Neuroscience Café brings science talks to Emmet O’Neal

On March 9, the Emmet O’Neal Library and UAB will come together to hold their second Neuroscience Café. 

Created by leadership with the Comprehensive Neuroscience Center at UAB, the program features a series of talks organized by Mountain Brook residents Dr. Peter King, professor of neurology at UAB, and Dr. Laura Volpicelli-Daley, assistant professor of neurology at UAB. 

The series was designed to inform communities on disease topics, King said, and is held at various local libraries. The upcoming lecture at EOL will cover “Substance Abuse and Addiction: From Molecular Mechanisms to Therapeutics,” and is led by Dr. Cayce Paddock, director of addiction psychiatry at UAB, and Dr. Jeremy Day, a UAB neuroscientist who is studying the regulation of genes involved in addiction. Other topics in the Mountain Brook series include depression, concussions in football, sleep disorders, autism, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

“These brain disorders have a high and often devastating impact on patients and their families,” King said. “UAB has a wealth of expertise in these brain disorders, both at the clinical and research level, and the café is an opportunity to inform the community about these disorders and the exciting progress that has been made in understanding the causes and advancing new treatments.”

The café features a presentation designed to be understood by anyone with an interest in neuroscience without having a background in it, King said, but suggests people at high school age or older will benefit the most.

The café starts at 6:30 p.m., and no registration is required. Subsequent Neuroscience Cafés will discuss autism on April 13 and Alzheimer’s on May 11. For more information, contact the Emmet O’Neal Library at 879-0459.