Blood-brain barrier

A barrier between the brain itself and the blood supply of the brain, which prevents most substances from moving from the blood to brain tissue. Substances like glucose that are important to brain function are able to cross the blood-brain barrier, along a small collection of other substances like lipid-soluble molecules (e.g. psychoactive drugs). The blood-brain barrier plays a protective role, keeping potentially harmful substances from invading the brain.

Kate Fehlhaber

Kate graduated from Scripps College in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Neuroscience, completing the cellular and molecular track with honors. As an undergraduate, she studied long-term plasticity in models of Parkinson’s disease in a neurobiology lab at University of California, Los Angeles. She continued this research as lab manager before entering the University of Southern California Neuroscience graduate program in 2011 and then transferring to UCLA in 2013. She completed her PhD in 2017, where her research focused on understanding the communication between neurons in the eye. Kate founded Knowing Neurons in 2011, and her passion for creative science communication has continued to grow.