Why Neuroscience?

Tuesday 16th June 2020

This was another blog I wrote for an early attempt at a personal website 'oscarneuro.blogspot.com', which I don't think exists any longer.

Aside from my A-Levels, I also did a project on learning and memory. Generally, you could do any topic you want for the project. I thought of doing this topic straight away because it felt unique and relevant. (I'm a student, duh!)

The project (known to everyone as an EPQ) involved coming up with a question about the topic, doing research to answer that question, and then writing up an essay about it. Simple.

Here were a few things I wanted to gain out of it:

learning about learning

Like hitting two birds with one stone, I wanted to find tips and tricks to improve my own learning. In hindsight, this was a stupid idea because I only learnt about what I already knew: sleep properly, don't be stressed and keep revising.

A-Levels in the 'real world'

Doing subjects filled to the brim with science made me want to see how the topics I learnt about were actually relevant in the 'real world'. As it turns out, everything at A-Level becomes a lot more complex in the world out there - they are all out there, just hidden in plain sight.

becoming a real scientist

How could I be original without carrying out my own research? I was in the perfect position to test the extent of 'learning and memory', so I made sure to carry out some kind of experiment.

It took me months to form a question. And when it was formed, I realised that the question was asking too much! There were parts of it I hadn't addressed, and parts of it that were vague. Sadly, I realised this too late.

The question I eventually came up with was

Can memory enhancement methods overcome the problems caused by normal ageing on memory function?

and my conclusion was

I really don't know, and I don't think anyone else does either.

This is why I want to study neuroscience: there's a lot we don't know. There's a lot I don't know, and it seems like a really exciting challenge. I enjoyed making up an experiment from scratch, and building on other people's work. Maybe I could even answer that question later on in life...

Dear future me,

Never forget that you want to do this because of how hard it is, even it is does get hard.

Oscar 😁