"Eat nuts, which have phosphorus, and are good for the brain."
80 people attended the conference "Molecules in your brain", the third session of the "Science of the human brain" series organized by the Science Museum.
21 | 11 | 2025
"Have a coffee, caffeine wakes up the neurons". "Get in the sun, vitamin D helps 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, because 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 chemical justification.
This was explained yesterday by José Ramón Isasi, professor at the Faculty 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 in 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 mentioned 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 tunnel microscopy, which today allows us to see the atoms on any surface). Nor did he fail to mention Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the network of connections formed in the human brain. "In a brain of one and a half kilograms 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 professor explained how information exchange works at the molecular level and how molecules move in the brain. "The messenger molecules (neurotransmitters such as dopamine) travel through the nerve cell inside 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 series on science and the human brain with the conference "Evolution of the brain: the tortuous path to the human mind", to be given by Javier Novo, Professor of Genetics at the University of Navarra. The event will take place next Thursday, November 27th at 19:30h. at the Civivox Iturrama (C / Esquíroz, 24 Pamplona).
