{"id":13242,"date":"2022-03-17T10:20:42","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T16:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=13242"},"modified":"2022-03-17T10:20:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T16:20:47","slug":"high-schoolers-test-their-knowledge-at-the-second-utrgv-brain-bee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=13242","title":{"rendered":"High Schoolers Test Their Knowledge at the Second UTRGV Brain Bee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
High school students from across the Rio Grande Valley participated in the UTRGV School of Medicine\u2019s Brain Bee competition, a question-and-answer contest for high school students about neuroscience, on Feb. 26. (UTRGV Photo by Paul Chouy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Karen Villarreal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS \u2013 MARCH 3, 2022 \u2013 It wasn\u2019t your average Saturday morning.
Destiny Salinas, a junior from La Joya Juarez-Lincoln High School in Mission, was busy cramming her own brain with information about the brain \u2013 not for an exam, but for competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cI feel pretty confident,\u201d Salinas said before the UTRGV School of Medicine\u2019s Brain Bee competition, which challenges high school students and tests their knowledge of neurology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cI\u2019ve always liked science, so I have some prior knowledge about psychology and brain conditions \u00ad\u2013 but so much is still a mystery,\u201d Salinas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Dr. Michael Dobbs, professor, and chair of the Department of Neurology at the UTRGV School of Medicine, before the competition began told the 25 high school students \u2013 from La Joya, Edinburg, and Brownsville \u2013 that there is still so much left to discover about brain health and commended them for their interest in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThe 1990s was the decade of the brain, and a lot has been discovered since I left medical school,\u201d said Dobbs, whose research as a student contributed to finding dopamine receptors in rat brains in the study of addiction and Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cSo, these quiz questions are hard,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are some I don\u2019t know!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOTIVATED TO LEARN
Hours after the initial quiz \u2013 a daunting verbal grilling from a panel of judges \u2013 the early confidence paid off for Salinas. She went home with a first-place trophy, and the renewed motivation to follow through on her medical school aspirations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Second place went to Pablo Berrones from Lopez Early College High School in Brownsville.
Eida Aguirre, a junior from Economedes High School in Edinburg, took third place.
\u201cI was inspired by the speakers,\u201d Salinas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Those speakers included professors and medical students from the UTRGV School of Medicine and one of its student organizations, the Student Interest Group in Neurology, or SIGN which led the efforts to organize the second-annual Brain Bee competition. The School of Medicine and SIGN collaborated with UTRGV GEAR UP to give the students the chance to explore this area of the healthcare field.
\u201cI saw that they\u2019re giving back to the world in a way that I want to,\u201d Salinas said. \u201cMy parents gave me the world, and I want to make them proud by giving as much as I have received.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Salinas\u2019 next step is to prepare for the USA National Brain Bee, which will be held virtually.
Michael F. Minano, a second-year student at the UTRGV School of Medicine and president of UTRGV\u2019s SIGN, discovered his interest in neurology during his master\u2019s studies at the University of Houston-Clearlake. He said seeing the high school students learn about neurology takes him back to when he was in their shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cI wish I had this opportunity when I was younger,\u201d he said. \u201cNow I know that I want to learn as much about this as I can, so it would have been really cool to be exposed early on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Karen Villarreal RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS \u2013 MARCH 3, 2022 \u2013 It wasn\u2019t your average Saturday morning.Destiny Salinas, a junior from La Joya Juarez-Lincoln High School in Mission, was busy cramming her own brain with information about the brain \u2013 not for an exam, but for competition. \u201cI feel pretty confident,\u201d Salinas said before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[67,9],"class_list":["post-13242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-featured","tag-latest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13244,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242\/revisions\/13244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}