Aware of what’s upstairs? Yesterday, the University had three speakers visit campus in celebration of Brain Awareness Day. Brain Awareness Day, which was sponsored by The John Paul Scott Center for Neuroscience, Mind and Behavior and the Graduate Students for Neural and Cognitive Studies, happens every year in March. The visitors included, Diane McClure, an Ohio EPA member and member of Department of Air Pollutants Control, Ted Schetter, science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network and R. Thomas Zoeller, biology professor at the Morrill Science Center at the University of Massachusetts. ‘Speakers and topics are chosen based on what the community would be interested in learning about,’ said Casey Cromwell, associate professor of psychology who organized the event. Environmental toxins that can impair brain development was the topic of this year’s Brain Awareness Day. McClure spoke first mainly about the heavy metal maganese concentrations and the side affects. She said that the heaviest concentration of the metal occurred in Washington county in Southern Ohio. One of the health affects related to high maganese exposure is a violent temperament. Schetter, who was participating in Brain Awareness Day for the first time spoke next. He focused on how toxins, which include maganese, can affect not only early brain development, such as in fetuses, but can also cause problems later in life for adults. Zoeller spoke last mainly about how the thyroid hormone can lead to improper brain function. ‘Over 10 percent of people had abnormal thyroid hormone levels and 40 percent of those people that are being treated for it are being treated inadequately,’ Zoeller said. The large audience seemed to follow the speakers the entire time, even if some of the material contained lots of medical jargon. ‘I learned some stuff, and was able to keep up with a lot of the information being given, but there were some terms that were out of my league,’ senior Stephen Pfeiffer said. Both Cromwell and the three speakers agreed that Brain Awareness Day was a good way to make people aware of what they were exposed to and aware of their brains in general.