Brainhack is an innovative meeting format that promotes scientific collaboration and education in an open, inclusive environment. This NeuroView describes the myriad benefits for participants and the research community and how Brainhacks complement conventional formats to augment scientific progress.
In recent years, the scientific community has called for improvements in the credibility, robustness, and reproducibility of research, characterized by higher standards of scientific evidence, increased interest in open practices, and promotion of transparency. While progress has been positive, there is a lack of consideration about how this approach can be embedded into undergraduate and postgraduate research training. Currently, the impact of integrating an open and reproducible approach into the curriculum on student outcomes is not well articulated in the literature. Therefore, in this paper, we provide the first comprehensivereview of how integrating open and reproducible scholarship into teaching and learning may impact students, using a large-scale, collaborative, team-science approach. Our review highlighted how embedding open and reproducible scholarship may impact: (1) students’ scientific literacies (i.e., students’ understanding of open research, consumption of science, and the development of transferable skills); (2) student engagement (i.e., motivation and engagement with learning, collaboration, and engagement in open research), and (3) students’attitudes towards science (i.e., trust in science and confidence in research findings). Our review also identified a need for more robust and rigorous methods within evaluations of teaching practice. We discuss implications for teaching and learning scholarship in this area.
Brainhack is an innovative meeting format that promotes scientific collaboration and education in an open and inclusive environment. Departing from the formats of typical scientific workshops, these events are based on grassroots projects and training, and foster open and reproducible scientific practices. We describe here the multifaceted, lasting benefits of Brainhacks for individual participants, particularly early career researchers. We further highlight the unique contributions that Brainhacks can make to the research community, contributing to scientific progress by complementing opportunities available in conventional formats.
Dysfunctional social communication is one of the most stable characteristics in patients with schizophrenia that also affects quality of life. Interpreting abstract speech and integrating nonverbal modalities is particularly affected. Considering the impact of communication on social life but failure to treat communication dysfunctions with usual treatment, we will investigate the possibility to improve verbal and non-verbal communication in schizophrenia by applying a multimodalspeech-gesture training (MSG training). Here we describe the newly developed MSG training program and the study design for the first clinical investigation.The intervention contains perceptive rating (match/mismatch of sentence and gesture) and memory tasks (n-back tasks), imitation and productive tasks (e.g., SG fluency – similar to verbal fluency where words are accompanied by gesture). In addition, we offer information about gesture as meta-learning element as well as homework for reasons of transfer to everyday life as part of every session. In the MSG training intervention, we offer eight sessions (60 minutes each) of training. The first pilot study is currently conducted as a single-center, randomized controlled trial of speech-gesture intervention versus wait-list control with a follow-up. Outcomes are measured through pre-post-fMRI and standardized psychological questionnaires comparing two subject groups (30 patients with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls). Patients and healthy controls are randomized in two intervention groups (with 20 being in the wait-training group and 10 in the training-follow-up group).With our study design we will be able to demonstrate the beneficial effect of the MSG training intervention on behavioral and neural levels.
Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) exhibit an aberrant perception and comprehension of abstract speech-gesture combinations associated with dysfunctional activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Recently, a significant deficit of speech-gesture mismatch detection was identified in SSD, but the underlying neural mechanisms have not yet been examined. A novel mismatch-detection fMRI paradigm was implemented manipulating speech-gesture abstractness (abstract/concrete) and relatedness (related/unrelated). During fMRI data acquisition, 42 SSD patients (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or other non-organic psychotic disorder [ICD-10: F20, F25, F28; DSM-IV: 295.X]) and 36 healthy controls were presented with short video clips of an actor reciting abstract or concrete sentences accompanied by either a semantically related or unrelated gesture. Participants indicated via button press whether they perceived each gesture as matching the speech content or not. Speech-gesture mismatch detection performance was significantly impaired in patients compared to controls. fMRI data analysis revealed that patients showed lower activation in bilateral frontal areas, including the IFG for all abstract > concrete speech-gesture pairs. In addition, they exhibited reduced engagement of the right supplementary motor area (SMA) and bilateral anterior cingulate cortices (ACC) for unrelated > related stimuli. We provide first evidence that impaired speech-gesture mismatch detection in SSD could be the result of dysfunctional activation of the SMA and ACC. Failure to activate the left IFG disrupts the integration of abstract speech-gesture combinations in particular. Future investigations should focus on brain stimulation of the SMA, ACC, and the IFG to improve communication and social functioning in SSD.
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