Brain Awareness Week

Brain Awareness Week (BAW) is a week long international campaign designed to teach people about the brain, how it works, and why research is so important. The goal is to raise awareness about the nervous system and the progress and benefits of ongoing neuroscience research.

The Society for Neuroscience and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives organize BAW events as part of an international effort to make neuroscience a household word.

2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008

Brain Awareness Week March 2009:

Food For Thought: What to Eat For a Better Brain

This program for the general public featured two presentations by internationally known scientists on the importance of diet for brain development and the maintenance and enrichment of a healthy brain in adulthood. Dr. Patricia Wainwright, a neuroscientist from the University of Waterloo in Canada, talked about the various ways that proper diet is necessary for the early critical periods of a developing brain and how dietary supplementation might improve brain functioning. Dr. Gernando Gomez-Pinilla, a neuroscientist from the University of California in Los Angeles who has said "food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain," spoke about how food affects the brain and how to utilize diet to enhance mental functioning in the brain. Dr. William E. Armstrong, Director of the University of Tennessee Neuroscience Institute, moderatde the program. It was at The Urban Child Institute on Thursday, March 13th from 6:30-8:30. Click here to see the poster for this event.