(Alliteration by Noggin volunteer Austin Howard!)
School’s out – but our Noggin volunteers won’t slow down! We kicked off a beautiful Northwest summer weekend in Vancouver, Washington, at the Healthy Kids Fair at Legacy Salmon Creek…
Lynette Wolf, Austin Howard, Jessica Patching-Bunch, Gaile Parker and Allie Clark from Psychology at Portland State University joined Cole Dawson, Joey Seuferling and Grace Hoinowski from Neuroscience at WSU Vancouver to speak for hours about healthy brains, and brain development…
Many people tried the “alcohol impairment simulation goggles” (a.k.a. “drunk goggles”), which disrupt visual inputs to your eyes, impairing balance, coordination, judgment and reaction time similarly to what you might experience when drinking too much…
It’s definitely hard to catch a pipe cleaner neuron!
SEE MORE: Drunk goggles in action.MOV
Kids and their parents also examined human noggins up close…
And we welcomed our youngest gloved brain scientist ever – 17 months old!
Building brain cells, with their twisting dendrites and axons, was another popular activity, and colorful Noggin neurons began networking throughout the Fair…
The cerebellum on the back of our brain model is occasionally a bit uncoordinated, and drops off… 🙂
It’s often a great way to introduce the functions of this extraordinary “little brain,” so important for integrating vestibular information (e.g., our detection of angular and linear acceleration and the pull of gravity) into our balanced, coordinated movements…
The cerebellum has also been connected to higher cognitive functions like language, social decision making and working memory, and it contains as many neurons as you’ll find in the rest of your cerebrum!
LEARN MORE: The cerebellum’s role in movement and cognition
We also enjoyed a visit by Blaze, the Trail Cat mascot of the Portland Trail Blazers NBA team, who was clearly curious about neuroscience! Good exercise and teamwork definitely contribute to healthy brains…
A great day of compelling, brain-stimulating education in Salmon Creek..!
