About twenty science teachers of Oxford's local schools visited our Unit on the 13th of November 2009. Sixteen schools were represented.
First, Dr. Marco Capogna gave an outline about the Unit's work and introduced some basic facts about the brain. This was followed by a comprehensive talk by Dr. Joseph O' Neill, who explained the links between learning and memory, hippocampus and sleep. The talks raised several questions and a lively discussion took place.
Next, visitors were divided into three groups and spent time in most of the Unit's labs, getting hands-on experience with instruments and real specimens, providing a glimpse of what to expect in a working research laboratory. Highlights of the visit included: generation of action potentials in brain slices, Parkinson's video, looking at specimens in microscopes, visualization of fluorescence images, visualization of dendritic and axonal processes of nerve cells. Booklets on our MRC Unit, MRC brain research and Introduction to Neuroscience were distributed to the visitors.
Our thanks to all who participated and made this day possible.