Prehistory of Axonology

Long time visitors to Axonology will be wondering where all the neuroscience research has gone. Newer visitors will be wondering what does ‘axonology’ actually mean? And why are there all these cartoon nerve cells everywhere? Pull up a log by the campfire and settle down to hear all about the murky origins of Axonology…

“I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain.”

Berninger et al. (2005) Secret meeting

Axonology.com began in 2013 when I decided to share my research with the big wide world. I’d been running a science outreach program for several years and was named an inaugural Public Engagement Champion by the university I was working at. Part of the training and support that came with the role was input from experts in science communication to help us well-meaning geeks understand how to develop more effective dialogues with different publics. One suggestion was to embrace social media which was really taking off in the early part of the decade and that meant finding a Twitter handle. I’d learnt some HTML as a post-doc 10 years previously to help build a lab webpage so the time seemed ripe to choose an online identity. My first thought was axonguidance.com although at the time that was taken. It also felt too niche. Ironic, I know, given some of the cartoons I’ve posted here! I’ve always had a broader interest in science than being tied to one specific field and have little patience with people who try and put researchers into pigeonholes. I don’t remember how axonology came to me but it felt a good compromise. Axons and their growth cones were always central to my research but turning it into a made up discipline (as I thought) gave it a slight parody nature that would fit with the cartoons and other broader content I planned to include.

A sense of wonder at the nervous system

A golden rule I tell all my students when they are planning some new resource is to make sure someone hasn’t already done it. Usually, if you Google it, someone, somewhere has got there first. On the plus side, you can console yourself that suggests it might actually be a useful idea before you set about tweaking it to make it original. A brief internet search and – more importantly – a domain name search turned up nothing so axonology.com and @axonology were born! Of course had I looked more carefully I would have discovered that the original ‘Axonologists’ were a group of neurophysiologists who met at Washington University for a while around 1930, led by Nobel Prize Laureates Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Spencer Gasser. Huge footsteps to follow in but my whole research career and many of my cartoons stem from a sense of wonder at the nervous system; I’d like to think that is one thing I have in common with them.

I did manage to find my bit of internet originality, my account of the Cornish educational philosophy of Wazzochism was a Googlewhack when it first appeared. Until I linked to it…

Fast forward to the final hours of 2020 and the UK preparing to enter Tier 57 of Lockdown 94 or something. Way back in March of that year, when we were all being encouraged to make use of lockdown to do all those things we’d been putting off – learn a new language, take up speed-knitting, dust behind the bookcases – I thought it would be the ideal opportunity to refresh axonology.com. I would also lightly wound two birds with one stone by using WordPress instead of coding it from scratch myself which sort of counts as learning a new language. I changed host, bought WordPress guides and was all ready to go…

Nine months later the two birds were not even scratched and sat up on a branch chirping derisively. Since then there’s been progress and the new website has slowly taken shape. It will always be something of a work in progress otherwise it will go through endless drafts and still never see the light of day. So please forgive the holes and bear with me as I shape this into something that I hope will be of interest. There will definitely be cartoons, there’ll be some of the educational stuff I’m up to, there’ll be thoughts about how these overlap and hopefully something coherent will emerge.

Further back in time

Older Axonology chronicles speak of a place called The Labb. The Labb was a place of tears: of laughter and frustration. The Labb was a place of questions: How does this cell grow? What does this protein do? Why does reviewer #2 feel the need to be such an arsehole?

The Labb was run by the Pea-Eye. The Pea-Eye tried to make everyone feel welcome and to make the best use of their different talents. Sometimes this meant insisting that the radio be tuned to the cricket or that the Friday Music CD be played on Friday afternoons. There were many Pea-Eyes, each had worked their way up the ladder, sometimes by flattery, sometimes by being in the right place at the right time and occasionally by virtue of their ability. Each Pea-Eye had a Big Question and each believed that their Big Question was more important than all the others’ Big Questions.

The Labb was run by the Pea-Eye. There were many Pea-Eyes. Each Pea-Eye had a Big Question

The Axonology Pea-Eye wanted to understand how the brain gets wired up. This had not always been their goal. As a student they wanted to study pharmacology to make new drugs from exotic plants. They were constantly attracted by new questions and followed these simply because they were interesting – ‘How do drugs affect the brain?’ led to ‘How does the brain work?’ led to ‘How does the brain form?’ Without planning it, they ended up in the field of developmental neurobiology and thought they were very happy.

They worked with lots of fun and intelligent people and there was no end to the possible experiments that could be done. They travelled the world to conferences and met like-minded people who were also too shy to talk to strangers unless they had consumed the local alcohol. This went so well that before they knew it, they had become a Pea-Eye and created axonology.com to tell the world all about their Big Question.

Unfortunately the good times did not last. The chronicles tell of The Great Disillusionment bringing an end to The Labb. Scholars are divided on the reasons for this, it is said that the Pea-Eye has only revealed the reasons to a close circle of people they trust. They are not alone, many Pea-Eyes choose, or are forced, to give up their Big Question. Often this is because they concentrate too hard on doing good research instead of jumping on bandwagons.

Leaving The Labb was hard for a while but the Pea-Eye soon had no regrets about leaving a futile cycle of rejected grant applications. They were able to see their family, they could study wave formations off the North Cornwall coast, they sometimes came home from work with the sense of having contributed something to help other people. Rumour had it that they were turning their mind to a reinvention of axonology.com…