Around March of 2015, I was constantly emailing the professor for the Neurochemistry class, trying to get registered. The class was already full, and I was pretty bummed. I thought that this class would allow me to learn more about how the molecular signaling cascades in the brain attribute to how we behave and function as humans.
Now, as I am taking this class a year later, I realize that I was completely wrong; this class taught me much more than that.
I know that that sounds cliché, but it’s true. I went in to this capstone class expecting to just learn more about the brain. As it turns out, I learned more about how we can contribute to society with the knowledge we have, what the current issues are involving neuroscience (i.e. autism, schizophrenia, obesity), and how I am capable of much more than I had thought.
This was one of the first classes that I retained most information from the class AFTER the last day. I also enjoyed GOING to class. I never felt that pain and suffering that most students feel as they trudge their way to class on Mondays.
I looked forward to tackling the scientific articles we read (mostly because I didn’t know what half the words meant on most of them, so I was excited to hear some explanations). The articles were very interesting to read because they were topics that pertained to today’s society.
They weren’t articles that I usually read for classes. They talked about real issues, current science, and the implications of future research. This kept me interested and fascinated throughout the course.
Another aspect of the class that we get to take home with us was how we, as Concordia Neuroscientists, can contribute to society utilizing our knowledge and understanding of the topics that we discussed. We had a diverse class, with some people wanting to go into entomology and some wanting to go into clinical psychology (Hint: The last example was me).
Now that I’ve talked about how awesome the class was and how I can take what I learned and use it to Become Responsibly Engaged in the World, I also wanted to reflect on my emotional experience throughout this class.
That sounds a little lame, but hey, I’m a Psychology major. Emotions were bound to come up.
I was actually really nervous for this class. I haven’t had a lot of chemistry background, and so I knew that I would have to work really hard in this class. I knew that I would be behind my peers, so I was definitely not very confident at the beginning of this course.
Once the course started going, I started to feel more comfortable. I was able to answer questions that some other people weren’t able to, and I was able to utilize my psychology background when talking about things such as Bulimia Nervosa and Schizophrenia. Being able to answer questions like that also had made me realize that I do retain a lot more than I think I do, and that I am a lot more capable than I think I am regarding science.
My knowledge and confidence grew in this class almost exponentially. In fact, I am leaning more towards research as a potential career path. If you would have told me that about a year ago, I would have laughed in disbelief. I loathed research, research articles, basically anything that had to do with research.
That was until our first Neurochem exam.
The paper that we had to read for our exam was about Alzheimer’s and the over-phosphorylation of eukaryotic initiation factor 2-α (eIF2-α). Basically, protein expression doesn’t work properly, and signals are sent throughout the cell to promote cell death.
On one of the last pages of the paper, it stated that this eIF2-α was not only found in Alzheimer’s and Type II Diabetes; it was also over phosphorylated in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
If you know me or have taken any class with me, you would know that this stood out like a sore thumb to me. I am extremely fascinated by ASD, but I have only focused on the behavioral aspects of the disorder. Working as a Behavior Therapist, that is mostly all that I do.
However, learning about eIF2-α phosphorylation inspired my project for Neurobiology, which then inspired my research proposal for Neuro Senior Seminar. And now, I can proudly say that I am strongly considering a career path in neurological research regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder.
In class, we also read a paper about the potential causes for ASD. The schematic from the paper below shows how simple it is:
Pretty easy, right???
Looking at this schematic and breaking it down inspired me. I would love to spend my career trying to tackle at least one of the malfunctioning proteins or transcription factors and, potentially, discovering more about ASD.
The whole point of my little soap box was to mention how much Neurochemistry has impacted me. I am very thankful for this class, and I encourage anyone to take it for the capstone experience. I know that because of the knowledge that I have obtained through this class, I will be able to go out into society with more empathy, more confidence, and more inspiration.
