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What are the perks of being a neuroscientist?

I want to be a neuroscientist and pursue my dreams. I know what university I should go to and what subjectss I should choose and how I’m going to pay for uni. But I really want to know what advantages you’ll get when being a neuroscientist. Please answer. I really appreciate it.
#neuroscientist #neuroscience #brain #brain-sciences

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Lorraine’s Answer

If you become a neuroscientist, you could be working on concepts / modalities for diagnosing and treating disorders related to the brain, or working directly with patients who have central nervous system disorders. These might include mental health / psychiatric problems like anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, addictions, to name a few. The other companion field in neuroscience is neurology which includes epilepsy, MS (multiple sclerosis), Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease, headaches, neuropathic pain, Bell's Palsy, cerebral palsy, and more. Notice that many of the neurological disorders have a person's name associated who helped discover the disorder. The brain is one of the last frontiers of the body and became so much more accessible with MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and other sophisticated technologies for looking inside a system which is protected by many layers.
Thank you comment icon Thank you for giving me advice. Jenny
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Yuezhe’s Answer

Hi Jenny,

There are, in general, two ways to become a neuroscientist: you could either get a M.D. and become a physician scientist that focuses on neural science, or you can get a PhD focusing on Neuroscience. I have only met a couple physician scientist working on neural science so that I don't know much about it. But based on the conversation I had with them, the major advantage is that you can work with human. In biomedical field, human data is always the gold standard. I would say this is a huge advantage. The disadvantage includes regulatory hurdles, lack of sample quality and quantity controls.

Alternatively, you can get your PhD and work with model systems. Model system includes (but not limit to) neurons (either from animals, patients, or derived from human stem cells), mice, rats, ferrets, and monkeys. The major advantage is that you can do lots of perturbation of the systems, such as knock out of knock down genes/ non-coding RNAs, different treatments. It is also easier to control the quality and quantity of samples. The major disadvantage is all the models are flawed. This means that finding an appropriate model system is not an easy job. I saw some other people's whole PhD project being trashed because of a bad choice of model system.

I would also encourage you to work in a neural science lab when you are doing your degree. Working in a biology is a hard life. It is better to figure out whether you like a life of being a scientist in general.

Best regards,

Yuezhe

Yuezhe recommends the following next steps:

work at a neural science lab
Thank you comment icon Thank you so much Rachel ! I LOVE working with people so that sounds so perfect to me. Thank you for your thoughtful response :) Jenny
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