I do have a master's in existential phenomenology because philosophy was what I really wanted to do.
I see.
And mind, the meaning of mind meant a lot to me and that led to the brain.
The human brain is the most complex structure in the known universe and we are in the middle of a
scientific revolution to understand its inner workings. Join us for a conversation with world
renowned neuroscientists as they visit Rochester. I am Dr. John Foxe, director of the Del Monte
Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester and you are listening to Neuroscience Perspectives.
Hi, I'm John Fox. I'm the director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University
of Rochester and I'm absolutely delighted to be here today with a good friend of mine. I'm really
one of the world's leading developmental neuroscientists, Bea Luna. Bea, welcome to
Rochester. It's so great to have you here on this lovely fine day. Thank you for inviting me. You've
spent all of your career at Pittsburgh but you are not from America, no more than I am myself.
And will you tell us a little bit about your journey and where you come from and what brought
you to the United States? I was born in Chile, Santiago, Chile and when I was a kid I lived in
DC for a couple years, went back to Chile to an American school and then I was let's say an
adventurous adolescent and I decided to come back to the states where my father lived for a couple
years to try it out and that was many, many moons ago. And was that like in high school? Yes. I see,
okay. Yes, as an adolescent, my poor dad. Yeah, it was, yeah. We all have a poor dad. I know, poor dad.
And I mean, you know, it's an interesting thing because you have a perspective from both countries
about let's say the science engine and that. Are there things about like why a scientist in the US
and what does the US mean for neuroscience? No, absolutely. I mean, I've gone there regularly
to give talks in the top universities in Chile and what really impresses me is the level
of their science. They do predominantly rodent models and they publish in Science and Nature
and they're very humble about it and but very focused in what they're doing. Of course, they
don't have the riches of Pittsburgh where we have a center with three Prismas, seven Tesla, an MMR,
et cetera, et cetera. So those are advantages and I think when I was growing up as a woman,
I think it would have been more difficult to have had the educational development that I had in the
States and be where I am today. Yeah, and that's been an important sort of aspect of your mission,
I know encouraging and supporting other women in the neurosciences. Absolutely. Tell us,
you know, what's the genesis of your interest in neurodevelopment, developmental neuroscience?
I've always been fascinated by development. First of all, I love little kids. Second of all,
I read adolescence was a very important time in my life. I was so curious, I was so exploratory.
I had, you know, journals with why, why, why, everything was why and I was, you know, parties
and boyfriends and altered states of consciousness. All of that was all like exploration in a scientific
journal. Yes, yes. So I start my graduate career started with looking at like birth to childhood
and that was fascinating and I became obsessed with the brain. Also, I didn't tell you that I
do have a master's in existential phenomenology because philosophy was what I really wanted to do.
I see. And mind, the meaning of mind meant a lot to me and that led to the brain and then how does
this emerge developmentally? So as a grad student, I looked at this early period and then my conclusion
of my dissertation is structural integrity is not enough because we did not see the matching that
you see in adult and I'm like this plasticity is just so significant during development that we
need to look at functional integrity and fMRI was just emerging, not pediatric yet, yet, but I knew
it would. So I moved to to John Sweeney, who you know, to John Sweeney's lab and then adolescence
became my thing more than anything because that's when psychiatric illnesses emerge. Yeah. Also,
that period where the realization that a young person's brain in their late teens and even into
their 20s was still a developing brain, it wasn't a fully formed brain and you were part of that
whole movement. Oh, absolutely. I mean, when I first started, I remember my chair, who's since retired,
he was like, why are you looking at adolescence? You know, it was that new and I remember him saying,
you know, I believe in you as long as you're one of the top five people and I'm thinking
there's fewer than that right now. So yeah, that's easy. Yeah, that's an easy one. Yeah.
And now it's exploded. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And actually, I mean, you you founded one of the major
societies in the whole space in the field, the flux society. You want to tell us a little bit
about flux, how long it's been running and what it's all about? It really was motivated by things
like study for neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, where people studying development were stuck in a
little corner. Right. And I felt that the science was suffering as well. You know, they're all very
bright, but we just weren't talking to one another. So I started to become obsessed with this idea.
And talking to other colleagues, they're like, hey, these things can be done. So I rallied some
friends of mine that we had promised many years ago, one day we will have our own society. I'm like,
okay, I'm going to do it. Come on in. So we did it. And this was almost 10 years ago. And the idea is
to bring the community of developmental cognitive neuroscience, you know, primarily those who study
humans using neuroimaging approaches. But it is essential that we have animal models and post
murder models, because we need to understand mechanisms. I always say, pretty neuroimaging
pictures is not sufficient. So we always try with every program chair, I always say, you know, you
have to put in, you know, pepper it with mechanistic understanding. I followed a model of East Coast,
West Coast, North America, and international. So because it is an international society,
it goes abroad and then to the East Coast and the West Coast on a revolving schedule.
And it's in Paris this year, which is not so bad. It is in Paris this year.
Outstanding. Very exciting after two virtual conferences.
Here's just probably a little bit of an unfair question, you know, but as really like one of the
world's leading developmental neurosciences, when you speak to parents about what you know about
neural development in the teen, adolescent, early childhood, teenage years, are there key insights
from science, from your science, from our science, that you say, here's some things you really need
to know? No, absolutely. I have these conversations often. I had them as a parent of teenagers.
And I think, you know, some of the realizations are that sensation seeking, exploration, even
risk taking is normative and can be adaptive. And, you know, the adolescent is transitioning
to independence and they will search and do what they want to do. My interpretation has been
restricting is not necessarily going to help them. However, providing a safe, you know, environment
and an open door policy. You know, for example, I'd rather you don't drink or smoke pot. However,
if you're in trouble, I don't care if it's four o'clock in the morning, we will pick you up.
No questions asked. Right, right. Common sense stuff, really. Yeah. It is common sense. I'm giving
it is common sense. Giving teenagers a bit of freedom to explore because they're literally
programmed to do that. Exactly. Maybe another unfair question, like key insight, like one key
insight about physiology in adolescents. One? It doesn't have to be one, but maybe your favorite.
I think some of the things that have really emerged, particularly from our line of inquiry,
it's often been perceived and you see it in commercials and so forth. Oh, adolescents don't
have a prefrontal cortex. And I think everyone's like, ha ha ha, that makes total sense. However,
one insight that we have found by looking at function and structure, now we're getting more
molecular, is that in fact, prefrontal cortex becomes available in adolescents. It's driven
by motivational forces, you know, motivational processes because those are operating at a greater
level to motivate exploration, but within the context of the availability of prefrontal cortex.
And I've seen this over and over. I informed a couple of American Medical Association briefs
to the Supreme Court for life without parole. And there you really had to think about it.
And you had to think about these crimes, which were very elegant in some ways, with a lot of
planning, but very much driven by reward and social sorts of aspects. So I think that's been
a very important insight for me about adolescents. I have many more, but that's one that's been quite
critical. Let's flip to the future, because I mean, we could talk for hours about the insights. And
so of course, we don't have that time. But where are we going? What's on the horizon here? Are
there things that get you really excited about the neurosciences? Do we have all the tools we need in
the tool chest at the moment? Or if you had the magic wand, what would you do? Oh, wow, that's
the unfair question. No, no, no, I think we never have all the tools. And when you're looking at,
for example, human neuroimaging, it's fantastic the sorts of things that we can speak to, but they're
all very much based on inferences and indirect assessments of things that people looking at
cellular and molecular and neurophysiology have a closer link to. So I think not only just tools,
which yes, we can improve the spatial resolution, temporal resolution, et cetera, but what I would
like to see in the future is real collaborations between animal, human, postmortem, people really
talking together. Not just, you know, center grants where everybody does their own thing and they meet
once a year, but actually informing one another. So really advocating a change to the model of,
you know, rather than having all the developmental neuroscience to do imaging in one part of the
building and talking to themselves, maybe a bit like you were saying about with flux and trying
to get all these different people at different levels together. Amazing. Yeah. You won a
presidential prize for your science back in the George Bush Jr. era, was that right? And went to
the White House. Yes. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that experience? Yeah, that was a
huge surprise and a huge boost early in my career. So it's the presidential early career award for
science and engineering. And it was me and Carl DeSaroth who wanted that year neuroscience wise.
And then there were physicists and all kinds of people. And yeah, at the time I wasn't too
thrilled. I would have much rather had Obama give me, but it was wonderful. Yeah. And I do remember
seeing Carl DeSaroth give a talk a few years after we got the prize. And I felt like going back and
saying, I am not worthy. Please take my back. For our viewers and listeners who may not all know who
Carl DeSaroth is, he's the sort of founder of Optogenetics, which is one of the extraordinary
techniques in the field, but definitely great company to be keeping at the White House. I know.
And he's so nice and he says he blew up the photo of all of us, has it in his lab. So he sees me
every day. Wonderful. And that led on to you being on, you were actually on the scientific council
for the NIH with Francis Collins, the director. Yeah. I was in the advisory council for the
director, the ACD. And that was a wonderful experience. And you know, a woman, a woman of
color. I'm Latina and so forth. It was funny because they were so welcoming that first day.
They're like, Dr. Luna, please don't be shy. We want to hear what you have to say. If they only knew
who they were talking to. And I'm thinking, oh my God. Well, that's really great though, right? I
imagine, you know, you have young women in your lab. I know a few of them. And, you know, to see
the boss go off to the White House to be on the council of investigators, advising the director
of NIH as a Latina woman, it's, you know, I mean, must really give them a good inspiration and
confidence. I mean, and this is, I mean, you must be proud of this. Yeah, I, not at the, you know,
as it's happening, I don't realize it, but I always feel very fortunate when people come up and say,
oh my God, you've really inspired or motivated me to persist. And, you know, what advice do you
give? And I'm like, persistence is the number one. Number one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's kind of
maybe a little controversial. What about, talk to me about this work-life balance, because that's
very, very much very prominent in our trainees minds. And, you know, they're not wrong. We,
when you and I came up in the sciences, it was a little bit different. And, you know, there were
expectations around how you would work that were really unreasonable when you look at it. But how,
what do you say to the young women in your lab about work-life balance? I'm being specific
about the women as well. Yes, things have evolved. When I was a postdoc, it was insane. I mean,
you know, I had little kids and I, my work hours were just insane. And I don't want to do that
in my laboratory. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I can work long hours sometimes. That's my choice.
That doesn't mean that people around me have to. Some choose to, some don't. And how do you
communicate that to them though? I'm extremely supportive. I've never said no to someone wanting
to take time off. Right. In fact, when they take time off to see their parents, I'm like,
that's wonderful. That's what you should do. That's what you should do because now I have kids that
I want to come visit. So I'm very supportive that way. I've had lots of people marry, have children
and even like faculty in the laboratory. And it's very important for me. They're like, oh, you know,
my kid is sick. I'm like, family comes first. Family first. Do not come here. I don't want to
hear you until everything is back to normal. Well, I think that's a fantastic message for
the young folks that are listening in. Last thing, last thing. I have the great good fortune of
working very closely with you on one of the great projects I think ever undertaken by the National
Institute of Health, the ABCD project. Want to say something about ABCD, what it means to you,
what it means to Pittsburgh? So ABCD is the adolescent brain cognitive developmental study.
And it's following more than 10,000 individuals from the age of nine now to the age of 19,
looking at their cognition and brain structure and function, mental illnesses, you know,
biomarkers, stress, environment, hair, genetics, everything. Because now we really are, you know,
we realize that that is the key to understanding lifetime trajectories, what is occurring during
that time period. And we know and we had a paper out in Nature recently, really showing that if you
want to have these like brain connectivity and behavior relationships, you need thousands of
thousands of individuals. So I think it's a wonderful contribution to science. This data is
available for anyone. And people are constantly mining and coming up with new questions and so
forth. So I'm very happy and very proud as I'm sure that you are as well to be part of this amazing
effort. Excellent. Bea Luna, what a pleasure to have you in Rochester and really to get the
opportunity to introduce you to our community. Thank you for being here. Thanks for the time.
Thank you. Always great to talk to you, John.