Kieran Bunn is one of two New Zealand year 11 pupils who will compete at the Australia and New Zealand Brain Bee Challenge this weekend at the University of Queensland's Brain Institute.
Kieran said he would go through a "brain-bending" two-day series of challenges which included an anatomy test using a human brain; a patient diagnosis test in which actors pretended to have neurological diseases; and a neuroscience quiz in front of a live audience.
The quiz questions were not typical gems from trivial pursuit, he said.
"They might ask questions like: The loss of dopamine in the basal ganglia is an important factor in what neurological disease? It's Parkinson's disease."
The competition is not for the light-hearted.
Kieran was one of nine finalists selected from more than 9500 pupils who have competed in Brain Bee qualifying competitions this year.
Kieran was second in New Zealand in stage one of the competition - a multichoice quiz - and went on to win stage two at the University of Otago.
Challenge co-ordinator Linda Richards said the competition aimed to increase brain awareness among young people by testing their knowledge of brain function and neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
Each competitor would vie for the chance to win a trip to the United States in 2009 to compete in the International Brain Bee Challenge in Baltimore.
