{"470351":{"#nid":"470351","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Brown Brings the Pieces Together","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEmery Brown may be forgiven if he sometimes feels as if he\u2019s collaborating with himself, combining two seemingly disparate disciplines in an effort to know more about the human brain.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBrown, who is an anesthesiologist and a statistician, affiliated with both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, brought all of it together recently when he delivered the annual Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Lecture in Biomedical Engineering (BME).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHow many people have had anesthesia before?\u201d Brown asked his audience of more than 130 at the Academy of Medicine at the outset of his lecture, entitled, \u201cDeciphering the Dynamics of the Unconscious Brain Under General Anesthesia.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen about half the people in the room raised their hands, he said, \u201cwell, I picked the right topic then.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThen he spent the next 45 minutes or so presenting his research on what happens to the human brain, at different ages, under anesthesia. Sorting it all out, he said, required \u201can amalgam of neuroscience, statistics and modeling.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe work represents an important contribution to neuroscience because historically, \u201cwe haven\u2019t taken the study of general anesthesia seriously as a neuroscience discipline, and it very much is,\u201d he said, adding that a more serious approach to studying anesthesiology will not only improve patient care, but lead to a greater understanding of how the brain works and help address other problems in clinical neuroscience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlong the way, Brown also helped answer another, broader question for Coulter Department Chairman Ravi Bellamkonda.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cPeople ask me all the time, \u2018what do biomedical engineers do,\u2019\u201d said Bellamkonda, who had earlier described the BME department as, \u201ca powerful incubator of ideas.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBrown\u2019s presentation, he said, was a great example of how different disciplines help spark the knowledge and discovery that keeps the incubator humming with activity. \u201cThis talk was a perfect illustration of how technology and math and physics can help us understand something that we think of as biology,\u201d Bellamkonda added.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis year\u2019s lecture provided an opportunity for BME\u2019s growing expertise in neuroscience to step to the forefront, said Garrett Stanley, the BME professor who served as faculty host, and who first met Brown years ago.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt the time, Stanley was just starting his lab at Harvard and a colleague suggested he seek out Brown for some statistical information. Stanley was surprised to discover that Brown was also an anesthesiologist.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBut he was also a serious statistician and mathematician, immersed in the field of neuroscience,\u201d Stanley said. \u201cI\u2019m not a scholar in etymology, but I\u2019m pretty sure that the two words \u2018anesthesiologist\u2019 and \u2018statistician\u2019 have probably never been concatenated in the history of the English language. I think we can thank Emery for that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor his part, Brown took note of the collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach being taken in general at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and specifically within the Coulter Department, a joint department of Georgia Tech and Emory.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe work here is phenomenal,\u201d he said. \u201cThis beautiful integration of medicine and engineering and science, because you\u2019ve brought together two institutions, Georgia Tech and Emory. It\u2019s unique, and the possibilities are boundless.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Distinguished lecturer presents research on anesthesia\u2019s effects on the brain"}],"field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Distinguished lecturer presents research on anesthesia\u2019s effects on the brain"}],"uid":"27513","created_gmt":"2015-11-16 17:22:50","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:15","author":"Walter Rich","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-11-16T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-11-16T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"470291":{"id":"470291","type":"image","title":"Guest speaker Emery Brown (left), and Ravi Bellamkonda (right), BME department chair.","body":null,"created":"1449257160","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:26:00","changed":"1475895218","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:38","alt":"Guest speaker Emery Brown (left), and Ravi Bellamkonda (right), BME department chair.","file":{"fid":"203884","name":"emery_and_ravi.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/emery_and_ravi_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/emery_and_ravi_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2323905,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/emery_and_ravi_1.jpg?itok=hJZB7dHv"}},"470331":{"id":"470331","type":"image","title":"Biomedical Engineering Neuro Faculty","body":null,"created":"1449257160","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:26:00","changed":"1475895218","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:38","alt":"Biomedical Engineering Neuro Faculty","file":{"fid":"203885","name":"neuro_folks.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/neuro_folks_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/neuro_folks_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2105440,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/neuro_folks_1.jpg?itok=cvhyLFfq"}}},"media_ids":["470291","470331"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"249","name":"Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"946","name":"distinguished lecture"},{"id":"148101","name":"Emery Brown"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}