MIT student Katie O’Nell knew she shouldn’t let herself become attached to the mice in her research project for Brain and Cognitive Sciences. But she couldn’t help it. One mouse was just a charmer: affectionate, expressive, enthusiastic about following her cues through the maze. And then she was asked to prepare her little friend’s brain to be sliced and stained. Opening his skull was a horrible task - and also a moment of unexpected awe. How could all of that personality be held in this little ball of cells?

Last week’s program Synaptic Stories at the MIT Museum, hosted by Kirsty Bennett of the MIT Women’s League, brought us all into that experience of wonder as Katie and her fellow storytellers let us peek into the workings of their unique brains.

Our own Trish Weinmann took us back to first grade, when she never told anyone that her teacher’s voice tasted like cherry Life Savers because she didn’t want to be weird. Decades later she learned that hearing voices as tastes had a name: it’s a type of synaesthesia, a connection between two sensory pathways in the brain. And she decided it wasn't weird, it was hilarious.

A particular passion - the magic of disappearing into a character - appeared in a child’s mind and fueled a dream that could not be denied, as actor Kevin Ianucci traced his steps from funny home movies to the set of his first feature film, Best of Enemies.

Julie Pryor, Communications Officer for the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, beautifully evoked the way a brain layers memories. She drew together vivid recollections of her father from his helping her blow a truck horn when she was three to the Willie Nelson song that played at his deathbed, all coming together to give her courage during a treacherous drive over the Alaska Haul Road.

And Rebecca Saxe, Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, drew us into the moment she wedged herself with her baby son in an fMRI machine to get the first scan of an infant brian.  Instead of being obstacles to her intellectual work, her body and her motherhood became part of her scientific discoveries.

Katie saw that little mouse brain and thought: How could I study anything else? I have no chance of becoming a neuroscientist, but these brave and funny stories make me agree with her. What could be more wonderful than - just for a few moments - looking at the world from inside someone else’s mind?