REU Site: Human Neuroscience Research and Techniques at Georgia Tech and Georgia State

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). The brain is critical for basic functions in life, such as movement, emotion, awareness, and regulation. Understanding how the brain functions is vital to questions scientists have about behavior and health.

Research of the human brain is possible with sophisticated tools that are used to understand the function and health of our brains. Over the last several decades, great steps have been made to develop the tools to improve our ability to more accurately understand human brain function. It is critical to develop the next generation of brain scientists to use these tools to unlock new discoveries.

However, some college-age aspiring brain scientists are unable to use these tools because they are not available to them. This Research Experience for Undergraduates seeks to provide hands-on exposure to the tools to understand human brain function. We will train women and/or under-represented minority college students in research laboratories at two universities that are leaders in brain research, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University in the city of Atlanta, GA.

This experience will support engagement with techniques to study human brain function, enhance their knowledge of brain science, and support the next generation of scientists that can unlock the mysteries of the brain.

Neuroscience is a growing field. Knowledge about the brain and brain function is critical for our understanding of human behavior and many human diseases and disorders. The collaborative neuroscience community at Georgia Tech and Georgia State is uniquely suited to provide an undergraduate research experience in human neuroscience research and techniques that will achieve several goals.

This REU program will train women and/or under-represented minority students, including 6 in a unique second summer research-mentorship experience that will: 1) provide exposure for students to human neuroscience research that do not have tools available at their institutions; 2) afford hands-on training on data acquisition and analysis in fMRI and EEG; 3) provide training on the importance of reliability and reproducibility in research; 4) engage in active research in PI labs; 5) increase the students' competitiveness when applying for post-graduate education or work in neuroscience-related fields, and 6)increase scientific knowledge and make neuroscientific discoveries by advancing the transformative research in faculty mentor laboratories. To achieve our goals of increasing neuroscience knowledge among trainees, we will engage them in transformative neuroscience research tailored to their interests through collaborative research with faculty mentors.

The participants will advance neuroscientific knowledge by carrying out this transformative research with Georgia State or Georgia Tech faculty. Through group activities, the REU participants will gain a hands-on knowledge of neuroscience techniques that they would not otherwise have access to. The shared activities of the REU participants and faculty mentors will foster interaction across psychology, physics, neuroscience, biology, and biomedical engineering.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.