Question: How will being a "Zombie Scientist" help humans?

Robert Lees answered on 16 Nov 2015:

I’m not really a zombie scientist – I’m a molecular neuroscientist! I use brain cells and whole animals as models for our own brain, because the basic ways they work are the same as our cells and brains. I aim to understand how synapses (connections between brain cells) are formed, what makes them form in some places and not others and what makes them stay when others are lost. This is important for learning and memory tasks, where lots of new synapses are made or lost and in diseases of the brain where synapses are lost all the time, leading to conditions like dementia. I hope to understand and help to solve these problems to help people who suffer.