Did you know that our brains are extremely demanding?
It’s no surprise, it controls everything we do – how we think, breathe, and interact with the world around us, so I guess we have to give it some credit. However, this means the brain needs a lot of nutrients and oxygen to keep it going – which includes over 20% of the oxygen we breathe!
My job as a vascular neuroscientist is to study the blood vessels in our brains, which are super important to getting those nutrients to our brains, removing waste, and helping our body and brain heal from injury. Right now, I am investigating little cells that hug our blood vessels called Pericytes, and these guys are the big boss of directing blood flow; squeezing or relaxing their arms around blood vessels to control how much blood can get through – just like how squeezing a hose significantly changes how much water can get out!
As a scientist I am always getting to learn about new things, which I think is almost the best part of the job. Science helps satisfy my curious nature, which has been something that has stuck around since I was a kid. I wasn’t always the best student, but I would chew through books and enjoyed being able to watch and learn from people about their passions and interests, and science is one of the ways I get to do just that! It gives me the opportunity to work on many different things and meet a lot of new people who are just as excited to share their work and talk to me through it, no matter how clueless I am about it (which is often).
My research is only one piece of the puzzle to understanding our brains, but through working together with other scientists and people in the community (like you!), we make little steps every day to keeping our brains happy and healthy!
