The question Nivedha Ram answered to win the sixth annual Central Massachusetts Regional Brain Bee would have been a brain-buster for many people.

The junior at Acton-Boxboro High School knew almost immediately that orexin is the chemical neurotransmitter that people with narcolepsy have in abnormal amounts, and it was enough to take the top prize in the event. Ms. Ram, who said after the event that she is planning a career in neuroscience, is also headed for the National Brain Bee next month in Baltimore.

“That was a really tough question,” said moderator Sheldon Benjamin, vice chairman of education in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, which hosted yesterday’s event that saw about 60 students from 15 high schools in Central Massachusetts participate. “It was a very distinguished way to win the Brain Bee and it really shows she knows her neuroscience.”

The event presented by the medical school’s Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute concluded with Ms. Ram being presented with the Andrew M. Sheridan Young Neuroscientist Award by Doug Ziedonis, chairman of the medical school’s department of psychiatry.

Mr. Sheridan was a Southboro resident and graduate of St. Mark’s School who was working after his sophomore year in a laboratory at Hamilton College when he decided he wanted to major in neuroscience, Mr. Ziedonis said. However, he passed away from a medical condition in 2007. Since then, his parents have played an active role in the area Brain Bee and his father, Michael J. Sheridan of Southboro, said it was an honor to have the award named after his son.

“These are all great kids,” Mr. Sheridan said, while also praising the medical school for its efforts to get students interested in science.

The students started the day with a written exam in which they had to answer questions about the brain. The top 10 finishers at that exam then had to sit at the front of the medical school amphitheatre and answer questions about the brain posed by Mr. Benjamin, who said he had 400 questions sent by National Brain Bee officials to use.

Three students from Grafton High School, three from David Prouty Regional High School in Spencer, one from Marlboro High School, and one from the Advanced Math and Sciences Academy Charter School in Marlboro joined Oxford High School student Nick Rivelli and Ms. Ram in the oral question segment.

After about an hour of questioning, it came down to Mr. Rivelli and Ms. Ram for the championship she eventually won.

“It was kind of nerve-wracking,” she said of the part of the event when she was vying with Mr. Rivelli. “I really wanted to win.”

Ms. Ram said she started studying the brain in the eighth grade and yesterday’s event was the first Brain Bee she won, after several tries.

Elif Sikoglu, a postdoctoral student in the laboratory of Constance Moore, who is an associate professor at the medical school’s Center for Comparative NeuroImaging, gave the keynote talk titled “how to open windows into the brain.”

The Brain Bee sponsors were the Dana Foundation, the medical school and the BNRI. Ms. Ram’s trip to Baltimore for the national Brain Bee will be paid for by the medical school, according to a press release.

The Brain Bee is a program of the Society for Neuroscience and the Dana Foundation that is designed to educate teens about neuroscience and to assist them in considering a career in science.

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