The Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) has started the second season of ‘La mare de la ciència‘, the popular science podcast in Catalan, featuring the testimony of six researchers who work at the PRBB.
In the first episode of this second season, we talk about ‘deciphering behavior and combating neurodegeneration‘ with Arnau Busquets. Arnau is coordinator of the research group on cellular mechanisms in physiological and pathological behavior at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM).
The brain is the most complex organ of our body, and in many aspects it is a great unknown. That is why the group led by Arnau is studying, on the one hand, whether drugs derived from cannabis could be a good therapeutic tool for Alzheimer’s disease; and on the other, how indirect associations modulate our behavior.
According to the young neurobiologist, our behavior is conditioned by all those experiences that we have accumulated consciously or unconsciously during our lives. “We are growing, we are learning and that means that we have a very wide repertoire of decisions”, he explains. An idea he delves into in this episode.
Arnau also talks about memory, model organisms, networking and reconciling work and family life. Because his recent paternity has made him realise that “not everyone understands this idea of trying to reconcile family life with work“. For this reason, he gives flexibility to the members of his team so that they can organize their work and life as they prefer. Because, “when people feel more comfortable, they work better and this will bring better results in the future”.
Do not miss his testimony!
