Je pense, donc je suis: Traversing tricky topics through outreach

“Je pense, donc je suis,” an insight by European philosopher René Descartes published in his Discourse on the Method in 1637, was originally written in his native French.

This phrase is more commonly known as Cogito, ergo sum, which is written in Latin, a language that traditionally and still somewhat to this day represents a kind of elite tradition in higher education. Indeed, up until the late-20th century, Latin remained a kind of ‘official’ language taught to most privileged collegiate academics and scholars.

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…I believe that as fellow scholars in higher education in Portland, we can best serve our city by sharing the knowledge we’ve been privileged to enjoy. Through the K-12 neuroscience outreach of NW Noggin, we, as PSU students and community members, can share our love and knowledge for neuroscience with our city – locally, as well as regionally, throughout the Pacific Northwest, and beyond.

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Principles of Interdisciplinary Neuroscience

What does it mean to be interdisciplinary? Well, one definition says: “involving two or more academic, scientific, or artistic disciplines,” suggests complexity, collaboration and diversity.

Among the principles of interdisciplinary neuroscience, I think that these are three foundational requirements for growth and advancement

  1. It requires more than one discipline.
  2. It is multifaceted (with many aspects, and many faces).
  3. It is a diverse field.

A multidisciplinary field requires multifaceted knowledge, from a diverse community of minds – thus, we need all the help we can get, both now and for the future of Interdisciplinary Neuroscience.

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To meet the goals of Interdisciplinary Neuroscience, we need active engagement and innovative outreach to serve both our academic and local communities – a core pursuit of NW Noggin.

As an all-volunteer-based, non-profit organization, NW Noggin beautifully brings together science and art to genuinely engage K-12 audiences. Additionally, to support the academic growth of prospective young neuroscientists, we strive to encourage the participation of “near peers,” where collaborations between university students, K-12 students, artists, and other members of the public form, with a focus on “creating novel, innovative, multidisciplinary methods of explaining complex ideas in neuroscience.”

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Interdisciplinarities of Neuroscience

Where my neuroscience journey began

My first experience of anything Interdisciplinary Neuroscience related was at an amazing PSU Neuroscience Club event on April 4th, 2021 – held remotely via Zoom – where Neuro President Alisha Steigerwald hosted Susannah Cahalan, the New York Times bestselling author of the book Brain on Fire.

LEARN MORE: STEAM Ahead: A new interdisciplinary neuroscience minor at PSU!

This neat discussion was held just a few months before I became actively involved in the leadership of our lovely, passionate, and dedicated PSU Neuroscience Club. I started my incredible journey in October 2021 as a General Neuroscience Club Officer.

I’ve been honored to have served as the PSU Neuroscience Club President (for 2022-2023) and now I’m continuing my third year of involvement as a General Neuro Officer again!

LEARN MORE: Portland State University Neuroscience Club

A personal perspective and approach to Interdisciplinary Neuroscience

Starting in the fall of 2021, PSU began offering a unique Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor – thanks largely to the activism of enthusiastic PSU undergraduates and select teaching faculty, particularly those involved with NW Noggin and the Neuroscience Club.

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As a senior undergraduate student at PSU, I sought to be enriched in my academic interests to the fullest extent I could bear. With a concurrent degree pathway (two degrees at the same time) in a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) combo, I’ve strived to become a strong, interdisciplinary neuroscientist educated in both science and the arts.

After around three years at PSU, I have nearly completed my extensive studies as a triple major in Computer Science, Biomedical Physics, and General Science, with a double minor in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience and Mathematics.

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Particularly, I’m excited about the possibilities that modern technology and science may offer, including new ways to analyze complex data, the ability to visualize once unfathomably intricate concepts, and efforts to effectively connect across disciplines with others.

Interesting Interdisciplinary Intersections (…but tricky!)

A seemingly true, but of course, mostly false jab made by fellow STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) scholars to others in different fields, goes something like this comic from XKCD: ‘Biology is applied chemistry, chemistry is applied physics, physics is applied mathematics, mathematics is applied philosophy’, and so back and so forth.

Image from XKCD

While some directly-woven fields like Psychology and Biology can be understood more clearly as connected to Interdisciplinary Neuroscience (in other words, psychology and its biological underpinnings are already clearly neuroscience) – other STEAM fields such as Art, Computer Science, Physics, and Mathematics also can be included.

LEARN MORE: Applied Neuroscience – & STEAM

What about Computer Science?

The inspiration for artificial neural networks. Taken from Karlijn Willem’s datacamp tutorial.

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“AI” or “ML-powered (machine learning)” are heard often as buzzwords in recent media and news. However, apart from the media stereotypes and some mainstream applications (e.g., generative AI), artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many fields in Computer Science have much to offer to interdisciplinary neuroscience. Let us explore a few.

Computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics, for example, while similar and related in many aspects, are two different, but both very awesome fields.

IMAGE SOURCE:  Computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics: Recent progress and resources

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What is neuromorphic computing? Well, it was described in recent (2016) paper in the Journal of Neural Engineering in the following way: “The singular characteristic of neuromorphic computing is that it takes inspiration from what is known about the structure and operation of the brain.”

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The first image below provides a good overview of neuromorphic computing and the second compares neuromorphic versus more traditional Von Neumann computing architectures.

IMAGE SOURCE: Towards spike-based machine intelligence with neuromorphic computing

IMAGE SOURCE: Comparison of the von Neumann architecture with the neuromorphic architecture

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And Physics!

“Physics attempts to explain the phenomena we observe or infer on Earth and in the universe. It has made possible a modern understanding of the origin of the universe. Physics also helps us explain the behavior of biological materials and chemical processes.”

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In order to create such brain-inspired computers, and apply the computational neuroscience techniques of neuromorphic computing, along with all the perplexing software and hardware ultimately required, we need to consider and explore the essential role of Physics in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience.

LEARN MORE: Physics for Neuromorphic Computing

IMAGE SOURCE: Purple and Pink Plasma Ball

Physics can also play a role in neuroinformatics. For example, in a cool project from my Computational Physics class in Spring 2023, I explored neuroinformatics in the processing for quantizing and visualizing brainwave data from electroencephalography, or EEG, which represents the electrical activity of the brain over some time. I measured brain activity from an OpenBCI Ultracortex Mark IV headset, with 8-electrodes and a Cyton board from OPENBCI.

To explain what “quantizing” and “visualizing” means in this context, the basic objective of my project was to take raw EEG brainwave data from an EEG headset, process the raw stream of that neurological data, analyze it, and then package the results into a more digestible, accessible, easier-to-understand form – the core of the field of Neuroinformatics.

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Physics ultimately helps interdisciplinary neuroscientists better explain mechanical, and well, physical phenomena that are involved in neuroscience; for example, understanding action potentials or electrical brainwaves – as well as to assist in the computational modeling of the complex, intricate structures of our brain and nervous system.

And of course Mathematics

Physics and Mathematics can be viewed by many as two incredibly similar academic fields – but of course, they are not exactly 1-to-1.

As Richard Feynman puts it, “physics is not mathematics and mathematics is not physics” – yet, “one helps the other”, where Mathematics enables experimental and theoretical physicists to make discoveries and answer questions about their findings.

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Mathematics most definitely represents one of those tricky topics for many, myself included. Interdisciplinary neuroscience research involves using complex mathematics to draw conclusions, analyze data, and glean statistical findings from studies (like from my previously mentioned EEG physics project – processing raw EEG data to visualize different types of brain waves).

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How do we navigate and nurture interest in these tricky Interdisciplinary Neuroscience fields?

Figure 2-1: Occupations of the workforce ages 18–74, by sex, ethnicity, race, and
disability status: 2021 (NCSES & NSF, 2023)

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Growing up as an elementary school kid, I recall not ‘actually’ reading most books, unless some direct chapter/book assignment was required. During ‘independent reading times,’ I would usually have a stack of Garfield graphic novels (which counted as ‘books’), as I simply did not find other books interesting.

However, the one thing I found very motivating were activities that involved active engagement – for example, once in a blue moon, a substitute teacher opted to put in a good ol’ tape of Bill Nye the Science Guy, or (my personal favorite), organize a Mad Science day, where enthusiastic, warm folks in lab coats took over our classroom for a few periods, performing amazing science experiments and demonstrations, doing their best to keep up with our barrage of questions!

I also remember growing up largely being perceived within the ‘nerd’ pigeonhole, where it often felt almost weird that I happened to talk about computers and brains more often than about cars and sports at the cafeteria, or just not having other classmates whom I could talk with about science topics in general – or at least given the best that the 2nd grade version of myself could muster.

  1. Too many structured academic tests, and a lack of access to fun, engaging opportunities to explore different topics or support existing academic interests through experiences that value your ideas.
  2. A community or network of near peer role models available to mentor and teach young people about higher education and career opportunities, as well as having like-minded friends who share common interests or passions – in other words, knowing that you are not alone.

In maintaining the interdisciplinary community of future neuroscientists, the nature of NW Noggin K-12 engagement and outreach helps to build early, academic confidence for higher education – specifically, as outreach events are centered around fun, engaging educational activities, cultivating communities interested in neuroscience, and ultimately, to spark a lifelong interest in science and art.

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Meaningful Neuroscience Outreach and Impact

A lot of food for thought here – computer science, physics, mathematics – such tricky topics in interdisciplinary neuroscience are difficult to navigate in this growing academic and scientific field. We can do so much to help and teach others to learn difficult subjects, impart lifelong interests, and foster new neuroscientists to come – and at NW Noggin outreach events, we achieve this through a combination of science and the arts.

As René Descartes sought to translate his ideas to reach more minds than just those of the well-resourced elite, universities, I think, including students like myself at Portland State, can and should promote our love for neuroscience in accessible interdisciplinary outreach.

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