Why I wrote 'Una Vida'

NEUROSCIENTIST WRITES NOVEL ABOUT MUSIC AND THE MIND

By Nicolas Bazan, M.D.

Unless you happen to be a neuroscientist like myself, I doubt you'd get too excited about my recent article, "A role for docosahexaenoic acid-derived neuroprotectin D1 in neural cell survival and Alzheimer disease." Scientific papers, especially in my field, are aimed at specialists and are based on painstaking micro-precision. Each step we take toward understanding the human brain must be tested and re-tested, proved and re-proven if we are to truly make a lasting impact on creating healthier lives for the human beings we serve. Is the work emotionless? That's a good question, to which my answer is that we must remove emotion from our research and retain full objectivity.

The battle to conquer these diseases and conditions of the brain - such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, macular degeneration and so many others - is not a story of continual everyday successes. It's a slow journey, often fraught with setbacks and unexpected twists and turns, through a complicated maze. Experiments do not always yield the results anticipated, and scientists like me and my colleagues often find that we do not have the means available to solve the riddles of the mind and sight we so desperately seek to unravel.

But don't think for a moment that a neuroscientist's objectivity means he doesn't have personal thoughts and emotions about the lives that have been affected, and that have been lost by the diseases we study. The most poignant irony of all is that we can only study brain tissue when it is no longer part of a living, breathing human being with aspirations and dreams, failures and successes, and hopes and despairs not unlike our own.

After years of those thoughts and emotions building up inside me, I searched for a way to express what our work is really like in a way anyone could relate to. I decided to write a novel that gave me the greater liberty of expressing my own worries, motivations, doubts, aspirations, joys, and reflections about the work we do on the always-expanding frontiers of neuroscience. My forthcoming novel, Una Vida, mirrors many facets of my own personal and professional life, including why I strive to understand and combat the disorders that afflict the eyes and the brain.

Using jazz and the fascinating chaos of the city I love most, pre-Katrina New Orleans, as metaphors for the workings of the brain and the human mind, I've crafted my novel to reveal the joys and frustrations that seem to go hand in hand with neuroscience research. Yet, despite the many trials we face, despite the many uncertainties we encounter, each day that passes brings us closer to understanding, preventing, and curing these debilitating diseases.

I realize how extraordinarily important this research is, not only to scientists, but to each and every individual in the global community. Every new bit of information we uncover adds one more piece to the puzzle, bringing the bigger picture into focus a little more and providing us not only with new knowledge, but also with renewed hope.

It is this hope that I wish to share with others through Una Vida. It has allowed me to express my thoughts and emotions surrounding neuroscience research and the exploration of cellular elements and molecular switches that underlie the components of the mind and the eyes. To be able to impart these views to others and to provide readers with the hope and optimism that the story of Una Vida ultimately presents is equally as important and rewarding as the pursuit to understand, prevent, and cure. Writing Una Vida created a channel, an outlet that, unlike that provided by technical journals, allows me to freely express my emotions and opinions to the people who have the greatest interest in our work.

One more thing the novel reveals is my ongoing belief that there is a greater force in the universe that is leading us to the final frontiers of self-knowledge, a force which makes itself known in coincidences, serendipity, dreams, and the miracles we encounter all around us every day.

By the way, if you're not a fan of novels but are still interested in the labyrinth of the mind, you can always read my "Cell survival matters: docosahexaenoic acid signaling, neuroprotection and photoreceptors."

Dr. Bazan is head of Louisiana State University's Neuroscience Center of Excellence in New Orleans, where he is professor and director. Una Vida: A Fable of Music and the Mind is published by Five Star Publications, Inc. The paperback edition will be available in February 2012.