Where is NW Noggin?
NW Noggin is a locally sourced, 501(c)(3) ALL-VOLUNTEER shoestring nonprofit organization. Your tax-deductible contribution supports the purchase of sheep brains, pipe cleaners, electrodes and clay for innovative, arts-integrated outreach, and helps send volunteers from local universities (including Portland State University, OHSU, and other area institutions) to public school classrooms, conferences and free community events.
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NW Noggin: Art + Brains
Memory & Learning with Noggin @ PAM
Velo Cult Posters by Jeff Leake
Drink Together, Stay Together?
Join us in Chile in *2027*!
In 2027 we'll return to Valparaíso, Chile, home of the Humboldt squid! 🦑⚡️🧠🎨😃 Just like in 2025, and 2023, we'll explore how neurons carry information, and how research in Chile (involving the squid’s giant fused axons) informed our understanding of the electrical signaling that links our experiences to the world. We’ll visit laboratories to examine the rich history and exciting present of brain research, make art (including arpilleras, woven depictions of events that help people express challenging memories and preserve them for accountability), and contribute to community engagement with Ciencia al Tiro, a local STEAM (STEM + Arts) outreach nonprofit. LEARN MORE: LAS NEURONAS SON BACANES. LEARN MORE: Arte y Cerebros en Chile LEARN MORE: ARTS & BRAINS IN CHILE
More Than One Path to Research
Post by Frederick Schemel, undergraduate in Psychology pursuing an Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor at Portland State University. Frederick is currently a research assistant in the Developmental Brain Imaging Lab (DBIL) run by Dr. Bonnie Nagel in the Department of Psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). March of the Multitudes Neuroscience is not an easy…
Trapper Keeper!
We love Fort Vancouver! We’ve visited Fort for close to a decade… …always arriving early, usually in winter, and mostly in the dark. First period started at 7:25am – far too early for healthy adolescent brain development, and we’ve spent years presenting, discussing and exploring the extensive neuroscience research illustrating…
Synapses to Shares
Post by Zach Salcido, undergraduate in Psychology pursuing an Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor at Portland State University. Zach is a valued outreach participant in Noggin K-12 school visits around the Pacific Northwest, including those in Oregon City and Vancouver Public Schools. “We live in an age where there is a firehose…
Why do we throw up?
Ahhh…elementary school! The questions are the best! Northwest Noggin volunteers took the Interstate Bridge over the Columbia River north to Vancouver Public Schools, for a morning with energetic students at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary. Our community-engaged participants included Bradley Marxmiller and Dr. Denesa Lockwood from OHSU, along with Justin Benner, Brin…
Can a skull regenerate?
It’s February, and we are DEEP into our winter outreach schedule, which this term reaches from Portland and Vancouver, Corvallis and the Oregon State Capitol – all the way to Washington DC! Some huge thanks: our extensive all-volunteer efforts received welcome boxes of pipe cleaners, PLA filament and other art…
Permanent Standard Time is best for your brain
NOTE: This is a post from 2024, when NW Noggin volunteers visited the Oregon State Capitol in Salem to present the research supporting ditching Daylight Savings and implementing the far healthier Permanent Standard Time. We spoke again on this topic at a Senate hearing in March 2025. We did it!…
STEAMing back to Washington!
Northwest Noggin returns to DC! This month we are honored to join Oregon’s Roundhouse Foundation along with a host of incredible rural, arts and tribal representatives at the National Arts Summit in Washington DC, organized by the National Endowment for the Arts and the White House Office of Domestic Policy! “This…
See what we did this fall!
Our interdisciplinary neuroscience undergrads and faculty were BUSY this fall, from local public schools and Boise conferences to OHSU research labs and the halls of Congress! Here are the latest interdisciplinary neuroscience undergraduate posts from our Noggin volunteers, covering research on houselessness and sleep, childhood development, youth corrections, artificial intelligence,…
A Brain without Glia
Post by Natalie Robison (she/her), undergraduate in Biology at Portland State University pursuing an Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor. Did you know that, by some measures, a brain has just as many glial cells as it does neurons? LEARN MORE: The search for true numbers of neurons and glial cells in the…
The Significance of Sleep
Post by Lorenzo Nungaray, undergraduate in Biology pursuing an Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor at Portland State University. Lorenzo works as a research technician in the Sleep & Health Applied Research Program (SHARP) at OHSU, under the direction of Dr. Miranda Lim. LEARN MORE: Lorenzo Nungaray, SHARP Lab @ OHSU “Each night, when I go to…
What is outreach like?
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.” ―Maya Angelou
Our Northwest Noggin undergraduate and graduate outreach volunteers are enthusiastic and informed, and regularly let knowledge serve by going places, making art, exploring brain research, sharing stories and listening to community questions and interests in urban and rural K-12 public schools, coffee shops, museums, correctional facilities, houseless youth nonprofits, research conferences, Congress and more! LEARN MORE @ What is outreach like?.