My Talk with PhD John Robinson

 Hey team,

Yesterday, 8/11, I had the opportunity to talk with the Co-Executive Director of the Thomas M. Ryan Professor of Neuroscience PhD John Robinson at the university of rhode island (the school I go to for pharmacy). Despite not being the most involved in directly related pharmacy teachings, I felt very interested to talk with Dr. Robinson due to his focus in behavioral neuroscience and his background in psychology. I figured I could learn a thing or two about his studies and also the man behind his studies. I could not have been more satisfied with our talk. 

He is a very friendly and engaging individual who instilled a feeling of mutual respect within myself (something that is often lacking with upper level professionals). I learned of his background in studying rats with a focus in dementia related diseases. Despite not being human models, rats do serve a very helpful role in understanding mechanisms of drug, environmental and social effects. I learned that, though limited, it's possible to infer behavioral affects in mice through unique tests. Dr. John was very transparent that his work is part of many contributions to the field of of psychology and neuroscience that add to the collective understanding of dementia and his work, along with everyone else's would never hold up by itself. This fits is very well with my understanding of interdependence and collective understanding. What is one study without all the previously collected information and studies before it? By recognizing that we are all adding to this collective understanding and no single person can make a difference (in solidarity) we see how dependent we are one one another. To me this is a beautiful this that we often forget about in a society that pressures us into proving our individuality and independence.

He gave me a quick rundown in neuroinflamation which describes the increased presense of inflammatory molecules like cytokines and prostaglandins that are found in damaged neural tissue. Inflammation is an advantages bodily reaction that serves in times of acute need. However chronic inflammation is well known to be destructive and disadvantageous. We see unregulated levels of inflammatory chemicals in patients with common mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression and memory related disorders. It isn't exactly clear whether the inflammation contributes to the symptoms or the symptoms contribute to the inflammation, very chicken and eggy. We do know that many things contribute to neuroinflamation such as head injuries, infections and even chronic stress so even if there are different triggers of negative cognitive symptoms they often all have a neuroinflamatory component that could be targeted as a source of treatment. 

I hope to talk to Dr. Robinson in the future to learn of more current studies and perhaps discuss some of what I've been learning about as well. He is a very personal personal particularly engaging and respectful, very reinforcing behavior from a psychological perceptive to say the least. 

Thanks for reading!