{"id":6761,"date":"2016-05-04T15:03:10","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T19:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/?p=6761"},"modified":"2016-05-11T14:22:59","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T18:22:59","slug":"brain-bee-a-fun-and-rewarding-way-to-learn-about-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/2016\/brain-bee-a-fun-and-rewarding-way-to-learn-about-the-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Brain Bee: A Fun and Rewarding Way to Learn About the Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even before the question was finished, Siddhartha Lavu knew the answer. \u201cI just got a really good feeling inside, knowing that my hard work had paid off,\u201d said Lavu, who finished as the top point scorer in a closely contested competition at the Upper Valley Brain Bee, held recently at Dartmouth\u2019s Moore Hall Psychology Building.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way it works is all of the competitors go through three rounds\u2014a written test, a patient diagnosis, and a neuroanatomy test\u2014and the top five people from those rounds go into a final question and answer round,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe other students knew what they were doing and they all did well, so I was happy to come out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavu, a freshman from Bedford High School, will now have the opportunity to represent New Hampshire in the national Brain Bee competition next spring in Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n

\"Geisel's
Geisel's Bob Maue, PhD, performs \u201cThe Invisible Hand\u201d illusion on participant Kai Renshaw, Hanover High School, 9th grade. This illusion tricks the participant into thinking an artificial hand is their own and demonstrates how the brain forms a visual definition of our body.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was the fourth time (in as many years) that the Neuroscience Center at Dartmouth<\/a> and the NH chapter of the Society for Neuroscience hosted and sponsored the bee, which offers the friendly neuroscience competition to teens (age 13-19), as well as a popular interactive neuroscience fair. The overall aim is to \u201cshow students the fun in learning about the brain while allowing them to experience what the field of neuroscience is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this year\u2019s bee was the best one we\u2019ve done yet,\u201d said Emily Stephens, a fourth-year graduate student at Geisel School of Medicine who\u2019s been involved in the event since its inception and again served as a co-organizer\u2014this year with fellow Geisel grad students Arielle Baker and Stephanie Getz (who will assume Stephens\u2019 lead role next year).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had 30 students from 10 schools, about half coming from outside the Upper Valley from areas like Concord, Nashua and Bedford, which is the most students and the most diversity among schools that we\u2019ve had,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd this was the first year that the top five finalists were all freshmen and sophomores.\u201d<\/p>\n

Usually it\u2019s the upper classmen who finish at the top in scoring, said Stephens, making Lavu\u2019s performance all the more impressive. \u201cI started studying well in advance of the bee, putting in two hours a day the last three weeks, and I went through the brain facts book twice and had my mom ask me questions,\u201d said Lavu, who also attended a brain bee \u201cboot camp\u201d at the Hanover Howe Library run by Dartmouth College grad students to train for the event.<\/p>\n

He and the other competitors, along with friends, family and members of the community, enjoyed the interactive neuroscience fair portion of the bee, which featured 13 demonstration stations\u2014ranging from how to do a neurological exam to illusions and how the brain can be tricked. The fair included a special lecture by Matt van der Meer, an assistant professor in the department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth, who studies the physical changes that take place in the brain when memories are made.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur station volunteers, who included friends who are grad students, teachers, and also faculty in the Anatomy and Physiology Department at the medical school, did an amazing job\u2014their passion for neuroscience generated a lot of excitement and interest among participants,\u201d said Stephens.<\/p>\n

\"brain-bee-brains\"
Geisel's Rand Swenson, MD, PhD, shows students the anatomy of the human brain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOne of my favorite parts was getting to hold a human brain,\u201d said Lavu, who is interested in becoming a brain surgeon, and also doing neuroscience research to help people with psychiatric disorders. \u201cI got to meet a lot of neuroscientists and doctors and learn about the current research that\u2019s going on and some of the questions they\u2019re trying to answer. All in all, it was a really great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A record 30 students from 10 schools competed in the fourth annual Upper Valley Brain Bee, held recently at Dartmouth’s Moore Hall. The event offered a friendly neuroscience competition, as well as a popular interactive neuroscience fair. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":6763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[710,57,711,29],"class_list":["post-6761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-brain-bee","tag-community-service","tag-graduate-students","tag-neuroscience","author-26"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/brain-bee-winners.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4r3h1-1L3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6761"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6786,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761\/revisions\/6786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}