“Leah, coffee?” I heard this question at least daily while I worked in the laboratory of Dr. Giancarlo Pepeu, Department of Pharmacology at the University of Florence. Everyday after lunch and some days at mid-morning, everyone in the lab would head downstairs to the “bar” to order a caffé or a macchiato. Don’t be as alarmed as Carol Bender was when she came to visit. An Italian bar is nothing like its American counter part. It is more like an American coffee shop and it is a veritable staple of Italian culture.

The monumental importance of coffee to the progress of the Italian day is just one small example of the many cultural differences between Italy and the U.S. However, I found many of the stereotypical characteristics of Italians to be fairly accurate. They do love food and wine, they do have a great appreciation for beauty, they are indeed quite fashionable, and they definitely drive more boldly. As a society that has remained relatively homogeneous and immune to the influx of outsiders for centuries, conventional Italian culture has remained fairly intact. But, things are beginning to change. Italy has recently seen high levels of immigration from Asia, Africa, and the nations of the former Yugoslavia. While I was there, I heard much debate about the many refugees and clandestini (illegal immigrants) entering the country daily. While many other nations have been seeing mass immigration for years, this change has been slow to come to Italy and the Italians are just beginning to adjust to the diversification of their country.

Despite their growing pains, the Italians have a remarkably cosmopolitan outlook. Being a European country, in such close geographical proximity to other nations, has resulted in a prevalence of foreign language skills far beyond American capabilities. Almost everyone I met there was able to make some conversation in English, while many spoke it fluently, and others had ability in three or four different languages. I found the Italians to have a political awareness that also exceeded my own. One night at dinner with my host family, the 15-year-old daughter, Olga, asked me about the process of American presidential elections. After answering her question I inquired why she had wanted to know. She replied that she was studying the U.S. government in her school. I was rather surprised by this as I barely remember learning anything about my own government in school, let alone the governments of other nations.

These were just some of the observations I made about the current climate in Italy. In my four months there, I experienced more about life in another part of the world than I could ever sum up in this article. So, I’ll move on to the lab. My project involved characterizing the neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative processes in TgCRND8 mice, a transgenic line modeling Alzheimer’s disease. These mice express a mutant form of the amyloid precursor protein, which has been found to exhibit an accumulation of b-amyloid plaques in the brain and spatial learning deficits. We sought to determine if these mice also displayed the neuroinflammatory responses and degeneration of cholinergic neurons seen in Alzheimer’s patients.

As neuroscience research was completely new to me, the whole project was one big learning experience. I struck a balance between my old work in human antibodies and the new by doing immunohistochemical stainings on sections of the brains of the TgCRND8 mice. I stained for such things as beta-amyloid plaques, activated astrocytes and microglial cells, and cholinergic neurons. From these stainings we found that activated astrocytes and microglial cells—cells typically invloved in inflammatory processes—surround the beta-amyloid plaques in these animals. Furthermore, by counting the number of neurons that stained positive for choline acetyltransferase, we determined that there were significantly fewer cholingeric neurons in the TgCRND8 mice than in controls. This result implies that these mice do undergo degeneration of the cholingeric system and it appears to be a new finding. At the time I left the lab, the group was further characterizing the inflammatory and neurodegenerative process in these mice by staining for excitotoxic chemicals and measuring the level of acetylcholine release in the cortex of live mice.

Overall, I had an excellent time in Florence. I learned a great deal not only about Alzheimer’s disease, the international research community, and Italy, but about myself as well. Being all alone in a foreign country tested my adaptability, resourcefulness, and self-confidence in a way that they never have been before. In this way I believe that my experience in Italy both shattered and exceeded my expectations. Although it was much more trying than I had imagined, it was also much more enriching than I had hoped for. I would recommend that anyone with an enthusiasm for science and a sense of adventure apply to BRAVO!, it will undoubtedly give you more than you bargain for.

Leah Tatum, UBRPer in Dr. Julia Coronella's lab, Cancer Immunology and Immmunotherapy and BRAVO! Participant in Dr. Giancarlo Pepeu's lab, Pharmacology