Research
Consumer Neuroscience
Applies tools and theories from neuroscience to better understand decision making and related processes.
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
The Electroencephalography is designed for tracking electrical activity in the brain. It utilizes electrodes placed on or underneath the scalp to record activity with coarse spatial but high temporal resolution.
Eye Tracking
Eye-tracking is the process of measuring where we look, also known as the point of gaze or the orientation of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is an instrument used for measuring movement to determine exactly where the user is looking at, useful to demonstrate the point of focus.
Sasawan Heingraj is using opossum pups in her dissertation on social development.
Extant research on cross-cultural psychology and international branding shows an effect of environmental exposures on consumer's perception. But how it impacts brain mechanism, especially brain development, still needs further examination and explanation. Based on this question, the first study of my dissertation will examine the effect of environmental exposures on brain development by examining the postsynaptic protein in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex areas of the gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis Domestica). Due to its extremely immature brain development and easy access to its offspring, the gray short-tailed opossum offers us an opportunity to examine brain development stages, which can be difficult to examine in humans.
"When I discussed the project with Dr.Minor, my dissertation chair, I was pretty excited about it. And I even got more excited when I did the brain slicing. Everything is very interesting and fascinating. I feel like this is just the beginning. There are many things that we can learn by simply stepping out of your comfort zone. Thanks to UTRGV and my team for patiently helping, training, and supporting me all along."
In the picture, we were discussing the opossum brain's slicing procedures in order to examine the amount of the protein occurred in the specific brain sections.
Equipment
- Emotiv EPOC +14 Channel Mobile EEG
- Tobii Eye Tracking Glasses 2
Research Group
- Dr. Michael Minor
- Dr. Xiaojing Sheng
- Dr. Reto Felix
Research Assistants
- Zoila Zambrano
- Swapnil Saravade
- Sasawan Heingraj
- Suwakitti Amornpan
- Sudipto Sarkar
- Ross Murray
- Ai Nhan Ngo
- Md Shakhawat Hossain