Electrophysiology Lab and Neurophysiology Lab, Multidisciplinary Institute of Cell Biology

This year we organized an itinerant event, approaching a new public from small cities of Argentina’s heartland with neuroscience outreach activities. As we did last year, we presented some of the features of the brain and neurons, and their central role in the integration information that ultimately leads to complex behavior. The first place we visited was Gral. Manuel Belgrano Highschool, in Curuzu Cuatia, Prov.of Corrientes, on May 22. We provided 4 rounds of the event, encompassing the whole of the school’s students, 1200 in total. We presented a two-part activity: an opening talk on stage, featuring live demonstrations and activities with participation of the audience. This included: a short introduction to the nervous system, live measurements and stimulation of a cockroach leg using a Spikerbox, and live electromyographic recordings on a volunteer, plus direct stimulation with the resulting signal into a cockroach leg, and later into a second volunteer’s arm using a Human-to-Human interface and TENS unit. During the talk we projected a macro video feed and live traces from the experiments. Afterwards, the public was invited to participate in different stations: – A participative demonstration of brain samples and microscopic observation of brain slides. – A station were the public could directly engage with the Spikerbox and the Human-to-human interface. – An introduction to reflexes and experiments to measure reaction times. – An overview of electric and synaptic transmission on neurons, with a large scale model. We were also kindly invited and took part in the BAW event organized at the Univ. of Quilmes. We are really excited to bring our BAW to several cities this year, Gral. Belgrano City (BA) coming next

We found this year’s events to be very rewarding. We had the chance to interact with a large number of students, most of them attending for the first time to this type of activities. Many of theme were really excited and interested in engaging with the experiments, and showed a keen curiosity for this type of novel experiences. Overall these activities resulted in a very positive and encouraging experience.