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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		When it comes to brain research, starting small helps
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:03
	Publish Date:		2016-05-25 00:00:00
	Description:		In the last two decades, one of the most rapidly growing areas in research is the quest to understand how the brain works – and the severe consequences when the brain goes awry. The biggest challenge, according to neurobiologist Jack Feldman of UCLA, is that the brain is probably the most complex object in the universe. "I realize that other people have said that, but it’s probably true. There are 80 billion neurons, they’re all connected to each other, so by the time you go through the combinatorial, the numbers just get to be totally out of hand. We need to be able to solve, to understand things. One way of doing it is to try to tackle the simpler problems first to provide a foundation for the more complex problems." Feldman and his colleagues are working on just that by pinpointing the brain’s ‘sighing reflex’. Their findings will help in the understanding of the neural control of breathing, which has broader implications for lung function. "We would like to understand what the mechanisms are to be able to find therapies for things like SIDS and sleep apnea and Rett syndrome and so on and so forth."
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