We love visiting Anatomy and Physiology teacher Susie Ridgeway and her curious students at Henrietta Lacks (“HeLa”) High School in in Evergreen Public Schools near PeaceHealth hospital in the suburbs of Vancouver. We’ve been dropping by with brains, art and our Noggin volunteers for the last FIVE years..!
LEARN MORE: Hallucinations @ HeLa High
LEARN MORE: Hella Bright at HeLa
LEARN MORE: Hippocampal hordes at HeLa High
LEARN MORE: Brains for 437 @ HeLa High!
We spent another day at HeLa earlier this year, and in addition to examining brains…
Answering questions…
Experiencing the salient electrical natural of information flow in our neurons…
LEARN MORE: Brain Hacking is Electric!
And making art…
LEARN MORE: STEAM Art Projects
We also enjoyed demonstrating an unusually delicious link between brain structure and function – the influence of our taste receptor cells, which detect chemicals (tastants) in food, on our perceptual experience of flavor…
Sweet taste receptor cells on your tongue build sweet taste receptor proteins, which they embed in their own cell membranes. These proteins bind the glucose, sucrose, and fructose in our meals, and the cells respond with electric currents that rush back along cranial nerves to our brains…
At HeLa we decided to mess with those peripheral receptors, by offering a pill containing miraculin – a remarkable chemical from a berry native to West Africa…
If your mouth has a neutral pH, the miraculin chemical binds to these sweet protein receptors and prevents them from responding to sugar. The tablet itself, as you swirl it over your tongue, can taste bland, like cardboard…
However, if the pH drops, as it does when you introduce something sour, like a lemon, all of those miraculin-bound sweet taste receptors activate at once, generating massive current coursing back to your brain with the unexpected message of “SWEET!”
We’ve been conducting this experiment in undergraduate classrooms (and during our volunteer outreach visits) since 2013… 🙂
LEARN MORE: The Miracle Fruit: An Undergraduate Laboratory Exercise in Taste Sensation and Perception
From Susie Ridgeway…
“We all love the brain day and look forward to it every year!! Some of my students stay the entire day to observe and ask questions and think about the brains!! Every year around February the students ask me when are the brain people coming??”
“The students that accompany you are so engaging and approachable. Many of my students have watched your presentation for four years in a row and still find it engaging.”
“The energy that is present in this group is a positive force and benefits all of us. Keep up the good work!”
Here’s what Susie’s students have to say…
“Thank you guys so much for coming! It’s always amazing learning more about the brain and neuroscience in general!” – Steven D.
“Thank you so much for this amazing experience. I learned so much and it’s been helping me visualize things while we do our nervous system unit in Anatomy & Physiology” – Reyna B.
“Thank you for coming and teaching us about the brain! It was really fun!” – Christina D.
“You guys are super neat! I admire that you guys put fun, engaging activities into learning. Come back next year!”
“Being able to get my arm controlled and control someone else’s arm was the coolest thing I’ve experienced this year.” – B.E.
“I enjoyed the taste bud testing experiment!” – Belle P.
“Thank you so much” – Maryn C.
“I enjoyed EVERY minute of it!” – T.W.
“I was so intrigued when you guys visited HeLa, it’s awesome to have the opportunity to experience this. Not everyone can have that experience.” – Eryn C.
“This was the highlight of my school year! PLEASE COME BACK, more people need to experience this. It was amazing and very fun.” – Makayla S.
Our awesome volunteers (the majority from Portland State University)) included Jeff Leake, Aaron Eisen, Cam Howard, Marc Thompson, Greyson Moore, Michael Deveney, Darrin Lane, Liliana Prychyna and Joey Seuferling (pictured above). NOT PICTURED: Lelani Lealiiee-Sjoden (from PSU/NIH BUILD EXITO), Jason Blume, Keys Le and Robby Heiberg…