The Neuroscientist Who Studies Beginnings | Isabel Fuentes | 2/3

January 17 • Circlo Podcast

Circlo Podcast

The Purpose — Research With a Reason

The Purpose: Understanding Formation to Help Lives

This is the second article out of three parts of my interview with Isabel, a young neuroscience researcher.

If you would like to read the introduction and first part, start with The Neuroscientist Who Discovered Herself Through Change.

We shared a thoughtful podcast-style conversation in which she educated me — and will hopefully educate you — on her research, her purpose, and what drives her curiosity. The goal of this interview was simple: to grow both personally and through her scientific perspective.

Above is the full video for this section of the interview. The complete interview with all sections is available below.

Complete Interview: How We Are Formed: Brain Development, Change, and Identity | Isabel Fuentes

The Brain That Observes Before It Sees

Isabel is very excited because she just finished defining her thesis plan recently. The group she is in is dedicated to studying the development of the cerebral cortex, in particular areas of the cortex: the one that processes vision and the one that processes the sense of touch. Within this world of cortical development, of sensory cortex, her project is going to focus on seeing how the thalamus, which is another structure of the brain, relates with cortical neurons and how, with the information that the cortex has by itself, with the genes that neurons are expressing there and the information arriving from the thalamus, this makes the cortex that processes vision actually become visual cortex and not just anything else, and the cortex that processes touch finally becomes that and not also just anything else.

She is very excited because it’s a fascinating project. In the end, understanding how the brain works is a mystery and for her the point is that to understand how it works, it’s very important to know how it’s formed and, at the beginning, try to understand how the process works to see if it helps us understand a bit more. On one hand, how we function and, on the other hand, also knowing that it can be very useful to better understand why certain diseases or neurological disorders that are related to these sensory systems occur.

Why Chronic Conditions, Why Children

She has a future idea to research neuroscience and biochemistry to help children with neurological diseases. Our goals have a meaning to who we are and who we want to become. Our purpose has meaning. So, as from previous conversations she shared what field of research she would like to specialize deeper in, I wanted to know why it meant something to her and what it meant to her to research in this area to help children.

She mentioned that everything starts with the brain seeming fascinating to her — understanding how it works, that great mystery. At first, she worked on neurodegenerative diseases, and that’s also very interesting. But for her, it had more beauty to think about how it arises, how we form, rather than degeneration. When she doesn’t understand something, she wants to understand how it works, she wants to go to the origin.

She is drawn to neurological disorders like autism spectrum conditions, epilepsy in young people, and schizophrenia — conditions where relatively little is known and that will accompany people throughout their entire lives. It’s something chronic, and she thinks if there were really some way to avoid it or improve the quality of life of these people, because it’s something that will accompany them always.

She sees promise in this area: there’s a lot of research going in that direction because mutations in specific genes are very related to these diseases. It seems like you can study it a bit, that there are candidate genes to explain why these disorders occur. So it seemed like something achievable, and it would make her happy to know she’s part of it.

The Human Face Behind Every Experiment

This is a key idea I want to share from her response. Isabel wants to have patients present in her research, have contact with them. From the human perspective this gives you a drive, it gives you a meaning for the research, because you will see for whom this is going to be. The investigation has a name, it has a family behind, a life that could be made better. Having this presence really helps with effectiveness and fulfillment of the job. I invite you to have your purpose every day present, have your why present, put a face to it, a name, a meaning. We all have the power and skills to improve someone’s life in our job, or perhaps the life of many, perhaps it’s your life and your families. Have them present.

To reach the essence of her purpose in mind I wanted to find why this curiosity for chronic diseases, why this illusion, why do you decide on the chronic and not temporary. Is it personal experience, satisfaction, vision.

She finds neurological disorders and people with these problems very interesting and fascinating. In the end, their brain has been configured differently, so they also have different ways of seeing the world. And that’s what attracted her — sometimes having felt a bit different herself. She’s not comparing or anything, but they’re special people. She likes special people in a positive sense, but what she doesn’t like is thinking that this can have negative repercussions in their life. And the fact that it’s chronic, that it accompanies them their whole life — having something that’s having a negative effect in their life seems worthy of fighting for and trying to ensure that these people, who are different, can have the best possible life.

There’s that magic in everyone. The chronic nature matters so much to her because it means a genetic variation at the beginning of life creates a lifelong challenge.

The Satisfaction of Daily Discovery

This dream is personal, human and emotive. Is there a feeling she wishes to reach from pursuing this dream? Satisfaction, internal peace, power of capability and initiative.

She will not be satisfied. She will always know there will be more. She seeks to find the day-to-day satisfaction of small things, like a good result, a new question, new research, data. Generate new experiments. Satisfaction when the idea and the problem comes to mind to resolve.

She has very clear that the more she knows about the topic, the more she’ll know that she doesn’t know about the topic, because really everything is very complex. But she loves the sensation of being there and facing a challenge and not knowing what will come out of this. Having this question in mind, thinking this way to validate the hypothesis, testing it, and then, if it works out, great, and if it doesn’t work out, asking yourself why it didn’t work out and trying something else. Constantly solving problems. She loves that.

And in the long term, even more important than the personal knowledge she might acquire, the knowledge she can create to help someone else. Have the peace to know that she has given her grain of sand to try to improve the life conditions of other people. And that she has the potential to help others and that it was useful. Even if the knowledge she creates is not used, someone will see her research and hopefully inspires someone else to solve this issue.

Lesson

I invite you to have your purpose every day present, have your why present, put a face to it, a name, a meaning. We all have the power and skills to improve someone’s life in our job, or perhaps the life of many, perhaps it’s your life and your families. Have them present.

Closing: The Magic in Being Different

Isabel’s research connects fundamental questions about how the brain develops with a deeply personal mission: helping children who are different live their best possible lives. She finds neurological disorders and people with these conditions fascinating because their brains are configured differently, giving them different ways of seeing the world. But what she doesn’t like is thinking that this difference can have negative repercussions in their lives.

There’s that magic in everyone. And the chronic nature of these conditions — that they accompany people their whole lives — makes the work feel worthy of fighting for. Behind every experiment is a person, a family, a life that could be improved.

In the next article, we explore Isabel’s approach to scientific thinking and decision-making, particularly a profound lesson from research: that not obtaining a result is also a result — and how this wisdom applies far beyond the laboratory.

Thank you, Isabel — for showing that the best science comes from a place of genuine curiosity and deep care for others.