Stetson University’s Gillespie Museum will host a Science Café on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 7 p.m., titled, “What’s New in Neuroscience?” Biology professor Mike King, Ph.D., will speak on current trends in neuroscience as part of the Science Café series. An international movement, Science Cafés promote scientific literacy by encouraging relaxed, open conversations.

“Since George Bush proclaimed the ‘90s the ‘Decade of the Brain,’ interest in neuroscience research has skyrocketed,” explained King. “Each year about 25,000 neuroscientists from around the world gather for a meeting to share results of their research and to participate in discussions about new topics in the field.”

King will speak about his own research in how the brain controls behavior responses to taste input, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. This grant is also supporting the Science Café series, as well as the Brain Awareness Week activities coming in March 2014, including an interactive kiosk for the museum’s new gallery, “Science on Display.”

King will also report on other topics of interest in his discipline, such as the neuroscience of creativity, and advanced research in areas such as understanding the connectome (the functions of the vast arrays of connections in the brain), changes in brain circuits associated with learning, memory and disease, and brain-machine interfaces.

The event is free and open to the public. Cultural credit will be available to Stetson undergraduates.

For the full list of Science Café topics for the fall, as well as other Gillespie Museum events, see Stetson.edu/other/Gillespie, or call (386) 822-7330. The Gillespie Museum, 234 East Michigan Avenue, is located on the southeast corner of Stetson’s DeLand campus.