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Cornelia Bargmann, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York, studies how genes interact with neurons to create behavior. Two years ago, President Obama named Bargmann, who is known as Cori, a co-chairwoman of the advisory commission for the Brain Initiative, which he has described as “giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action.”
I (Claudia Dreifus) spoke with Bargmann, 53, for two hours at the Manhattan apartment she shares with her husband, Dr. Richard Axel, a neuroscientist at Columbia University.
CD: Currently, you spend your time trying to understand the nervous system of a tiny worm, C. elegans. Why do you study this worm?
CB: Well, the reason is this: Understanding the human brain is a great and complex problem. To solve the brain’s mysteries, you often have to break a problem down to a simpler form.
Your brain has 86 billion nerve cells, and in any mental process, millions of them are engaged. Information is sweeping across these millions of neurons. With present technology, it’s impossible to study that process at the level of detail and speed you would want.
CD: But is a simple worm really an appropriate model for studying the human brain?
CB: Most of what we know about the human nervous system, we have learned from simpler animals. The most famous animal in neuroscience is the squid because it has these huge nerves that enabled people to understand the basis of the electrical transmission of information.
Read full, original post: Cori Bargmann Puts Her Mind to How the Brain Works
