Probing the Psyche - From Behaviour to Brain Signals
This two-part workshop demonstrated some key methods used in neuroscience research to understand the brain. The facilitators recreated the volunteer-subject relationship that underpins an experiment. and covered concepts and techniques such as psychophysics, psychometry, electromyography (EMG), and electroencephalography (EEG). Participants participated in online experiments, found out about motor systems and brain signals, and explored neural recordings. The first session was followed by a workshop wherein participants had the opportunity to create their own experiments under the guidance of the facilitators.
About the Neuroscientist
Shubhankar Saha holds a bachelor’s degree from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata with Microbiology (Hons.) and Physics, Chemistry. He is currently an Integrated-PhD student, working with the Vision Lab at IISc. He studies how the brain extracts information about physical parameters of the real world to understand if there is a ‘physics engine’ in the human brain.
About the Neuroscientist
Niranjan Chakrabhavi received his B. Tech in Aerospace Engineering and M. Tech in Applied Mechanics (Biomedical Engineering) from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai. He is currently pursuing his PhD at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.). His doctoral research is focused on understanding the neural strategies in regards to control and coordination of human arm movements.
About the Neuroscientist
R. Krishnakumaran received his B. Tech (Honours) degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering (with specialization in Design and Manufacturing) from Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram. His current PhD research looks at computational modelling of oscillatory neuronal activity in the primary visual cortex of primates, in response to different visual stimuli. His work facilitates further studies into how visual information is encoded and processed in different cortical regions.
About the Neuroscientist
Srishty Aggarwal received her B.Sc. (Honours) degree in Physics from Miranda House, University of Delhi. She is currently pursuing her PhD, in which she aims to characterize brain signals based on age, gender and disease, and unravel the physics associated with it through the means of self-organized criticality. She is also deciphering the impact of meditation on a person’s mental health and well-being.
