ALL ABOUT THE BRAIN
Alina sami, a grade 11 student at walter murray collegiate who is interested in a career in neurology, is heading to hamilton this weekend to compete in the canadian institutes of health research national brain bee after winning the saskatchewan event in
Saskatoon may soon be able to claim bragging rights over being home to Canada’s “Best Brain” when local high school student Alina Sami competes for the title during in the 11th annual Canadian Institutes of Health Research Canadian National Brain Bee.
A Grade 11 student at Walter Murray Collegiate, Sami is involved in a lot of school activities, but she said training and competing in the Brain Bee is a perfect way to start down her recently realized dream of pursuing a career in neuroscience research.
“Before participating in this competition I had a vague idea of what neuroscience was but I was always interested in mental health and mental illness, so that’s what I went into it knowing,” she said.
“But preparing for this competition I not only learned a lot about neuroscience itself, but I also learned about the biological basis of mental illness.”
This weekend, Sami will compete against 14 other high school students from across Canada in the National Brain Bee. In March, she took top place out of five students in the Saskatchewan regional competition.
Sami said she was a little nervous about the competition, which takes place at McMaster University in Hamilton, but is excited to compete and looks forward to meeting other contestants and making connections with some of the top neuroscience experts in the country.
She is also excited to test her smarts in neuroanatomy and patient diagnosis, topics that weren’t covered during the regional Brain Bee.
“You can explore so many things, and neuroscience itself is a really diverse field and the competition covers a range of topics from plasticity, artificial brains, nervous system disorders and how neurons communicate with each other to orchestrate entire behaviours — it’s really interesting stuff.”
Competing also means Sami will get to work with actual slices of a human brain to identify structures and the functions they serve.
Even if she doesn’t win, she is happy to participate and soak in the wealth of knowledge the event offers, she said.
“Winning and losing doesn’t matter. What matters is how much you learn from the experience and I’ve already learned so much about myself and not only neuroscience but also the career path I want to follow.”