(Please excuse any parts where the words are not aligned, as this is a downloaded pdf version of the original abstract and slides.)
Script (only contains my part):
“Connectomics.” A term coined by Dr. Olaf Sporns at Indiana University and Dr. Patric Hagmann at Lausanne University Hospital, connectomics is the study of… well, connectome, which is a comprehensive graph of an organism’s nervous system. Simply, you can think of it as a map of neural connections. Because of how vast the brain is, acquiring its ‘map’ can be very difficult- in fact, a single brain has around 1 exabyte of data, which is equivalent to a million terabytes.
So, in an attempt to create this map, researchers started out with organisms brains of smaller sizes. Firstly, it was the roundworms, for which researchers took very high resolution images of slices of the worm using electron microscopes, printed the image, and traced its whole nervous system for every wire. Then, they moved on to fruit flies, insects with brain structure that are capable of more complicated behavior such as flying, navigation, and courtship. They were a good target, because their brains were made up of a relatively small amount of cells despite their structure of 125,000 neurons, which is quite complex compared to the roundworms’ brain containing 302 neurons. Currently, researchers’ next target for brain mapping is the brain of a mouse, which is said to be a miniature version of the human brain.
From the year of 2018, Harvard neuroscientists collaborated with Google researchers to build a high-resolution map of the brain by combining brain imaging with AI-based image processing. It was the first-ever human connectome project- the mapping of neural connections in the human brain. They obtained a 1-cubic-millimeter sample of the anterior temporal lobe of a 45-year-old epilepsy patient, which was sliced into thin slivers to reconstruct the wiring patterns of the brain and then its network connecting cells were recreated using images taken by electron microscopy. Artificial intelligence was used to identify what type of cells were in brain regions and how they were connected, mapping out about millions of neuron fragments, 57,000 cells, 183 million synapses, and 230 millimeters of blood vessels of the brain. In 2021, they released their project, the H01 dataset, a 1.4 petabyte 3D model of the sample human brain tissue.
The image on the right shows the incoming axons in the brain, and on the left is the image of the excitatory and inhibitory synapses, represented by colored points.
(End of the script)
The Science Symposium takes place in our school annually for Year 10 and 12 students. Each applying team can have up to 3 members, and after all applicants present their ppt to the teachers, they discuss amongst themselves to shortlist the finalists. The finalists are to present in the auditorium in front of an audience, where the winner will be announced. The overarching theme for the 2024 Science Symposium was 'Artificial Intelligence: Revolutionizing Scientific Discovery and Innovation.'
My friends, Leah and Maya, and I took part in the Science Symposium as a team. The theme for it was artificial intelligence in science, and since all three of us are taking psychology as one of our subjects, we decided that AI in the brain would be an interesting topic to talk about. We contemplated over which subtopics we could choose for our presentation and divided the parts, beginning our research and putting the information together to form an abstract containing the basic information of we would like to include in the symposium. After finishing our research properly and getting an idea of how we should speak to relay the information well, we wrote the script for each of our parts on our own then had a meeting together to discuss them and share each other's opinions on how we can improve on them. When we finally settled on the script for each of our parts, we started working on the ppt itself, adding related pictures and short bullet points if needed. Our main focus in making the ppt was to keep the audience engaged on the topics we're speaking about and to help them understand. We made sure not to include a lot of words or sentences on it, so the audience can focus on what we would be saying instead of reading the slides the whole time.
We finished making the ppt and checking with each other to see if the finalized version was alright before the deadline. I think this is around the time I started practicing my script, marking the places I should take a breath and the words I should emphasize, and trying to memorize them in an attempt to make my speaking more natural. Unfortunately, I was very sick for quite a long time, so I could not practice my part as much as I would have liked- I tried to work on it whenever I could though. We had our meeting with a teacher online for them to look at our presentations and shortlist the finalist. I got quite nervous and after I finished, I could barely remember how I did and was worried I stuttered. Naturally, I was surprised when the teacher's reaction was positive! She also gave us feedback on what we can do better, which we did our best to comply to while keeping the time in check.
We really worked hard on the presentation, and let's just say that our group chat started filling up with chats when we got the news that our team made the finalists! 😁
On the day of our presentation, I was extremely tense as we were waiting for our turn, which was unlike my usual self. I think it was mostly because I really didn't want to make a mistake on something we worked so hard on as a group, which is a little ironic since I usually believe that stress makes your performance lower. It may also have been because I was practicing my lines to the very last moment even though I normally gave myself a few minutes to relax before going up. I watched other groups present as well- I could see the effort they had put into each of our presentations.
When I got up the stage, I said my lines, and although a few of the sentences I memorized seemed to disappear in real-time in my brain, I had my cue card with me. I tried not to look at it much, though, and I was glad to find out from some of my friends that I didn't look like I was reading much and sounded much more natural than what I thought while talking. I'm honest, I barely remembered how I did, but considering how nervous I was, I'm pleased at myself for managing to say everything I wanted to relay to the audience. It seemed that I wasn't the only one who was nervous. The second we finished and were on backstage, my group members were talking about how nervous we while talking. I was still very proud of our team, since I knew first-hand the amount of time and energy that we spent on the science symposium. I was especially delighted when my friends in the audience told me that we did really well on the presentation.
Although I'm a little disappointed we did not manage to win come in first for the science symposium, I grateful of how we were able to make the finalists and present in front of an audience. All I know is that I'm satisfied with my decision to participate in our final symposium in high school. On that note, I'd like to give a shout-out to my friends😂🤩
Thanks, Leah and Maya, for being such wonderful teammates! We did great!👍
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