Health Science Reviews

by Tayla Kebonte

Being a part of the honours Neuroscience & Physiology class of 2022 has been a great privilege. My curiosity about the brain and its mysterious workings has been nourished by lecturers and my peers. I particularly enjoyed the Advanced Cellular Neuroscience module – I felt that I was learning something completely new every day which was thrilling (though the complexity of what I was learning daunted me at times).

Initially, I started the year with the intention of taking up a research project that was clinically oriented but after a quick mental pep-talk I realised that I only have 1 year to be completely immersed in all-things-neuroscience. I reasoned that I would benefit from learning skills and techniques that I would not learn in medicine. So I sit here (several failed qPCRs and tissue cultures later) to say that I feel more equipped than ever to be a functional member of a lab.

I have enjoyed being a part of the O’Ryan lab – working with a group of patient, intelligent and hardworking women has urged me to be just the same. The contribution this lab has made to autism genetics is incredible! I am eager to see what the future holds for this group.

One particular skill that I am particularly grateful for is my newfound ability to critically read scientific papers. It is a priceless skill! So priceless that if the entire year consisted of reading and writing only, I would have benefitted greatly still.

All-in-all, taking a year out of medicine to do this was entirely worthwhile.