encourage curiosity and open up conversations between researchers and the wider community, giving everyone a place at the table.
We had time to grab a quick drink then after checking in with the organisers we found a table and were ready for the evening to begin.
First we heard from Dr Angelika Zarkali, a Clinical Research Fellow and Neurology Registrar at UCL (and a huge Pint of Science fan herself), who talked about her neuroimaging work focussed on hallucinations in people living with Parkinson’s Disease.
She told us about the role of prior knowledge or expectations in hallucinations. To show their importance, Angelika showed us black and white pictures, and asked who could see a person in them: only a few hands were raised. After seeing the original colour photos that were used to make the picture, we looked at the photo again and now everyone could see the image of a baby in a bucket! This was a great demonstration of top-down influences, or ‘priors’, which become more persuasive in people who have hallucinations in Parkinson’s.
She also spoke about her work on the structural and functional connectivity of white matter. White matter is the ‘wiring’ of the brain, the long bundles of axons that connect different areas together. People with Parkinson’s who have hallucinations seem to have differences in their white matter compared to those who do not have these symptoms. Researchers know that brain networks are disrupted in people with Parkinson’s who hallucinate and hope to gain insight as to which connections are disrupted and why.
Organisers brought together different scales of research
After the first talk, there was a quick break to grab some snacks and another drink and - most importantly - the famous Pint of Science quiz. I managed to come second and won a few chocolates for my efforts but missed out on the special Pint of Science pint glass for the winner!
After the break, we heard from Professor Selina Wray, Professor of Molecular Neuroscience at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, who spoke about her research using stem cells to examine the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Usually, these diseases arise from a complex mixture of genetic and environmental factors. In her talk, Selina explained alternative rare forms of Alzheimer’s disease and fronto-temporal dementia in which one faulty gene is to blame. To study this, Selina’s research group takes a few skin cells (called fibroblasts) from people carrying these genes and uses them to grow stem cells in the lab. Stem cells can become any type of cell in the body, so these can be turned into neurons or glial cells (which are impaired in these diseases) to create a ‘dementia in a dish’ model. She showed us some fabulous videos of these cells “firing”, i.e sending signals to communicate with other neurons, in real-time.
These ‘dementia in a dish’ models are useful because they provide an accessible way to study the build up of proteins associated with disease. It was really interesting to hear more about the beta-amyloid and tau proteins which accumulate in dementia, and how these are linked to cell damage.
Overall, it was a really fun and informative evening. It was interesting to see how the organisers brought together different scales of research with talks on what is happening within cells as well as how networks are working across the whole brain.
You can follow @pintofscience on Twitter, and get 13-15 May in your diary to join your local events next year. Pint of Science is organised by fantastic teams of local volunteers - maybe you could consider contacting your local branch to get involved!
This article was written by Naomi Hannaway and edited by Ailie McWhinnie. Interested in writing for WiN UK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch!
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