To study the brain, these students put on their thinking caps (and other devices)

There is only one way to fully understand neuroimaging techniques, such as electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures electrical activity in the brain, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which looks for changes in blood flow. “You need to get hands-on experience,” says Dr. Rachel Pizzie, Director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab.

Six undergraduate students, including rising senior Kimberly McCloud, had the chance to use their hands — and heads — to understand this technology as part of the ASL-English Bilingual Cognitive and Educational Neuroscience Training and Research Experience (CENTRE) program. After a successful initial program in 2023, it returned this summer thanks to a three-year National Science Foundation award to Dr. Ilaria Berteletti, Director of the Numeracy and Educational Neuroscience Lab, and Pizzie. Funding covered all student expenses for the eight-week program, including a stipend, travel, lodging, and meals. 

Faculty experts guided CENTRE participants through the science behind multiple techniques, introduced them to the equipment involved, and explored what kind of data they could collect. “The students were asking conceptually interesting questions and really demonstrating that they were getting it,” Pizzie says.

The program also featured neuroethics discussions as well as skill development workshops focused on how to deliver presentations, crunch numbers in spreadsheets, and apply to graduate school. Plus, they were each assigned to a mentor and a lab, where they actively participated in research projects. Pizzie says students in her lab helped set up a study and even ran several participants through the protocol they developed.

“This is the kind of thing that can be a game changer for students,” says Pizzie, who credits a similar program with launching her research career. One of her favorite memories from this summer was seeing how engaged students were during a workshop on PsychoPy, an open-source software used to create lab studies. “A student got so excited about it that she took it home over the weekend and came up with a full experimental paradigm by Monday,” Pizzie says.

Berteletti and Pizzie will follow students’ trajectories and hope to see them continue on in science. They look forward to welcoming a new group of students next year — applications for the program will open in the winter.

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Learn more about Gallaudet’s Ph.D. Program in Educational Neuroscience (PEN) and the labs that make up the innovative Visual Language and Visual Learning Research Center (VL2).