Like I promised you, here is a short reflection on one of the most complex systems of the human body: the brain. It's fascinating how such a small thing can process such nit-picky information and produce millions of actions within a single being. Our brain is filled with synaptic electric pulses that stimulate every single action within our body and store those small details in storage. I think we could describe our body to be mere boxes in which thousands of small electric pulses travel from one point to another, like a computer. Anyway, the reason why I come to talk about brains is that brains have been a part of my entire summer. Well, basically the entire summer. Everyday, I wake up with bloodshot eyes and lazily get up to go and run, then head towards USC, listening to a variety of music: from Mozart to Billy Joel to Eminem to Muse. You get the picture. At USC, I help set up interesting lab equipments: blades, knives, scoopers, bubblers to oxygenate a certain solution that preserves and keeps live brains viable, and all sorts of things. I even go to hands making solutions - one called ACSF, which is also used in the lab. I feel that if it were not for the kind graduate student who offered to teach me how to set up these things, I would have entirely done maintenance work like cleaning bottles up and tiding up the lab. Anyway, back to the point. As soon as lab preparations are done, I get to experience scary and gruesome yet fascinating things. I see live rats get knocked out and then decapitated (I won't go into colorful details to keep this post rated PG-13). And... I get to dissect the brain, searching beyond the cortex and underneath the mid-brain for the tiny-white hippocampus. Yet, besides the rat being decapitated and the constant lab set-up routine, I guess I am having a good time. Things will get better. As I learn new things everyday, I get more excited.
The brain is something fascinating. I could see why zombies love to eat brains. Brains... Brains... Brains...
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