How Neuroscience Is Breaking out of the Lab Nervous-System Scientists Share How They’Re Working in a Variety of Settings

SPOTLIGHT ON NEUROSCIENCE CAREERS

How neuroscience is breaking out of the lab Nervous-system scientists share how they’re working in a variety of settings.

BY NIC FLEMING

oncerns that neuroscience’s rise in numbers of people that once God had finished popularity as a PhD subject has not gathering his chosen few into heaven, everyone been matched by a proportional growth KRIS DE MEYER else would be destroyed in a fury of earthquakes, Cin academic positions, coupled with a recent tsunamis and fire. scaling back of brain-science research by many The film-maker Some of Camping’s followers prepared for pharmaceutical companies, has led to worries the end by leaving their jobs and selling their that researchers will be forced to leave the field. Postdoctoral research associate, King’s homes. A handful of them feature in the 2016 But neuroscience is opening doors in a College London. documentary Right Between Your Ears, co-pro- broad range of alternative settings. Nature duced by neuroscientist Kris De Meyer, based at spoke to five neuroscientists putting their dis- The world did not end on 21 October 2011. King’s College London. The film highlights neu- cipline to work to find satisfaction and impact It carried on spinning despite US Christian roscience research into how we form opinions

DAVID PARKINS DAVID in their careers. radio host Harold Camping persuading large and change or refuse to change our minds.

coach The leadership TARA SWART reach different conclusions. how people presented samewith the evidence play helps audience the to gain insight into ence members play of parts the jurors. The about Justice the Syndicate, in which audi immersive theatre. He excited is especially that build neuroscience and psychology into message across,” he says. and more find constructive ways of getting your saying, you might able be to compensate for that why of part your audience what rejects you are communicate.they “If you understand better from brain the to sciences improve way the that change and environment, the to insights use entists, concerned with those climate especially date.”to insights to hundreds of thousands of people out science, the it has brought scientific useful says De Meyer. “As that and astory film brings with journal limiteda specialist readership,” entific study, it would have published been in staff, for example. “Building mental resilience ability to adapt to change and motivate their insights,based which she says can improve their executives and managers with neuroscience- its leaders under immense stress. Swart provides ment inwhich many businesses operate can put disrupted, information-rich, 24-hour environ works of connections brain between The cells. ability of brain the to form or reorganize net according to Swart, is neuroplasticity — the leadership context”. applicable neuroscience business inthe and after she noticed a “demand for rigorous but moved into leadership coaching ago, adecade working as apsychiatrist for years. seven She completing aPhD inneuropharmacology and in London. iswho based “It’s hot property.” much anything you want days,” these says Swart, a neuroscience PhD you can set up to do pretty inawiderangefield of business settings. “Doing great demand inthe for with expertise those changing world. As aresult, she says, there is resiliencetal to thrive needed inour rapidly- insights into how people can develop men the thatthinks brain offers science important ship coach, public speaker, lecturer and author, early-career neuroscientists. Swart, a leader arewho pessimistic about prospects the of Tara Swart couldn’t disagree more with those based inLondon. Public speaker, lecturer and author S30 | NATURE | S30 2018 VOL | NOVEMBER 563 |1 Neuroscience’s not-so-secret weapon, Swart originally studied medicine, before MeyerDe working been has also on projects Since Meyer 2013,De helping has been sci Why “Had afilm? we done a purely sci ------I College, Claremont, California. Visiting assistant professor, Pomona The comedian ORI AMIR academic neuroscience to business,” she says. forced to do so. “I myself see as a translator of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, than animals support brain-cell growth called and survival, producetreadmill more of aprotein that helps research shows that rats that voluntarily a use formsfind of exercise that enjoy, they saying 171 classes (D. C.Johnson had previouslyif they attended mindfulness showed fewer physiological markers of stress how US marines doing stressful combat training Natl Acad. USA Sci. haven’t who than those (S.Danziger infavourrule of prisoners inparole hearings recently eaten are significantly more likely to and another that found that judges have who that brain the 20%of uses calories consumed, USA Sci. & D.E. Raichle A.Gusnard cussing nutrition, astudy she describes (M. andin her coaching talks sessions. When dis in your brain.” mental resilience you have to change pathways toin, because build emotional intelligence or says. “That’s where neuroplasticity really comes is probably biggest the of part my work,” she Swart highlights research also that describes Swart arange uses of neuroscience research This is not an invitation to recreational take you may told well be to ‘get out of your head’. f you ever go to an improvised comedy class, © , 844–853;2014).She tells her audiences to

2 0 1 8

S 99 p r i , 10237–10239; 2002) showing n g e r

N a t 108 u r e

L et al. , 6889–6892;2011). i m i t e d Am. J. Psychiatry .

Proc. Natl Acad. A l l r i g h t et al et s r e s . e r Proc. Proc. v e d . -

out of work. “I comedy think generation is computers funny put will his comedian friends tion. He is not worried that his efforts to make intelligencecial (AI) to model comedy genera shown done can this be through meditation. to lead funnywill ideas.’” research Other has stream of associations temporal inthe regions down control of mPFC the and that trust the roscience translation is ‘try to reduce top- the doingwhen improv works,” neu he says. “The teers. “It looks like ‘getting out of your head’ jokes — as rated by aseparate group of volun dians and during generation the of funnier there was greater for more-experienced come are origin the of funny ideas because activation tion converges from lower-level brain regions. regions in temporal the lobes, where informa cortex (mPFC) and some high-levelsemantic increased activity pre-frontal in medial the funny, to be that trying while volunteers had real-time humour creation. Amir showed was first to the explore brain activity during brain cando.” everything the pretty much involves funny ideas “Generating undergoingwhile brain scans inafunctional funny and non-funny captions for cartoons and 18 non-comedians to come up with both asked 13 professional comedians, 9amateurs advice has at least some basis inscience. He stand-up comedian, has shown that this emotions might make you funnier. your ego-driven concerns and tuning into your Rather,drugs. it’s that idea the setting aside Amir is now investigating of use the artifi Amir concluded that temporal the regions Amir,Ori aneuroscientist and amateur perceptual pleasure, ofwas part his PhD on 10 Front. Hum. Neurosci Amir &I.Biederman imaging machine. resonancemagnetic Amir’s study (O. , 597;2016),which ------.

DAVID PARKINS ©

2 0 1 8

S p r i n g e r

N a t u r e

L i m i t e d .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . SPOTLIGHT ON NEUROSCIENCE CAREERS

years suggest that she may be right. Many York. Then, Hochner was granted funding pharmaceutical companies are hedging from the US Navy, which wanted to find out their bets by restructuring their neurosci- whether the mechanisms through which ence research divisions rather than axing octopuses control their bodies could be rep- them entirely. Others, in step with a more licated in soft-bodied military robots. This, general shift in the industry, are diversifying it was hoped, could be useful for tasks such their risk by outsourcing R&D to academic as surveillance, and search and rescue in labs and small biotech firms. In January, for complex terrains. He also received support instance, Takeda Pharmaceuticals agreed a from the US Defense Advanced Research deal worth up to US$1.2 billion with Denali Projects Agency. Therapeutics, in San Francisco, to collabo- Hochner began by trying to understand rate on three neurodegenerative disease pro- how the nervous sys- grammes, and Johnson & Johnson unveiled “Octopuses tems of octopuses four neuroscience collaborations with both have an almost cope with the much academic and private-sector labs. In June, infinitely greater flexibility their Pfizer revealed plans to invest $150 million large degree soft bodies afford in start-ups seeking new brain-disorder of freedom of them compared with treatments. movement.” animals that are con- Balice-Gordon discovered a passion for strained by skeletons. understanding how environmental cues shape “Octopuses have an almost infinitely large brain circuitry, and how this affects behaviour, degree of freedom of movement,” he says. as an undergraduate at Northwestern Univer- “Finding a way to efficiently control that is sity in Evanston, Illinois. She then spent almost a huge problem, both for a nervous system 20 years at the University of Pennsylvania, and for a computer system.” Philadelphia, before becoming an enthusiastic Hochner, who is now at the Hebrew Uni- an AI-complete problem,” he says. “In other convert to industry. She was recruited by Pfizer versity of Jerusalem, showed that reaching words, generating funny ideas involves pretty to lead its psychiatry and pain drug-develop- movements could be triggered in severed much everything the brain can do. So come- ment programmes in 2012. “I love working octopus arms using electrical stimulation. dians are unlikely to be replaced by AI, at least in the translational space between the lab and He found that some often-repeated octopus until almost every other profession has been the clinic,” she says. “I think that is where the movements can be independently controlled replaced by it.” real advances in neuroscience therapeutics are by neural circuitry in the arm, freeing the going to come from.” brain to focus on other tasks (G. Sumbre She has been with Sanofi since 2016. Bal- et al. Science 293, 1845–1848; 2001). ice-Gordon thinks many academics would be He has also investigated how octopus RITA BALICE-GORDON surprised at the similarities between doing brains represent and plan for almost limit- research in universities and at drug com- less freedom of movement. By stimulating The pharmacist panies. “There is a perception that in biop- electrodes implanted into the brains of octo- harma we don’t ask a lot of science questions, puses that were then filmed moving freely, Global head, neuroscience, Sanofi, but I think in early drug discovery, most aca- Hochner’s group found it was not possible Boston, Massachusetts. demics would not find the focus very differ- to trigger movement in single arms or body ent. The key difference is that it requires a parts. Unlike the brains of skeletal animals Drugs giant Pfizer’s announcement in Janu- focus on the crucial questions from the point such as humans, Hochner found, the octopus ary that it was pulling out of neuroscience of view of patients, rather than exploring all brain does not contain specific parts that deal research and development (R&D) was just possible questions.” with sensory and motor information from the latest instalment in a string of similar bad To fellow neuroscientists interested in fol- individual body parts (L. Zullo et al. Curr. news for brain scientists hoping to work in the lowing in her footsteps, Balice-Gordon advises Biol. 19, 1632–1636; 2009). pharmaceutical industry. GSK, AstraZeneca, taking time to gain not just deep expertise but Hochner has described octopus movement Novartis and Merck have all either closed neu- also broad knowledge, and says that the impor- and its evolution as examples of ‘intelligent roscience divisions or scaled back their brain- tance of networking cannot be overstated. embodiment’, a phrase used by roboticists to science research since 2010. Many saw these describe autonomous machines that learn moves as adding to the sense that the field had behaviour through interacting with their over-promised and under-delivered when it environment. came to real-world impact and application. BENNY HOCHNER His group has now returned to studying Yet, Rita Balice-Gordon, head of neuro- Hochner’s original interest of memory and science at French pharmaceutical company The soft-body learning. Long-term synaptic potentiation, Sanofi, says that such reports present only a process whereby synapses are strength- a partial picture. “Big pharma might not be specialist ened through greater activity, is thought to all in when it comes to neuroscience, but have key roles in mammalian learning and when looked at in terms of the broader biop- Professor of Neurobiology, Hebrew memory. Hochner’s group has shown it plays harma ecosystem, the field has never been University of Jerusalem, Israel. the same part in octopuses, suggesting the more vibrant,” she says. “We have a number mechanism has evolved separately in parallel. of promising internal programmes, and, like Before 1995, neuroscientist Benny Hochner He also found that, as in mammals, octopus other companies, we also have a number of was mainly interested in the mechanisms brains have different systems for dealing with exciting partnerships with biotech companies underlying learning and memory, something short- and long-term memories. ■ and start-ups, which together give me tremen- he studied in sea slugs with Eric Kandel, dous hope for the future.” who later won a Nobel Prize in Physiology Nic Fleming is a freelance science writer Several announcements in the past few or Medicine, at Columbia University in New based in Bristol, UK.