We at EJN are pleased to introduce Dr. Patricia Gaspar as the next scientist for our series of Women in Neuroscience (Helmreich et al., 2017). We began this series to bring visibility and recognition to women scientists in our community (Helmreich et al., 2017); we have been fortunate to have Dr. Gaspar serve as a section editor at EJN for over a decade. You can find all of the profiles here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1460-9568.women-in-science.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Dr. Gaspar in December 2019.

EJN: We started with a short biography with your training and employment; is there anything you would like to add to that?

Patricia Gaspar: What you do not get in a CV are the “critical periods” of childhood although they have so much influence on your later life. I grew up in a very diverse and often conflictual international setting in the Middle East (in Palestine and Israel) and in Tunisia before arriving in France to start medical school. This was important and very useful in that it exposed me early to different languages, including English, and to a great cultural diversity—all important aspects that shaped my scientific career.

Another important feature that does not appear in CVs is how you manage your family life with your career. This is important for everyone but crucial in a woman's career. I actually started my PhD late after I already had two kids (two toddlers that were 1 and 2 years old). At the time (1982) when I was thinking of shifting from medicine to a science career, this was unusual and not very well‐perceived. There were several very prominent women in science, but, for one reason or another, most were either single or, when married, had no children. If you looked at these role models, it seemed you had to be completely devoted to science, which was not my view. I was lucky to find a PhD mentor (Brigitte Berger) who was also an MD and had children like me. She believed it was very important to have kids and balance your life accordingly. This was rare at the time, but fortunately, I see that now the situation has changed tremendously. Now men tend to take more time off to look after their children or pick them up at crèche and so on. In my time, a man could not say “I have to go because my child is sick,” or “I have to go and pick him up,” but now I've seen male post‐docs and students say that now without any shame or apology.

How did you decide to become a neuroscientist?

I initially wanted to be a biologist because of my readings in the field of ethology, then I was hesitating between psychology and biology. My Dad, who was a medic (a surgeon), advised me to go to medical school. He argued that medical studies would lead me either way, and at the end of the day I would always have a job.

So, I started medical studies and I actually liked it very much; all the knowledge one had to acquire in different fields was amazing. Contrary to my initial expectations, I also enjoyed the clinical work and contact with patients. During medical residency, one had to choose a specialty; after hesitating for some time, testing fields such as nephrology where the biology was advanced, I chose neurology where there were still so many mysteries and so many disorders for which one could not do much. That was very frustrating. There was very little knowledge at the time about the underlying mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders, except for Parkinson's disease.

A first drive to move into research came when I was training in a neurology department where clinical research on Parkinson's disease was going on (Dr. Pierre Rondot). The research indicated that neurotransmitters were an interesting way to go for treatment; Levodopa, and new related compounds, could have impressive effects. The second trigger came during a semester in psychiatry; I then discovered the positive effects of antidepressants and neuroleptics. This really sparked my curiosity to understand how these chemicals worked, and it reinforced the idea of psychiatric disorders as being a disorder of neurotransmission. Also, through discussions with the head of the ward, Dr. Serge Brion, who was a neuropathologist in addition to being a psychiatrist, I acquired the notion that things could go wrong in neural circuits in those disorders. These two clinical experiences during my neurological training were decisive in pushing me into research, with the idea to understand what was happening in brain disorders (and of course find a cure).

After these two clinical semesters, I decided to take a year off from clinical residency and work in a laboratory and resume biochemistry courses at the university. During that break I became really enthused by life in the laboratory: everything was new, exciting, and so different from the hospital hierarchy and discipline—it was also much less stressful. I worked in the laboratory of Yves and France Agid. The project was to build a better knowledge of neurotransmitter changes in Parkinson's disease. I do not know how much we contributed to this, but it was great fun. I liked the mix of hands‐on experiments and wild speculation. After that, I had to resume my training in neurology. As part of the training, I did a semester in neuropathology where I met Dr. Berger, an expert in catecholamine neuroanatomy who had previously described the mesocortical prefrontal dopaminergic pathway in rodents. She had a small research lab, and she was then just starting to do immunocytochemistry, which was at the time the big “new thing.” I thought, oh, that is cool, maybe I should try to do this on human postmortem brains. She said I could start a PhD thesis if I managed to secure some funding…So despite the fact that by then I had a family to raise, I engaged into a PhD. My project was to try to figure out monoamine brain circuits on human brains using immunocytochemistry. This was not a very fancy topic, even at the time, as the emerging molecular studies were more fashionable, but nevertheless, this allowed me to be recruited as a researcher only one year after completing my PhD (in 1985). After getting this stable Inserm position, I continued working for some years on the chemical neuroanatomy of the human brain, focusing on alterations of neurotransmitter systems in Parkinson's disease (Berger et al., 1991; Gaspar et al., 1991).

Did you ever have a favorite project or a paper or anything that really started you into this? (It sounds like it was Parkinson's disease).

Indeed, my starting point was Parkinson's disease, dopamine systems and human brain anatomy. But there were serious limits of studies on post‐mortem samples; samples were very difficult to obtain and, in the end, one could only do correlations, which was not very satisfying. The good thing about this project is that it led me to meet with many renowned scientists working in the field of catecholamines and the basal ganglia. In particular, I met many great women scientists: Pat Goldman‐Rakic, Ann Graybiel, Suzanne Haber. Conversations with them after seminars were a way to learn more and get excellent advice from women colleagues. I remember in particular the advice that Suzanne Haber gave me after a seminar while we were discussing different topics and on the limitations, I was feeling about my research. She suggested: “why don't you do a sabbatical and come to the US for a year?” ‐“But my children?” ‐“Bring them along.” This was easily said but seemed so complicated! However, the idea gradually built up; the family agreed and the necessary funds were not so hard to get (Inserm was extremely generous to allow a whole year leave with full salary). Although I still loved catecholamines, I chose to go to a laboratory where I could learn something new.

I had been impressed by a seminar of Jon Kaas, from Vanderbilt University, on the evolution and plasticity of cortical areas, so off we went. Jon Kaas and all his lab were very welcoming and Nashville was an easy place to raise children. This sabbatical year (1990) was a game changer for me. Not only did I learn about the organization, evolution, and plasticity of cortical brain areas, I also learned how science was done in the United States, how I could become bold enough to propose and handle new projects of my own, and how one should fight for them. I came back to France with many ideas, many of them useless or impossible to do, but some ideas started to bear fruit some years later. In the meantime, the laboratory of Dr. Berger had fused with that of Constantino Sotelo (an expert in EM and cerebellar development), which opened up to me the field of development and neural circuit formation. Mouse genetics was just starting, providing powerful tools. This all seemed much more exciting than human anatomy and pathology. My colleagues in the lab could actually ask questions, suggest experiments, get adequate material, and draw some conclusions. I decided to switch gears; I abandoned degenerative disorders and moved into development. I was really very lucky in my first project, which questioned the role of neurotransmitters in neural development, to bump into a new mutant, the MAOA‐KO mouse (generated serendipitously in the virology laboratory of Edward De Maeyer). The MAOA‐KO mouse was an ideal model to demonstrate the role of monoamines in development, because the anatomical phenotype in the brain was so striking (the mice lacked barrels in their somatosensory cortex) and the role of serotonin in this phenotype was not too difficult to identify with relatively easy pharmacological experiments (Cases et al., 1996). Then, because serotonin is involved in so many different physiological processes, I came to study several brain areas and systems, which finally brought me back to psychiatric disorders, the main trigger of my initial motivation to do research.

For the younger researchers reading this, I want to stress that my own scientific impetus and what excited me most in my career came fairly late, and it involved a lot of serendipity and crucial collaborations or discussions with colleagues. My initial research work was interesting and useful of course, but it seemed a bit routine. Routine ideas and/or techniques can be frustrating/depressing, at least for me. I describe myself as somebody who likes novelty and change, with the risk of never being an expert in a given field and also having to learn from scratch all the basics of a new field when changing topics. However, I do not regret this; moving from humans to primates, to mice, and from neurodegeneration to neurodevelopment was a lot of fun. I have really enjoyed doing science ever since.

What is your job now? How do you spend your time?

I am research Emeritus, which means I am retired, but can still work in a laboratory and direct short studentships and post‐docs if I have some funds and space. I am finishing some of my last projects on serotonin, but in parallel, I have also joined the lab of a young team leader, Nicolas Renier. I am now trying to find links, to pour some serotonin into Nicolas Renier's projects. He is doing some amazing new neuro‐anatomy, using tissue clearing methods for whole‐brain mapping of neural activity, neural vasculature, and brain connectivity (Kirst et al., 2020). Scanning through the whole brain means not only that you no longer need to do sections, mount sections, etc., but more importantly that you do not need to have a pre‐conception of which brain area to look at, the whole brain is your's to investigate. This is quite thrilling! It also means that you need to spend long hours on computers and learn how to use them (which I still need to do!).

What we were talking about leads to another question. Where do you think neuroscience will be in 30 or 40 years?

That is a tough question. Neuroscience is so broad and so diverse, it is going in so many different directions—from molecular, to computing and mathematical modeling. Will we be able to maintain one large Neuroscience field integrating all these disciplines? Or will it split into many sub‐specialties as seems to be the trend? On the general neuroscience funding panels where I sit, I see that it is often difficult to gather expertise for all the diverse projects. Looking at the literature and what younger researchers are starting, I can see that there is an increasing prevalence of modeling, computing, and artificial intelligence in all fields (even things like cell counts where we would have used basic stereology). I have the feeling that most people now spend their time not doing experiments but analyzing them, trying to paste big data together to find new links and rules. Many of the projects have moved away from “hypothesis‐driven” to systematic “unbiased” approaches, which is now possible with whole brain, whole genome, whole proteome approaches. Whether that approach will continue for 30 years, I can not say, but clearly biology seems to be moving the same way as physics, with large data, big consortia, and massive collaboration.

Do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing?

There is no good or bad in evolution or in science; techniques and knowledge just grow and seem to lead their own lives. Unbiased approaches are in a way very similar to observing nature as early researchers did, except that instruments have changed. All I can say is that personally what I enjoy most is doing my own experiments and looking in a microscope, to see something that maybe had not been seen before. I like thinking of a question and figuring out the easiest way to get an answer, a little bricolage.

Many technological breakthroughs in neuroscience have come from cross‐border research, from chemistry and physics, Take for example, optogenetics. This technique enabled the localization of brain function with increasing detail. However, we may have gone too far in this direction, attributing one circuit for a specific function. In a near future, we are going to have to move away from such simplistic views and integrate the neural network (there is already a trend for this). I also think we need to go back to some more fundamental biochemistry and pharmacology. In the end, we will need some kind of pharmacological intervention to treat patients. Considering the progress that has been made in understanding the pathophysiology of brain disorders and the function of neural circuits, it is disappointing to consider how little progress we made to increase the pharmacological toolbox for treating neurological or psychiatric disorders (treatments in oncology have made spectacular progress over the same time period!).

In the sciences, there are always fashions. When I started everybody said anatomy is done with, all is known…. And then, new techniques emerged and it came back, new findings were made. Physiology was also completely discounted at the time, and then it came back with new tools to record and analyze circuits. Now molecular research tends to be disregarded by students in neuroscience, but it is going to have to come back. Advances in genetics are likely to change the scene as one will not only look at gene expression or loss of function mutations, but understand better the quantitative modulation of gene expression in much more subtle ways. Other future developments in neuroscience will probably stem from the realization that the brain needs to be considered as part of a body. There is already increased interest in other cell types than neurons in the brain, and that neuroscience needs to integrate many other organs that communicate with the brain and are essential to its function (e.g. the gut; the cardiovascular system).

Did you ever notice any drawbacks or benefits to being a woman in science?

There are both, I think. I will start with the benefits. I would say that having a family life and children have always made my life more balanced. When you get papers rejected, grants rejected, it is not the only thing in your life. But maybe it is also a drawback, with the risk of being less focused. I see younger women around me having children after their PhD, or after their post‐doc. And that can be a difficult phase when they really need to start their own career. In Europe at least, having kids then has some effect of slowing down their career at a very critical stage.

Another drawback is related to personality (this may be a cultural thing)—it is always difficult to be on committees, in meetings, and be the only woman who, unlike some of the men, may have a style that is less assertive, less dominant. I think it is a good thing to have to fight when you are in committees or at conferences to boost your self‐confidence, to be brave enough to ask questions or accept invitations. I always encourage my younger female students to go on committees early to learn more about politics, not to despise it. It is an important part of one's career, and you have to know how decisions are made.

Many different types of people, with very different personalities, can succeed in science. I think the key is having a long‐standing interest in the topic. Do not forget that what you are interested in is science, keep the spark alive despite all incurring difficulties, do not give up, and as one of my colleagues worded it “let your skin grow thick”…

Advice that I always give to young people is: do not neglect your family life and your personal life, concentrate well when you are at work, do your job and then do other things when you are at home. Other advice I always give is to be bold, to dare and to have fun, and try to find something new. That is the main reward.

Would you like to talk about some more personal things? Favorite travel experience?

The experience of being one year in the United States with my children was a really fantastic experience, as was traveling to see how research is done in other countries (United States, Argentina, Morocco). It is so enjoyable to go to meetings, meet colleagues, have great scientific conversations that can change your views (how traveling will go in the future is not clear). I also always have the fantasy of being a post‐doc again –doing experiments, learning new things. Now, looking after my grandkids, singing in a choir, and doing my gardening is how I balance personal/work time.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length by EJN and P. Gaspar

EJN荣幸地向您介绍Patricia Gaspar博士，这是我们的《神经科学女性》系列的下一位科学家（Helmreich等，  2017）。我们开始了这个系列，以提高社区中女性科学家的知名度和认可度（Helmreich等，  2017）；我们很幸运地让Gaspar博士在EJN担任了十多年的部分编辑。您可以在此处找到所有配置文件：https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1460-9568.women-in-science。

我很高兴在2019年12月与加斯珀博士聊天。

EJN：我们从一本简短的传记开始，介绍了您的培训和工作；您还有什么要补充的吗？

帕特里夏·加斯帕（Patricia Gaspar）：虽然在童年的“关键时期”对您的晚年生活有很大影响，但您无法获得简历。在到达法国开始医学院之前，我在中东（巴勒斯坦和以色列）和突尼斯的一个非常多样化且经常相互冲突的国际环境中长大。这很重要，而且非常有用，因为它可以使我尽早接触到包括英语在内的各种语言，以及极大的文化多样性，这些都是塑造我的科学生涯的所有重要方面。

个人简历中没有出现的另一个重要功能是您如何在职业生涯中管理家庭生活。这对每个人都很重要，但对女性职业至关重要。实际上，我已经有两个孩子（两个1岁和2岁的小孩）后才开始博士学位。当时（1982年），当我考虑从医学转向科学职业时，这是不寻常的，而且不是很容易理解。在科学界有几位非常杰出的女性，但出于某种原因，大多数都是单身，或者在结婚时没有孩子。如果您查看这些榜样，似乎您必须完全致力于科学，这不是我的观点。我很幸运地找到了一位博士导师（Brigitte Berger），他也是一名医学博士，并且有像我这样的孩子。她认为生孩子并相应地平衡生活非常重要。当时很少见，但幸运的是，我看到现在情况已经发生了巨大变化。现在男人倾向于花更多的时间照顾孩子或在托儿所接孩子等等。在我那个时代，一个男人不能说“我必须去，因为我的孩子生病了”或“我必须去接他”，但是现在我看到了男性博士后，学生们说现在没有丢脸或道歉。

您如何决定成为一名神经科学家？

我最初想成为生物学家，是因为我在民族学领域读物，然后在心理学和生物学之间犹豫。我的父亲是一名医生（外科医生），建议我去医学院读书。他认为医学研究会引导我前进，到最后，我总会找到一份工作。

因此，我开始医学研究，实际上我非常喜欢它。一个人在不同领域中必须获得的所有知识都是惊人的。与最初的期望相反，我也喜欢临床工作并与患者保持联系。在医疗居留期间，必须选择专业。犹豫了一段时间之后，测试了生物学等先进的肾脏病学领域，我选择了神经病学，那里仍然有很多谜团和很多疾病，而人们对此无能为力。那真令人沮丧。当时，除了帕金森氏病外，对神经退行性疾病的潜在机制了解甚少。

进入研究的第一个动力是在我正在神经病学部门接受培训的地方进行的，该部门正在进行帕金森氏病的临床研究（Pierre Rondot博士）。研究表明，神经递质是一种有趣的治疗方法。左旋多巴和新的相关化合物可能会产生令人印象深刻的效果。第二个诱因是在精神病学的一个学期。然后，我发现了抗抑郁药和抗精神病药的积极作用。这确实激发了我好奇，以了解这些化学物质是如何工作的，并增强了精神疾病作为神经传递疾病的观念。此外，通过与病房负责人Serge Brion博士的讨论，他既是精神病医生，又是神经病理学家，我得到了这样一种观念，即在这些疾病的神经回路中可能出了问题。

在这两个临床学期结束后，我决定休假一年，在实验室工作，然后在大学恢复生物化学课程。在那段时间里，我对实验室的生活充满了热情：一切都是新的，令人兴奋的，与医院的等级制度和纪律有很大不同-压力也大大减轻了。我在Yves和France Agid的实验室工作。该项目是为了更好地了解帕金森氏病中神经递质的变化。我不知道我们为此付出了多少，但是这非常有趣。我喜欢动手实验和疯狂猜测的结合。在那之后，我不得不恢复我的神经病学训练。作为培训的一部分，我在神经病理学上学了一个学期，在那里遇见了Berger博士，儿茶酚胺神经解剖学的专家，他曾描述过啮齿动物的中皮层前额叶多巴胺能途径。她有一个小型研究实验室，然后才开始进行免疫细胞化学研究，这在当时是一个巨大的“新事物”。我以为，哦，这很酷，也许我应该尝试在人类验尸后进行此操作。她说，如果我设法获得一些资金，我可以开始博士学位论文……因此，尽管那时我已经有了一个要养的家庭，但我还是从事了博士学位。我的项目是尝试使用免疫细胞化学找出人脑上的单胺脑回路。即使在当时，这也不是一个很特别的话题，因为新兴的分子研究更为时尚，但尽管如此，这仍使我在获得博士学位后仅一年（1985年）就被聘为研究人员。 1991 ; Gaspar等，  1991）。

您是否曾经有过喜欢的项目或论文或真正使您开始对此感兴趣的东西？（听起来像是帕金森氏病）。

确实，我的出发点是帕金森氏病，多巴胺系统和人脑解剖。但是对尸体样本的研究存在严重局限性。样本很难获得，最后只能进行相关，这并不是很令人满意。这个项目的好处是，它使我遇到了许多在儿茶酚胺和基底神经节领域工作的著名科学家。特别是，我遇到了许多杰出的女性科学家：帕特·戈德曼·拉基奇，安·格雷比尔，苏珊娜·哈伯。研讨会后与她们交谈是了解更多信息并从女同事那里获得很好建议的一种方式。我特别记得苏珊娜·哈伯（Suzanne Haber）在一次研讨会之后给我的建议，当时我们正在讨论不同的主题，关于局限性，我对自己的研究感到满意。她建议：“为什么不 您是否要放假并来美国一年？” －“但是我的孩子们？” －“带他们来。” 这很容易说，但看起来太复杂了！但是，这个想法逐渐建立起来。一家人同意了，所需的资金也不难得到（Inserm非常慷慨，允许他整年带薪休假）。尽管我仍然喜欢儿茶酚胺，但我还是选择去实验室学习新知识。

范德比尔特大学（Vanderbilt University）的乔恩·卡斯（Jon Kaas）的一次研讨会给我留下了深刻的印象，那就是皮质区域的演变和可塑性，所以我们出发了。乔恩·卡斯（Jon Kaas）和他的所有实验室都很热情，纳什维尔（Nashville）是抚养孩子的好地方。这个休假年（1990年）对我来说是改变游戏规则的一年。我不仅了解了皮层大脑区域的组织，演化和可塑性，而且还了解了美国的科学方法，如何变得足够大胆地提出和处理自己的新项目，以及应该如何做。为他们而战。我带着许多想法回到法国，其中许多想法无用或不可能做，但几年后一些想法开始见效。同时，Berger博士的实验室与Constantino Sotelo（EM和小脑发育专家）的实验室融合在一起，这为我打开了开发和神经回路形成的领域。鼠标遗传学才刚刚开始，提供了强大的工具。这一切似乎比人体解剖学和病理学更加令人兴奋。我在实验室的同事实际上可以提出问题，建议实验，获得足够的材料并得出一些结论。我决定换档。我放弃了退行性疾病，开始发展。我的第一个项目真的很幸运，该项目质疑神经递质在神经发育中的作用，撞上了一个新的突变体，MAOA-KO小鼠（偶然在爱德华·德·迈耶的病毒学实验室中产生）。MAOA-KO小鼠是展示单胺在发育中的作用的理想模型， 1996）。然后，由于血清素参与了许多不同的生理过程，因此我开始研究几个大脑区域和系统，最终使我回到精神病，这是我最初进行研究的主要动力。

对于年轻的研究人员来说，我想强调的是，我自己的科学动力以及我职业生涯中最令我兴奋的是来得太晚了，它涉及许多偶然性以及与同事的重要合作或讨论。我最初的研究工作当然很有趣并且很有用，但是似乎有些常规。至少对于我来说，常规的想法和/或技术可能令人沮丧/沮丧。我形容自己是一个喜欢新颖性和变化的人，冒着从未在特定领域成为专家的风险，并且在更改主题时也不得不从头学习新领域的所有基础知识。但是，我对此并不后悔。从人类到灵长目动物，从老鼠到从神经退行性变到神经发育都充满了乐趣。从那时起，我真的很喜欢科学。

你现在从事什么工作？你都花时间做些什么？

我是名誉退休人员，这意味着我已经退休了，但是如果我有足够的资金和空间，仍然可以在实验室工作，直接指导短期的奖学金和博士后工作。我正在完成我最近有关血清素的一些项目，但与此同时，我也加入了年轻团队负责人Nicolas Renier的实验室。我现在正在尝试查找链接，以将一些5-羟色胺倒入Nicolas Renier的项目中。他正在使用组织清除方法对神经活动，神经脉管系统和大脑连通性进行全脑映射，从而完成了一些令人惊奇的新神经解剖学（Kirst等人，  2020年）。扫描整个大脑不仅意味着您不再需要进行切片，安装切片等工作，而且更重要的是，您无需先了解要看哪个大脑区域，整个大脑就是您的去弄清楚。这真是太刺激了！这也意味着您需要花大量时间在计算机上并学习如何使用它们（我仍然需要这样做！）。

我们在谈论什么导致了另一个问题。您认为神经科学将在30或40年后走向何方？

这是一个棘手的问题。神经科学是如此广泛和如此多样，它正朝着许多不同的方向发展-从分子，计算机到数学建模。我们是否能够维持一个整合所有这些学科的大型神经科学领域？还是会按照趋势将其细分为许多子专业？在我所坐的一般神经科学资助小组中，我发现通常很难收集所有不同项目的专业知识。从文献资料和年轻的研究人员的研究开始，我可以看到在所有领域，建模，计算和人工智能的普及率都在上升（即使像细胞计数之类的东西，我们本来会使用基本的立体感）。我觉得现在大多数人都花时间不做实验而是分析实验，尝试将大数据粘贴在一起以查找新的链接和规则。许多项目已经从“假设驱动”转变为系统的“无偏见”方法，而现在，这可以用全脑，全基因组，全蛋白质组学方法实现。我不能说这种方法是否会持续30年，但是很明显，生物学似乎与物理学一样，具有大数据，大财团和大规模合作。

您认为这是好事还是坏事？

在进化或科学上没有好与坏。技术和知识不断发展，似乎过着自己的生活。与早期研究人员所做的一样，无偏见的方法在某种程度上类似于观察自然，只是仪器发生了变化。我只能说，我个人最喜欢的就是做自己的实验，并看着显微镜，看看以前可能从未见过的东西。我喜欢思考一个问题，并想出最简单的方法来获得答案，就是一点点贿赂。

神经科学的许多技术突破都来自跨界研究，包括化学和物理学，例如光遗传学。这项技术使大脑功能的定位变得越来越详细。但是，我们可能在这个方向上走得太远了，为特定功能分配了一个电路。在不久的将来，我们将不得不摆脱这种简单化的观点，并集成神经网络（这种趋势已经存在）。我也认为我们需要回到一些更基本的生物化学和药理学上。最后，我们将需要某种药物治疗来治疗患者。考虑到在了解脑部疾病的病理生理学和神经回路功能方面取得的进展，

在科学中，总是有时尚。当我开始时，每个人都说解剖学已经完成，所有人都知道了。然后，出现了新技术，后来又回来了，有了新发现。当时生理学也被完全打折了，然后它又带来了新的工具来记录和分析电路。现在，分子学研究往往被神经科学专业的学生所忽视，但是它将不得不回来。遗传学的进步很可能会改变形势，因为人们不仅会研究基因表达或功能丧失的突变，而且会以更加微妙的方式更好地了解基因表达的定量调节。神经科学的其他未来发展可能源自认识到大脑需要被视为身体的一部分。

您有没有注意到成为科学女性的任何弊端或好处？

我想两者都有。我将从好处开始。我想说，有家庭生活和孩子们一直使我的生活更加平衡。当您的论文被拒绝，赠款被拒绝时，这并不是您一生中唯一的事情。但这也可能是一个缺点，因为集中度较低。我看到我周围的年轻女性在获得博士学位或博士后都育有孩子。当他们确实需要开始自己的职业生涯时，这可能是一个困难的阶段。至少在欧洲，生孩子会在非常关键的阶段减慢他们的职业生涯。

另一个缺点与人格有关（这可能是一种文化问题）-总是很难参加委员会，在会议上，并且是唯一的女性，与某些男性不同，其风格可能不太自信，主导的。我认为当您在委员会或会议中时要打架以增强您的自信心，勇于提出问题或接受邀请，这是一件好事。我始终鼓励年轻的女学生尽早参加委员会，以更多地了解政治，而不是鄙视政治。这是一个职业的重要组成部分，您必须知道如何制定决策。

具有不同个性的许多不同类型的人可以在科学上取得成功。我认为关键是对该主题具有长期的兴趣。不要忘记您对科学感兴趣的东西，尽管遇到种种困难，也要保持活力，不放弃，正如我的一位同事所说的那样，“让皮肤变厚”……

我一直给年轻人的建议是：不要忽视家庭生活和个人生活，在工作时要专心，做工作，然后在家里做其他事情。我总是给出的其他建议是大胆，敢于冒险，尝试新事物。那是主要的奖励。

您想谈谈其他一些私人的事情吗？最喜欢的旅行经历？

带着我的孩子在美国待一年的经历是一次非常奇妙的经历，就像去旅行看看其他国家（美国，阿根廷，摩洛哥）如何进行研究一样。参加会议，与同事见面，进行精彩的科学对话可能会改变您的看法（这样的旅行将来会怎样尚不清楚），这是非常愉快的。我也总是幻想再次成为博士后–做实验，学习新事物。现在，照顾我的孙子孙女，在合唱团里唱歌，并从事园艺工作是平衡个人/工作时间的方式。

采访由EJN和P. Gaspar编辑，目的是清晰和长篇