Una otra presentación del cerebro y arte!
Last month a small crew of volunteers from Portland State University joined Maria Paz Herrera, a Youth Engagement Specialist for the Latino Network, a nonprofit that aims to lift up Latino youth and families to reach their full potential, and some of her curious students for a brainy afternoon at Madison High in Portland Public Schools…
Noggin is thrilled to partner with this fellow community organization that shares our enthusiasm for improving livability and civic engagement, motivating and inspiring K-12 students and the public, and preparing young people for educational and life success. Throughout March, we’ve visited multiple schools with the Latino Network to talk brains, create art and answer intriguing questions…
At the links, more details about brain development, multilingualism, implicit skills…
LEARN MORE: Latino Network Learning & Lobes
LEARN MORE: Tres Escuelas en un Día!
LEARN MORE: Basal ganglia @ Beaumont!
Los estudiantes tenían preguntas…
Por ejemplo, how do stressful experiences affect memory? Can stress help memory? Is there a good level of stress? Can we use the extra energy afforded by stress to our advantage..?
“It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.” –Hans Selye
Eileen Torres, a current graduate student in Behavioral Neuroscience at OHSU, and visual artist and printmaker Joshua Abraham (who attended the Pacific Northwest College of Art) presented on this same topic at Portland’s Velo Cult last December. Acute (short-lived) stress improves memory – our memories are enhanced by emotionally significant events…
However, not everyone responds to stress in the same way, yet stress and how we respond individually impacts both the structure and development of our brains. This includes areas essential for memory like the seahorse-shaped hippocampus in our medial (middle) temporal lobe…
Image/text from Greece! Rome! Monsters! by John Harris. Illustration by Calef Brown.
Hippocampus. Drawing by Ramon y Cajal
LEARN MORE: A Deep Dive Into the Brain, Hand-Drawn by the Father of Neuroscience
LEARN MORE: White Matter on Wy’East
For example, brain cells known as oligodendrocytes – which wrap segments of our neuron’s wire-like axons with portions of their own cellular membranes (known as myelin) to insulate and increase the speed of electric transmission – become more abundant after chronic stress…
LEARN MORE: Stress and glucocorticoids promote oligodendrogenesis in the adult hippocampus
“I’m determined to become a neurosurgeon…”
At Madison, we also shared Joshua’s Velo observation on the beneficial effects of art. Making art is a powerful way to deal effectively with significant stress. “How do you eat an elephant?” he’d asked. “One bite at a time, of course. And how do you make paintings? One brushstroke at a time.”
LEARN MORE ABOUT STRESS, ART, DIET, MEMORY: Feeling stressed?
At Madison, we answered more questions, examined human and other animal brains, and made neurons and glial cells out of pipe cleaners…
LEARN MORE: STEAM Art Projects
Many thanks to Maria Paz Herrera and her students at Madison High, and PSU undergraduate Jordan Ray for a creative, engaging and memorable afternoon!
