By: Jordan Gaines Lewis, 3rd year PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Program During my first year at Penn State College of Medicine, I participated in an MRI research study. I laid in an MRI machine for 45 minutes and looked at pictures of chocolate while smelling chocolate odors. Tough life, right? (Hershey really is the sweetest place … Continue reading What’s it like to get an MRI?
brain
Your Brain on Fiction
By: Lina Jamis, 1st year student in the Anatomy Graduate Program People love stories—we build social networks around them, we recount them to our friends and families at the end of our day, we whisper them in the dark to our children before they sleep. Stories are all around us, even in the most unlikely of … Continue reading Your Brain on Fiction
“Clarifying” Neural Circuitry: A New Technique to Image the Brain
By: Daniel Hass, 1st year PhD student in the Neuroscience Program The brain is complicated. There are hundreds of structures, layers, and cell types interacting with each other in complex ways in order for us to perform simple tasks, such as maintaining heart beat or moving a finger. Much of this complexity comes from the … Continue reading “Clarifying” Neural Circuitry: A New Technique to Image the Brain
Prosopagnosia: Why Some are Blind to Faces
By: Jordan Gaines Lewis, 3rd year PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Program A few years ago, I had an hour-long conversation with one of my college professors in his office discussing his course that had just wrapped up. We veered off-topic toward the end of our talk, broaching the subjects of his grad school days, … Continue reading Prosopagnosia: Why Some are Blind to Faces
Our Emotional Gut
By: Alli Fries, 3rd year PhD candidate in the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program Chances are you have heard it from others and felt it yourself! One might experience that fluttery or squirmy feeling in their stomach in situations that trigger nervousness or fear, such as public speaking or climbing the first hill of an enormous roller coaster. … Continue reading Our Emotional Gut
The Brain in Your Gut
By: Alli Fries, 3rd year PhD candidate in the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program Generally, when people think about neuroscience, the image that comes to mind is the human brain. The brain—an oblong-shaped bulb with grooves and textures, which is reminiscent of a bowl of spaghetti. More ambitious folks might make it past the brain, moving as … Continue reading The Brain in Your Gut
Lions Talk Science 