Why does my brain FREEZE?!

Post by Alexandria Bills, undergraduate in Psychology pursuing an Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor at Portland State University. My name is Alexandria Bills, and I am a senior at Portland State University (PSU) pursuing a degree in Psychology and a minor in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience. I am also co-president of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanic and…

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A Hippocampal Halloween

Happy Halloween! We LOVE visiting King Elementary in Northeast Portland, and couldn’t have chosen a better date to return! Halloween will forever be on our schedule for future Noggin school outreach, and King is one of our favorite and most memorable community connections. Memory and the Brain Certain kinds of…

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Listening at MacLaren

Northwest Noggin returned to the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility this fall, to meet with more young people curious about the brain, and the policy implications of ongoing neuroscience research on adolescent development, bias, trauma, drugs, and mental health in terms of education, healthcare, criminal justice and the law. We’ve visited…

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Brains in Boise

A huge thanks to Geof Garner, the President of the National Association of Educational Opportunity Programs (NAEOP), for inviting Northwest Noggin to their annual conference in Boise Idaho! This was our THIRD conference workshop on interdisciplinary neuroscience outreach for NAEOP, following earlier presentations in Bellevue, Washington and Gleneden Beach, Oregon.…

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Butterflies in my brain!

It’s fall, the leaves are changing, and Noggin volunteers are heading back into public schools, correctional facilities, houseless youth nonprofits, neuroscience conferences and even Congress! Imagine that! BRAINS IN CONGRESS: Noggin at SfN, DC schools – and the U.S. House! LEARN MORE: Noggin Event Calendar! LEARN MORE: The last time…

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Las neuronas son bacánes!

Jeff Leake and Bill Griesar of Northwest Noggin are teaching a NEW interdisciplinary neuroscience course NEXT SUMMER (2025) in the extraordinary art and brain research saturated coastal city of Valparaíso, Chile! Anyone is welcome, and for undergraduates at Portland State University this course can fulfill the PSY 403: Outreach requirements…

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Long skinny lightning in Siletz

“Sabía poco, pero al menos sabía eso: que nadie habla por los demás. Que aunque queramos contar historias ajenas terminamos siempre contando la historia propia”—Alejandro Zambra Storytelling and the brain Storytelling has a long history, and it’s a powerful and accepted method of teaching science. Research finds that curricula which…

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Are “mini-brains” BRAINS?

Post by Austin Schubert, graduate student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at OHSU. Austin is interested in the genetic and molecular basis of how the cerebral cortex develops in the context of health, disease, and evolution, and presented on brain organoids at NogginFest 2023. We all began as a single-celled…

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Minibrains, Music, Estrogen, Art & Sleep!

NOGGINFEST 2023 😎 Brain Awareness! Music! Noggins! Art! “…the great events of the world take place in the brain…” — Oscar Wilde This was the SIXTH annual NogginFest – the largest student-run, accessible, all ages, public celebration of music, art, brain research, noggins and interdisciplinary neuroscience in the Pacific Northwest! Noggin’s…

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