Biomedical Sciences

Edinburgh International Science Festival 2015

March: There are a number of SBMS staff playing their part in this year's Edinburgh International Science Festival.

Dementia Research: illuminating brain changes

An illuminating evening of scientific discussion and research in a working dementia laboratory and provides a unique opportunity to see how neuroscientists are striving to understand and eventually cure dementia.

Dr Tara Spires-Jones will give a brief lecture to introduce you to the brain and what goes wrong when people are diagnosed with dementia. Then take an interactive tour of the research labaoratory, followed by a drinks reception where you can chat with scientists and learn how you can help us defeat dementia.

Dementia Research: illuminating brain changes

Fates, Fats and Facts: what really drives food choice

With the global obesity ‘pandemic’ costing societies dearly, questions of how and why we choose our food are firmly in the spotlight. Are we culpable for what is on our plates, or are we subject to forces beyond our control?

Join Prof Gareth Leng for discussion, experimentation and investigation into who is in the driving seat when it comes to food choice, and what the outcomes of different choices might be. We’ll be busting some common myths about obesity, mortality, health and weight loss in a lively and interactive evening.

Fates, Fats and Facts: what really drives food choice

Fear and Resilience

Learn how the brain, the most complex of organs, copes in a crisis and helps motivate us and push us to the limits of our mental and physical abilities. Militants in Lebanon held special envoy Terry Waite hostage in solitary confinement for almost five years. He had no contact with the outside world and was denied access to books and papers.

Join him and Sir Colin Blakemore, Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at Oxford University to celebrate what research has taught us about the brain’s ability to cope in a crisis and motivate us to the very limits of endurance.

Prof Richard Morris will be chairing this event.

Fear and Resilience

Gender and the brain

Is there such a thing as a ‘male’ or ‘female’ brain? Are observed behavioural gender differences hardwired, culturally imposed, or even there at all? And what might we be able to learn from people whose gender is not so easily defined?

The BBC Radio Scotland series Brainwaves explores the science behind our everyday experiences. Prof Richard Ribchester is one of the experts who will explore a question that has fascinated and vexed socieites for centuries.

Gender and the brain

Light Fantastic

From the fiat lux of the Old Testament to the ‘idea bulb’ of cartoon convention, light has consistently been used as a metaphor for understanding, discovery and revelation.

Prof Matt Nolan is one of the experts creating an illuminating social event which will involve art history, acrobatics, poetics, magic lanterns and optogenetics whilst looking at the uses and meanings of light across the spectrum of culture.

Light Fantastic

Mapping the Machine

Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest challenges and mysteries of the 21st century. If we rise to this challenge, we can gain profound insights in to what makes us human, how the brain functions and develop treatments for brain disease. One of the major obstacles to understanding the human brain is the fragmentation of research and the vast quantities of data it produces.

The Human Brain Project (HBP), funded by the European Commission, is applying biology and computer science to build a computer-based copy of the human brain to help understand brain function, neurological disorders and the effects of drugs.

Prof Seth Grant is among the experts who will discuss the scale, importance, and social and ethical dimensions of this project.

Mapping the Machine