On a warm summer evening, Thursday 18 June, curious visitors gathered at Utrecht’s TivoliVredenburg for New Scientist Live: Brain Diseases – Research for the Future, an evening organised by the UMC Utrecht Brain Center together with New Scientist. From artificial intelligence to a live brain operation, the audience got a glimpse of the latest developments in brain research and care.
As visitors arrive, the musical trio Afternooners immediately set the mood with Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. A giant neuron hangs above the stage, and to the right an enormous microscope waits for its moment later in the evening. When presenter and New Scientist editor-in-chief Jim Jansen takes the stage, the evening can begin.
Presenter Jim Jansen and Jeroen Pasterkamp, chair of the UMC Utrecht Brain Center, together open an evening about new insights into brain diseases.
"Have you ever been startled by a cyclist suddenly coming from the left, even though you're sure you looked?" Tessie Hamers talks about the attention disorder neglect.
The first guest is Jeroen Pasterkamp, professor and chair of the UMC Utrecht Brain Center. He takes the audience into the world of brain research and shows just how much there is still to discover. Pasterkamp studies ALS, a serious nerve-muscle disease for which there is still no cure. With his research group, he tests new medicines on patients’ muscle cells grown in the laboratory, working towards better treatments.
Next, neurosurgeon Tristan van Doormaal shows how a mixed reality headset helps to view the brain in 3D and to better prepare complex operations. Using a brain scan, he talks about a patient who was fourteen at the time and had a brain tumour that was difficult to reach.
Then comes a special moment. Diego, the boy from the scan, walks onto the stage himself. He shares his experiences of the years he spent living in fear of the brain haemorrhages caused by his tumour. His proud father and grandmother sit in the audience, and everyone present feels for them.
Thanks to a successful operation and four months of rehabilitation, Diego is now doing well. Van Doormaal sums it up aptly: “Technology and artificial intelligence can do an incredible amount, but in the end it all comes down to the patient. They do the hardest work.”
Then it is time for the enormous surgical microscope in the corner of the stage. In a live simulation, neurosurgeon Dara Niknejad shows how he creates a bypass: a new route for blood around narrowed brain vessels. His “tubes” are about one millimetre wide and the suture thread four times thinner than a human hair. “During a brain operation, every millimetre counts,” Niknejad emphasises.
But getting the bypass to flow is not enough, and that is what his research is about. “We can see that the new channel is open, but does the blood actually reach the brain tissue itself?” That is why he is working on a technique that measures brain perfusion – in other words, the blood flow through the tissue. So that surgeons can follow live during the operation whether the blood is arriving where it is needed. “In the end we are not operating on blood vessels, but on someone’s memories, language and future.”
The audience gets a unique look inside a brain operation at the micro level.
Afternooners kick off the second part of the evening.
Barely recovered from this insight into the precision of brain surgery, the audience turns its attention to ENT doctor Louise Straatman. “Birds can grow new hair cells after hearing damage, humans cannot.” Straatman takes the room into the future of possible hearing restoration. In her lab she grows mini-ears and studies whether stem cells in the inner ear can repair hearing damage, the way they do in birds.
Just before the break, PhD candidates Sophie Schubert and Qi Chang Lin join Jim Jansen. Using polaroid photos, they offer a glimpse into their lives as researchers. Schubert studies the relationship between sleep and mental health problems in military personnel. Lin uses a supercomputer to analyse DNA data from millions of people with a brain aneurysm.
After the audience has had a chance to let all the information sink in during the break, Afternooners open the second half of the evening with The Doobie Brothers’ What a Fool Believes.
Now it is the turn of Jeroen de Ridder, professor of bioinformatics. He explains how artificial intelligence supports doctors in recognising tumours faster and more accurately. “In 15 percent of cases, the surgeon chooses a different surgical strategy based on the tumour detection. That shows us that artificial intelligence really does have an impact in practice.”
Next, the experiences of patients and their families take centre stage. Manon Benders, professor and neonatologist, takes a seat on the stage, together with stem cell researcher Caroline de Theije and Bjelke Rietveld, mother of a daughter born prematurely with cerebral palsy (a permanent disorder of posture and movement). Drawing on their experiences, they show the impact of brain damage at a young age. Benders also talks about her research into stem cell nose drops, which may make it possible to repair damaged brain tissue in babies.
The next guest focuses on a smaller level: that of DNA. Researcher Ewout Groen talks about spinal muscular atrophy, a rare hereditary muscle disease. Thanks to new DNA techniques, doctors can examine patients faster and more accurately, helping them understand the disease better and give patients more clarity about how it will progress.
Presenter Jim Jansen talks with Manon Benders and Caroline de Theije and with Bjelke Rietveld about their experiences, both from a professional point of view and from the perspective of a parent.
Neurosurgeon Tristan van Doormaal and his former patient Diego receive warm applause after Diego shared his story of a brain tumour and the successful operation.
Then comes a battle between PhD candidates Tessie Hamers and Sem Hoogteijling. Each gets three minutes to pitch their research and win over the audience. Hamers is developing new ways to measure the attention disorder neglect after a stroke. Hoogteijling maps normal brain activity to make epilepsy surgery more accurate. The audience rewards both presentations with thunderous applause. As there is no clear winner, they both receive a fine prize.
With possible fatigue among the audience in mind, the topic of the final speaker is fittingly chosen: attention and concentration. With the question “Is our attention span by now as short as a goldfish’s?”, Stefan van der Stigchel, professor and lead of Utrecht Brain, quickly wins the room over.
He studies how attention works and why overstimulation is such a common complaint among people with brain damage. “Attention is a filter on the inner and outer world that you experience. Without that filter, we would be completely overwhelmed,” he explains.
Jim Jansen and Jeroen Pasterkamp close the evening together. After a show full of personal stories, innovations and new insights, two thoughts linger above all: how much is already possible in researching and treating brain diseases, but also how much there is still to discover.
Images: Chantal Rison
Stefan van der Stigchel takes the audience into the science behind multitasking and dividing our attention.
