BRAIN AWARENESS PROGRAM, 13^th, 14^th Mar’10

The mysteries of brain have always attracted much public attention and curiosity but unfortunately there have been lack of proper resources which could be helpful in understanding the complexities of brain.

As an initiative towards Brain awareness week, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad organized two days awareness cum sensitization program for spreading information about our most marvelous organ, brain.

The aim of the two day event at IIIT was to provide information to people at all levels of the society ranging from students, to general public and other interested people. As a Centre of excellence in Information Technology, the institute looked forward to interesting applications of IT for the benefit of brain research and how advances in brain research could help expand IT applications.

The workshop was based on certain objectives viz;

1. To spread awareness about the nature of brain, its healthy and a typical functioning among all segments of our local society.

2. To make students aware of the study and research opportunities in Neuroscience.

3. To make public aware of latest neuroscientific techniques that can aid in adaptive living.

We were blessed with certain honored and experienced people, Neurosurgeons, Practicing Doctors, Faculty members from different Universities, among us who spread there knowledge and make people more aware on the relevant facts.

Prof. Manju Agrawal (Director, Amity Institute of Behavioral and Allied Sciences) discussed on stress and brain, Traditional Knowledge / practices and brain behavior research outcomes was discussed by Prof. Braj Bhusan (IITK) and Arnabi Baberjee, Prof. Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Dr. Kartikey Sharma, Prof. Krishna Mishra also shared there knowledge and experience with us. Patch clamp studies on the soma, dendrite and axon of neurons in brain slice was discussed by Prof. Rajiv Dutta from Shobhit University, Meerut.

The experienced people enlightened the participants with their knowledge in understanding brain in more interactive manner through Brain Games, short movies. We will be looking forward for many more workshops like this in near future.

Manjari Sahai

Beenu Suri