Brains under pressure: training, trauma and tiny fighters

Brain surgery is one of the most complex and high stakes fields in medicine. So how do surgeons learn safely? This talk explores how simulation lets doctors practise procedures, make mistakes and improve before operating on real patients, and what this means for the future of training and patient safety.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a disorder affecting millions worldwide each year. People living with metabolic disorders, e.g. obesity, suffer worse outcomes following TBI, including higher rates of mortality. The harmful consequences of TBI are not isolated to the brain, and can affect other organs throughout the body. TBI may cause changes in abdominal fat tissue and this may drive worsened outcomes for people with obesity who sustain a TBI. In development of new treatments for TBI, the potential targeting of organs outside the brain could lead to exciting new possibilities.

This talk is about tackling a rare childhood brain cancer, AT/RT, using precision guided drugs to try to improve outcomes for young patients.

A clock exists inside your head. If you put your finger between your brows and image a line from there to the middle of your brain, that is where its located. It doesn’t tick every second, but every day. It can tell whether its bright or dark outside. It wants you to go to bed well before midnight and have you get up early morning, on all 7 days. It has trouble when you fly long distances to catch up, and this can make you feel sick. Ticking strongly, keeps us healthy, but modern life makes it harder to do so. Let’s chat more about this mind clock, and why we should listen to it.