With a strong belief in the value of communal learning and creative exploration, the Bates neuroscience program provides students with a deep understanding of the relationship between the nervous system and human behavior.

Students gain powerful insights into the historical, political, and ethical implications of this rapidly developing field — apt preparation for a variety of rewarding careers.

“We are piloting the experiment for these students’ thesis experiments. They were piloting Hannah’s experiment. She’s interested in looking at the extent to which visual masking actually inhibits perception. So when you take a visual mask, you take an image followed by another image, you’re impaired at understanding the first image. The question is why. So what we’re going to do is take the neural activity that we’re measuring. And the nice thing about EEG is that it measures millisecond by millisecond electrical potentials that are generated in the brain, we measure them from the scalp. And we can see over time what the brain is processing and we use machine learning, we put these signals into a computer system that reads out the extent to which there is information about what the picture is. We’re wondering, does that information persist when you change the image? Does that persist over time? Hannah’s made the experiment, and we are going to try it out to make sure everything’s ready for participants.”

Michelle Greene, assistant professor of neuroscience, says of three thesis students in neuroscience: “They’re all terrific, I might add.”

A Real College In A Real Place

From its inception in 1855, Bates has recruited students without regard to race, religion, national origin, or sex. Our founders firmly believed, as we do today, that not only should a Bates education be open to all, but that it is bettered by this openness. Diversity and inclusion — of thought, background, and experience — isn’t optional or aspirational here. It’s vital.

We have tough conversations in tough climates because that’s what makes Bates, and our students, better. It’s what makes Bates a college for the coming times and a college that prepares you for the coming times, too.

Connect With Bates

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