‘Naukowe Love’, i.e. sharing our passion for neuroscience across all generations 25 February 2020 – Posted in: news – Tags: 2020, Biomedical, biomedical engineering, Brain, Brain Stimulation, brain waves, children, demonstration, Doctoral, Epilepsy, Gdansk University of Technology, kids, neurology, Neuroscience, outreaching, Poland, Polish, presentation, primary schools, rhythm, Science, Study, talk, Verbal

This month Dr. Kucewicz engaged in several public events dedicated to promoting neuroscience and awareness of the societal problems that our research addresses. ‘Centrum Naukowe Eksperyment’ in Gdynia invited us to present and run a workshop on their special Valentine’s Day event ‘Naukowe Love’ about the heart and the brain (btw, St. Valentine is the patron for epilepsy). Our workshop was attended by most of the participants (over 700 in total!) with almost continuous 4 hours of presentations. The most popular part was a toy brain-computer interface, which used a single EEG electrode on the forehead to measure theta brain waves sent telemetrically to a device controlling levitation of a ball – the more one focused the mind, inducing the theta brain rhythm, the more the ball was lifted from the ground. This simple interface exemplified the idea of our research harnessing knowledge about the brain mechanisms of our mental activities to control and improve cognitive functions like memory. Other activities in the workshop included a quick neurological examination of determining the brain hemisphere that dominates our world-view, a test of memory with predicting in advance the outcome performance, and other demonstrations of how our brain shapes the mind.

Special thanks to Dr. Kucewicz’s wife, Karolina, who assisted with the workshop presentations and at some point had to take over part of the show with the brain-computer interface! The demand was so big that without her help many would miss the workshop activities.

BME lab is planning more presentations in the coming future – one in the Hewelianum Science Center in Gdansk for middle and high-school students (stay tuned on our Facebook website for more info), talks at the Gdansk universities, and more visits to primary schools for a lesson about neuroscience. Let us know if you would like to arrange a visit to your local community.

We are already seeing the fruit of such activities with students, who contact us back to give an inspirational testimony of how these presentations have inspired their careers. Some of them may soon be joining our BME lab and take the mission further to the next generations of neuroscientists… thank you all for your contributions to promoting our efforts!