Sep. 6, 2024 -- While some students spend their summer vacations lifeguarding at the pool, mowing lawns or bussing tables in local restaurants, Heights High senior Olivia Bruening spent hers analyzing how “fascicles merged and diverged within the nerve.”

Olivia was one of two teens from the Cleveland area to intern at the Human Fusions Institute of Case Western Reserve University, where she worked under Dr. Dustin Tyler in the Research Immersion in Brain, Spinal Cord, and Peripheral Nerves program. Olivia spent her days in a dry lab, using a 3-D slicer to segment CT slides of pig nerves to compare whether one prominent doctor’s theory about how fascicles merge and diverge was more accurate than another doctor’s theory. (A fascicle, on the off-chance you don’t know, is a bundle of structures, such as nerve or muscle fibers that are quite similar in the bodies of humans and pigs.) 

What Olivia discovered was that each doctor’s theory was right in part, depending on the circumstance. Such research can ultimately be used in humans to stimulate nerves for movement and reflexes in amputees or paraplegics, a population of patients that Dr. Tyler regularly treats.  

Olivia, who took both Anatomy & Physiology and AP Psychology at Heights her junior year and is enrolled in College Credit Plus Neuroscience as a senior, “110% wants to go into the medical field. Having the background knowledge from both Anatomy and Psychology really helped” during her summer internship.

Olivia, like her grandfather before her, has multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease of the central nervous system that, without modern treatment, can lead to partial or complete paralysis. “My grandfather lost all mobility in his feet and left arm. To be working with doctors who are figuring out how to stimulate those dead nerves is really cool. I’m lucky to be alive right now.” She especially appreciated the opportunity to learn about the latest research findings and treatment options for her own disease from the perspective of a scientist instead of as a patient.

Olivia is thankful that her Anatomy & Physiology teacher Kelly Hoffman told her about the summer internship and encouraged her to apply. “It taught me so much about my career options,” she said, plus she had the opportunity to learn how to use engineering and new software in the field of medical research. Olivia hopes to use her experience to encourage other Heights High students to apply for the Human Fusions Institute program in the future.