American Scientist

Kurt Marsden says three-quarters of our known genes—about 15,000 out of a total of 20,000 genes—are needed to create our human brains. Marsden is an assistant professor in the department of biological sciences at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on the connection between those genes and how our brains function, including in learning, response behavior, and after exposure to chemicals or infectious diseases. His research includes studies of what happens to prompt certain neurological and psychological diseases, for which he uses zebrafish as a model organism.

On October 26, 2021, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, hosted a virtual presentation by Marsden as part of its Science by the Slice series (video and curated live tweets are below). In starting off his talk, Marsden said the scale of the problem is particularly challenging to study. That's because the human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons, 85 billion glial cells that support those neurons, and around 100 trillion synapses, or connections between those neurons, and those connections sometimes change with time. 

A key component to Marsden's talk was in addressing the potential ramifications of the research that he and others are doing, noting that mental health disorders are the leading cause of disability in the United States and Canada.

"Tackling Neurological and Psychiatric Disease with Zebrafish"

Live tweets, including by American Scientist's Editor-in-Chief, Fenella Saunders, made during the talk are compiled below.