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Having a Brain Blast at Sevier Park!

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

(EBRL’s table setup for Brain Blast 2026)

Looking to learn more about brains and neuroscience in a kid-friendly environment? Well, we’re happy to teach you! Every March, Vanderbilt Brain Institute neuroscientists gather together to teach adults and kids alike all about neuroscience and their research in honor of Brain Awareness Month. Dozens of different labs and researchers all gather together for an event we call Brain Blast each March. The event is geared toward families and kids, aiming to teach people more about their very own brains! Brain Blast 2026 was held on Saturday, March 21st at Sevier Park in Nashville. Lab members had a load of fun teaching our visitors throughout the afternoon about the science that we do here in the lab, as well as played games, did tongue twisters, and gave away tons of free items! We were even visited by some record breakers. (If you went by our table, you know what we’re talking about.) 

(Labs setting up for Brain Blast 2026, hosted in the community center at Sevier Park)

Brain Blast is always a grand opportunity to learn more about neuroscience in a way that’s easy to understand. (It’s also a great way to get some free swag!) Spend a Saturday afternoon hanging out with neuroscientists, see real brains, ask all those burning brain questions you have, and even meet some creepy critters!

(You could find out what this giant cockroach on a treadmill has to do with neuroscience!)

(You could even get a temporary tattoo of a neuron painted live on your arm!)

(EBRL members from left to right: Micah D’Archangel, Kellam Schmudde, Dr. Amanda Martinez-Lincoln, Natalie Huerta, and Dr. Tin Nguyen)

EBRL is proud to participate in Brain Blast each year. It’s an event that’s just as fun for us as it is for the visitors we get throughout the day. If you happened to miss us this year, don’t worry! Brain Blast is usually hosted in late March every year, so we’ll be sure to see you next year! If you’d like to find out more about Brain Blast, please check out the VBI website here. Until next time!

Andrea Burgess Defends Her Dissertation

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

(Andrea Burgess in front of her slides.)

EBRL is overjoyed to report that the lab’s own PhD student Andrea Burgess has successfully defended her doctoral dissertation! On March 4th, 2026, she presented her dissertation titled: “How the brain processes emotional salience in text: Investigating lexical arousal in discourse processing” to a lively crowd of a mix of the public, Vanderbilt staff, and fellow students. Defending your dissertation is an incredibly important milestone in the life of a PhD student, and marks the official point where a PhD student crosses the final hurtle for receiving their PhD! We here at the lab are very proud of Dr. Burgess and are looking forward to her continued academic success!

 

(Andrea Burgess with members of her family.)

(Cookies from her Dissertation Defense after party) 

EBRL at Brain Blast 2025

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

We had a lot of fun meeting with future scientists and students at the Vanderbilt Brain Institute’s annual Brain Blast event. Every year at the Nashville Public Library, the VBI puts on a free event for students of all ages to come and learn about real brain science from scientists in the field. This year our lab participated once again and taught people about reading in the brain. We got to meet so many people and get to teach them about how different parts of the brain all work together during reading. If you stopped by our booth, you might have got a free bookmark, got to play some games with us, or have even got a little book buddy for you to read to! If you’re interested in learning more about Brain Blast and when it’ll be next year, check out the Vanderbilt Brain Institute’s website here! https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/brain-institute/brain-blast/
We might even see you there next year.

Andrea Burgess Awarded INCF/ReproNim Fellowship

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

Andrea Burgess, third-year graduate student in the lab, received funding for ReproNim/INCF Training Fellowship Program, sponsored jointly by ReproNim and the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF). This is a full year Train-the-Trainer fellowship program which provides Fellows with conceptual and practical training in reproducible neuroimaging, as well as tailored support for individual syllabus development and implementation of reproducibility training back home at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. She is excited to take what she learns from this program to help improve neuroimaging practices at Vanderbilt!

To find out more about this fellowship, click here.

EBRL at Brain Blast 2022

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

EBRL had a fun time meeting you at Brain Blast 2022!

Brain Blast is a free educational event for kids held every year by the Vanderbilt Brain Institute. Every year children K-8th grade get to meet and learn from real brain scientists about the brain and we always enjoy meeting everyone and teaching them about our lab and what we do at EBRL. This year Mr. Commodore himself came for a visit and even practiced laying still for an MRI! If you’d like to come to next year’s Brain Blast and participate in this free event, please check back with our site regularly and with the Vanderbilt Brain Institute’s calendar. Brain Blast occurs every year in March.

 

 

NIH funds $8 Million Grant for EBRL Research

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

The first few years of an infant’s life are vastly important for development. Long before enrolling in school, elements of their environment can affect the trajectories of children’s outcomes for the rest of their lives. In an effort to studies these environmental factors, the National Institutes of Health have awarded Vanderbilt a grant as part of a multi-institutional overview of variables influencing infant and child brain development, including substance exposure.

Substance use in pregnant women has increased over the past decade, highlighting the importance of efforts to understand how environmental and other exposures during pregnancy affect brain development and child outcomes. The PRELUDE consortium for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development study will recruit 2720 pregnant women in the 2nd and 3rd trimester and follow their children to age 10, using neuroimaging, behavioral assessments, EEG, biosample collection, and assessments of parent-child interaction and the home environment. This research will lead to greater understanding of factors affecting early childhood brain development, allowing targeted interventions and improved outcomes for mother-child dyads.

If you’d like to learn more about the study, you can learn more about it here or here.

EBRL now Recruiting for a Brain-Based Learning Enhancement study

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

The Education and Brain Sciences Research Laboratory is now recruiting for a study investigating Brain-based Learning Enhancement. Adults between the ages of 18-40 who are native English speakers are invited to participate. The study includes: Initial eligibility screening, and 3-4 study visits. Visit 1 includes MRI, EEG, non-invasive brain stimulation, and behavioral testing. Visits 2 and 3 include non-invasive brain simulation sessions and behavioral testing. Some individuals may be asked to complete an EEG. Some participants may be invited for a Visit 4, which includes MRI, EEG, and behavioral testing.

For participating, you will receive an E-gift card for $50 for each study visit, plus a $50 completion bonus for finishing all parts of the study.

If you would like to participate, please contact Dr. Katherine Aboud at Katherine.Aboud@vanderbilt.edu

Flyer for Brain-Based Learning Enhancement Study

EBRL and Distant Research

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

We at EBRL hope that you are doing well during these challenging times, even as things continue to open and close.

In the past few weeks and months, we’ve been hard at work, doing data collection in tandem with many of our colleagues across the nation, switching to remote testing. Even though we’ve been stuck at home like so many of you, the research hasn’t stopped. Through remote tech, we’ve still been interacting with our participants and been collecting data as much as possible. Sadly, we are unable to take the MRI scanner home due to some portability issues (we’ll figure it out one day).

(Pictured Above, Portability Issues of a Giant Magnet like an MRI)

Anyways, though we are unable to take MRI data, there are still plenty of tests, games, and data we can collect with participants remotely. Soon, we might be able to start seeing participants in person again, but for now there’s plenty for us to do.

As always, you can check on the latest updates on Coronavirus from Vanderbilt at: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/coronavirus/

 

For now, it seems like we may be seeing participants as soon as Fall, but as always, we will be keeping our participants updated as things go along. If you have any questions or want to participate in one of our studies, you can always email us at educationbrain@vanderbilt.edu .

COVID-19 Response and Our Research

by Education Brian Generic 0 Comments

We at EBRL hope that you and yours are doing well and staying safe in this unprecedented health event going on in the United States and across the world.

 

The times we are in are difficult for research and we here at the Education and Brain Science Research Lab are committed to the health and safety of both the participants and staff of our lab. Vanderbilt University itself has implemented social distancing measures on campus to help reduce the spread of the COVID-19 (corona) virus into the further community and keep high risk individuals protected.  To that end, on campus visits for research have temporarily been suspended for the next few weeks and all staff are currently working virtually from home. We will keep in close contact with our currently scheduled participants in the upcoming weeks and keep them appraised of the situation as it develops, but if you would like to stay up to date on Vanderbilt’s response to the ongoing health crisis and find out more about how to protect yourself, go here: (https://www.vanderbilt.edu/coronavirus/)

 

We will be in close contact with our participants going forward, and will keep everyone informed as things progress. In the meantime, the lab has gone off-site in the best practice of social distancing. To help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus on your own, please see this guide on some general rules and guidelines that might help.