"Eat nuts, which have phosphorus, and are good for the brain."

"Have a coffee, because caffeine wakes up the neurons. "Get out in the sun, because vitamin D financial aid you balance serotonin". "Don't get so stressed at work that your cortisol rises. "Go for a run, the body releases endorphins and so you clear your head". "Don't study on an empty stomach, glucose is important for the brain. "Eat some chocolate, the body needs dopamine". Possibly the act of reading all in a row can produce some anxiety. Somewhere between the popular saying and the advice that a mother or a friend might give you, behind these everyday situations there is a biological and Chemistry justification.

This was explained yesterday by José Ramón Isasi, Full Professor at the School of Science of the University of Navarra, in an informative session ("Molecules in your brain") at the Civivox Iturrama, which was attended by about 80 people. For Isasi, the brain is "the most complicated object we know of the universe".

The professor began by making sense of four molecules that are from the same family but have some differences between them and produce different effects on the brain: xanthine, caffeine, theophylline and theobromine.  

He then continued with a review of the molecular biology of the brain -he did not miss the quotation to Johann Thomas Hensing who in 1719 found phosphorus in the brain- and how we have seen the brain, from the molecular point of view, throughout history and how the different microscopy techniques have evolved (from a simple microscope, through electron microscopy to tunneling microscopy, which today allows us to see the atoms in any surface). The accredited specialization to Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the network of connections formed in the human brain was also present. "In a brain of a kilo and a half there are 80,000 million neurons. Each neuron has between 5,000 and 50,000 connections. There are 100 trillion connections in the brain".

The Full Professor explained how the exchange of information works at the molecular level and how the molecules move in the brain. "The messenger molecules (neurotransmitters such as dopamine) travel through the nerve cell in packets that open when they touch the membrane and are released to the outside; they then stick to the receptor molecules of the next molecule, which in turn causes a channel to open. It all happens in an orderly fashion." Isasi also spoke about the most common neurotransmitters such as glutamate, GABA, dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, endorphin, adrenaline, etc., and how each of them produces an effect in the brain: excitation, inhibition, sleep, appetite, reward, well-being, etc.

In the talk, the professor also explained the consequences that the use of drugs and drugs of abuse (such as cocaine, amphetamines, opioids, cannabis or nicotine, among others) have on our brain. In the case of the latter, how they alter the neurotransmitters "blocking the neuron and stopping it from doing what it is supposed to do". 

With the rigor and humor characteristic of his speech and with an informative explanation, he left some gifts with a scientific name: tubules, key-lock, proton pumps, molecules, synapses, molecular machines, noradrenaline transporter, ATP molecule, etc. And he even showed us a glucose molecule to tell us that "glucose consumption is enormous, relative to the weight of the brain" (2% weighs the brain and 20% of the glucose is consumed there).

The Science Museum will close this cycle on science and the human brain with the lecture "Evolution of the brain: the tortuous path to the human mind", to be given by Javier Novo, Full Professor of Genetics at the University of Navarra. The quotation will be next Thursday, November 27th at 19:30h. in the auditorium of the Civivox Iturrama (C / Esquíroz, 24 Pamplona).