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Welcome to the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter.
In this issue:
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Neuroscience for Kids had several new additions in July including:
A. July Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter was archived
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/news2807.html
B. New Neuroscience in the News
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/inthenews.html
C. Visit or follow my Instagram site with neuroscience facts and trivia:
https://www.instagram.com/ericchudler/
D. New Neurocalendars
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurocal.html
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The Neuroscience for Kids "Site of the Month" for August is "Hack Your Brain" at:
https://www.sciencefriday.com/series/hack-your-brain/
"Hack Your Brain" was developed by Science Friday with a series of articles and activities (in English and Spanish) to teach middle school students about neuroscience. Each entry provides background material and hands-on activities to explore the mysteries of the brain. Topics include memory, stress, sleep, attention and neurotransmitters. The site also has many games, puzzles and videos that make learning about the brain fun.
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Last month students from around the world joined me for the 2024 Center for Neurotechnology (CNT) Young Scholars Program-REACH (YSP-REACH). YSP-REACH is a one-week program for high school students interested in neuroscience and neural engineering. The program hosted 23 students in-person on the University of Washington (UW) campus and 118 students who joined virtually. Each day started with a lecture (in-person and virtual program) and ended with afternoon activities (in-person only). Prior to each lecture, students were encouraged to work through a chapter of an online Pressbook. In fact, the Pressbook is available to everyone, so you are welcome to have a look at this material: https://uw.pressbooks.pub/yspreach24/
I provided the first YSP-REACH lecture to bring everyone up to speed on neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. Later that day, we built neuron and brain models from rope, pipe cleaners and paper. On Tuesday, we heard about Brain-Computer Interfaces from CNT co-director Dr. Rajesh Rao. That afternoon we went into a biology lab to perform a sheep brain dissection. On the way back to the classroom we stopped by the UW Medicinal Herb Garden where I pointed out some specimens with neuroactive properties.
On Wednesday, Dr. Azadeh Yazdan spoke about using neurotechnology for stroke rehabilitation. After lunch, a panel of undergraduate researchers discussed life as a college student, choosing a college and a major, and time management. We were also able to fit in a great presentation from a high school student about her project “Neurofencing.” Thursday was a busy day hearing from CNT co-director Dr. Chet Moritz about electrical stimulation of the nervous system. Dr. Moritz invited us to visit his lab that afternoon to speak with some of his research participants who were in a trial to test the effectiveness of electrical stimulation of the spinal cord as therapy for spinal cord injury. Dr. Moritz, his students and staff also demonstrated many of the devices they use in their experiments. Because the University of Washington Greenhouse was open, we stopped by for a quick tour. The last of the program started with a talk about neuroethics from UW professor of philosophy Dr. Sara Goering. After a pizza lunch on Friday, we played a neuroscience/neurotechnology timeline game and then tested our visual, auditory and somatosensory response time.
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The media have been reporting about the spread of bright yellow-striped Joro spiders (Trichonephila clavata). These large spiders are native to East Asia and likely arrived in the United States 10 to 15 years ago on cargo ships. Joro spiders can now be found in much of the southeast United States and are moving north.
Some experts believe that Joro spiders will not harm the environment and may actually help control some problem insects. Like the venom of many other spiders, Joro spider venom is neurotoxic. Joro spider venom blocks receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate. While seeing one of these palm-sized spiders might frighten you, there is little to worry about because Joro spiders are not aggressive.
More information about Joro spiders:
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A. "Youth with conduct disorder show widespread differences in brain structure," NIH News Releases, July 17, 2024; http://tiny.cc/1n59zz.
B. "Late bedtimes and not enough sleep can harm developing brains – and poorer kids are more at risk," The Conversation, July 18, 2024; http://tiny.cc/vm59zz
C. "Next-gen brain implant uses a graphene chip," IEEE Spectrum, July 20, 2024; https://t.ly/KFqdD.
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A. Psychiatrist Hans Berger made the first EEG recording on a human 100 years ago on July 6, 1924. However, he did not publish this work until 1929.
B. A pig with a body mass of 100 kg has a brain mass of 65 g; a pig brain has 2.229 billion neurons (Source: Olkowicz, S., et al., Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain, PNAS, 113:7255-7260, 2016).
C. Analysis of brain activity (EEG) can distinguish between successful and unsuccessful golf putts (Source: Carey, L.M., Commit to your putting stroke: exploring the impact of quiet eye duration and neural activity on golf putting performance, Front. Psychol., July 10, 2024).
D. The human eye has inspired the development of a new type of camera (Source: He, B. et al., Microsaccade-inspired event camera for robotics, Sci. Robot. 9, eadj8124(2024), DOI:10.1126/scirobotics.adj8124).
E. The United Nations issued eight postage stamps to commemorate World Autism Day in 2012; each stamp had artwork designed by people with autism.
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Chudler at: chudler@u.washington.edu
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Your comments and suggestions about this newsletter and the "Neuroscience for Kids" web site are always welcome. If there are any special topics that you would like to see on the web site, just let me know.
Eric
Eric H. Chudler, Ph.D.