Schools, museums, libraries, community centers and other public venues in over 75 countries— last week, the entire planet was firing spikes in honor of the brain during Brain Awareness Week 2024! An annual event organized and partly funded by Dana Foundation and International Brain Research Organization (IBRO), it’s the biggest joint scientific outreach in the world whose goal is to get more people to think, talk, make, partake in experiments and get generally excited about the brain.
And just like every previous year, we were part of it too, personally or in spirit through our gear! This time around, our SpikerBoxes have conquered five countries (that we know of): from our own to Canada, the UK, Serbia and Austria.
But the Serbian high school teachers and students were in for a special treat.
“How Your Brain Works” Now Speaks Serbian Too
After Spanish and Italian editions, our book “How Your Brain Works” (MIT Press, 2022) got its first expanded edition. The good news is, there are several more experiments that we worked on with our fellows since the 2023 Summer Research Fellowship. The bad news, the book is in Serbian, so the new experiments aren’t available to our US audience for the time being! We hereby extend our gratitude to Nordeus Foundation, Center for Promotion of Science and the US Embassy in Serbia, who have made it all possible.
But the book launch, several workshops and media appearances weren’t the only way we popularized neuroscience in Serbia. We also donated neuroscience combos (the book + Neuron SpikerBox Pro + Human SpikerBoxO) to 23 schools around the country. These schools are now joining the ranks with a couple Serbian universities, two primary schools and a grammar school that have already received our gear over the past years. It will translate to thousands of students getting a chance to do hands-on neuroscience in the classroom!
More BYB Neuroscience at Brain Awareness Week 2024
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We almost ran out of pens at the world’s biggest neuroscience conference! This year’s Society for Neuroscience (SfN) was the first in-person meeting since 2019. And we’re really happy that it happened. Firstly, we’ve so missed the nerdy vibes of sci-comm bustle. Secondly, taking a stroll under palms in sunny San Diego feels really nice in November! Last but not least, it would have been downright impossible to sign copies of our new book online.
Because that’s right, our new book, “How Your Brain Works: Neuroscience Experiments for Everyone” written by our co-founders, Drs. Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo, has just been released by MIT Press! It’s a lengthy volume yet easy to digest, and even easier to keep open as you fiddle with electrodes, insects or your own nervous system in your classroom or home lab.
The book contains over 50 experiments you can do anywhere you want if you have one of our SpikerBoxes. But even if you don’t, you can always flex your engineering abilities and DIY one using our open-source schematics!
The classroom-ready, open-ended experiments include:
- What does our brain do when we exercise or hold our breath?
- How do our brains tell our bodies to jump, dance, or sing?
- How fast do signals travel down a neuron?
- Can we really enhance our memories during sleep?
- How does the brain get your attention?
- How do brain stimulators (used in treating Parkinson’s disease) really work?
- How long does it take the brain to decide?
- And many more!
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— Written by Jelena Ciric —
This summer’s been a busy and buzzy season for spreading the word on DIY neuroscience! As part of the outreach activities, our crew hit Paris to attend FENS (Forum of European Neuroscience), Europe’s largest international neuroscience conference. We set up shop there and demoed the latest upgrades of our bioamplifiers. And got sore muscles from cycling along the Champs-Élysées!
The schedule was jam-packed with sci-comm activities, with over 7,500 fellow neuroscientists, graduate and doctoral students as well as teachers partaking in scientific symposia, poster presentations, workshops, mini conferences. (Hanging out, caffeinating and exchanging ideas with other nerdy folks at the rooftop terrace was also a huge part of it, especially in the mornings and evenings.)
Our booth was one of the liveliest spots. For who doesn’t itch to get a taste of a powerful brain-computer interface packed up into a couple of little orange boxes made world-famous by TED?
Or to engage in a cyborgian cup stacking contest using our robotic arm called The Claw…
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