Brain & Society

Interdisciplinary Themes

Bass Connections projects, courses and summer programs are aligned with the following themes:

Led by the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Many of the core problems of our time – climate change, financial crises, addiction, social inequality – arise from individuals and their choices. Brain research on cognition, emotions, expression and decision-making will be translated in this theme to address collective challenges and increase understanding of what makes us human. This is just one of several domains of research relating the exciting field of neuroscience to the contemporary challenges we face in the communities we inhabit and in the societies and culture we create.

Bass Connections in Brain & Society engages undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty from different programs and majors in an immersive curriculum that combines research and coursework into a common program of scholarship in multidisciplinary project teams.

Curricular and project elements build connections between basic research in neuroscience (and related biological sciences) and socially challenging questions in medicine, the humanities, public policy, economics, ethics and law, to understand issues such as physical and social responses to transformative events; the workings of the brain in rhetoric and the arts; memory in legal testimony; and the role of decision processes in shaping our institutions and public policies. Each Brain & Society team tackles a current issue relating to the brain and its link to society as a whole.

Brain & Society Project Teams

Bottles.

This project team will pilot and assess the Alcohol Use Behavioral Phenotyping Test app in Kenya, Brazil and India. Read more about Alcohol Use Behavioral Phenotyping Test for Global Populations (2024-2025) »


Image: Brain showing hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (plaques in blue), by Alvin Gogineni, Genentech, NIH Image Gallery

This project team will investigate intricate alterations in the topology of structural and functional MRI-based brain networks from a cognitively normal state through mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease. Read more about Analyzing Alzheimer's Biomarkers Through Dynamic Brain Topology (2024-2025) »


Image: DIBS cube structure, with a mockup of brain image overlaid.

This project team will explore emerging technologies to develop creative ways of visualizing the brain and brain science for both public impact and educational purposes. Read more about Brain Portal: Designing Multimedia Displays for Duke Neuroscience (2024-2025) »


Image: University College Hospital Ibadan, by Hizick27 via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

This project aims to develop evidence-based, culturally appropriate interventions to address deficiencies in neurosurgical systems. Read more about Building Sustainable Neurosurgical Systems in Developing Countries (2024-2025) »


Room.

The project team will partner with adults with severe mental illness (SMI), caregivers and community mental health providers to develop interventions and materials that support and ultimately improve the sensory health and community integration of adults with SMI.  Read more about Community Living With Mental Illness: A Sensory Health Initiative (2024-2025) »


Image: Weekly open mindfulness meditation at the Duke Wellness Center is open to the Duke community, by Jared Lazarus

This project team will develop and evaluate mindfulness-based programming at Duke to discover the impact of contemplative and mindfulness-based programs on cognitive functioning and mental health. Read more about Creating a Contemplative Community (2024-2025) »


Image: Gene Activity After TBI, by Douglas Arneson and Drs. Gomez-Pinilla and Yang, UCLA, NIH Image Gallery.

This project team will conduct a holistic survey on traumatic brain injury management and care at Duke that will inform the development of AI solutions and pave the way for future deployment. Read more about Discovering AI Applications for Traumatic Brain Injury Care (2024-2025) »


Image: KEM_1098, by Katie Morrow.

This project team will assess youth athletes with an oculomotor assessment routine and compare these results to in-season documentation of head impact exposure using data from a team-developed earpiece (DASHR) worn by athletes during practices and games. Read more about Eye Tracking: An Objective Assessment for Pediatric mTBI (2024-2025) »


Image: Data visualization of marine data, by Ars Electronica, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

This project team will leverage cognitive science tools to evaluate some of the most popular data visualization “best practices” and adjudicate between ways of applying them to individual data visualizations. Read more about Improving Data Visualization With Cognitive Science (2024-2025) »


Brain and violin.

This project team will use a combination of neuroimaging and behavioral data to establish language and music mappings in professional musicians who are either monolingual or highly proficient bi-/multilingual; and examine the effect of musical training and bi-/multilingualism on dementia and... Read more about Language, Music and Dementia (2024-2025) »


Image: Bare Tree/Durham, by Nathan Walls, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

This multiyear project team will work with data from the Durham County Detention Facility and Duke Health to inform stakeholders in the criminal justice system of the extent, usage patterns, medical needs and insurance status of individuals with needs that lie at the intersection of mental health... Read more about Mental Health and the Justice System (2024-2025) »


Cigarettes.

This project team will help conduct a longitudinal intervention study of rTMS for smoking cessation in veterans with PTSD.  Read more about Noninvasive Neuromodulation for Addiction (2024-2025) »


Image: _DSC1644.jpg (Kampala, Uganda), by Carlos Felipe Pardo, licensed under CC BY 2.0

The project team will work to develop a culturally appropriate protocol for rehabilitation involvement in hospital neurologic patient discharge planning to be adopted as recommended practice by key Ugandan stakeholders. Read more about Role of Rehabilitation in Ugandan Neurosurgical Transitional Care (2024-2025) »


Brain & Society Courses

Gateway Courses

NEUROSCI 102: Biological Bases of Behavior (Team-based Learning)

Fall 2023
Instructor: Minna Ng

This course provides an introduction to the methods, models and reasoning that have led to discoveries about brain-behavior relations. Read more about Biological Bases of Behavior (Team-based Learning) »


NEUROSCI 102: Biological Bases of Behavior (Team-based Learning)

Spring 2024
Instructor: Minna Ng

This course provides an introduction to the methods, models and reasoning that have led to discoveries about brain-behavior relations. Read more about Biological Bases of Behavior (Team-based Learning) »


NEUROSCI 153FS: Drugs and the Law

Fall 2023
Instructor: Nicole Schramm-Sapyta

This course will explore the relationship between addictive drugs and the law and examine mechanisms by which drugs of abuse affect the brain and decision-making on the individual level. The course will also investigate the consequences of those effects at the societal level and examine how society... Read more about Drugs and the Law »


WRITING 101: Neuroscience and Society

Spring 2024
Instructor: Emily Parks

This course will introduce students to the goals and practices of academic writing as we evaluate how neuroscience can inform ethical, legal and economic questions of our time. Read more about Neuroscience and Society »


WRITING 101: Neuroscience and Society

Fall 2023
Instructor: Emily Parks

This course will introduce students to the goals and practices of academic writing as we evaluate how neuroscience can inform ethical, legal and economic questions of our time. Read more about Neuroscience and Society »


Other Undergraduate Courses

NEUROSCI 267: Neuroethics

Spring 2024
Instructor: Scott Huettel, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

This course will focus on emerging ethical controversies concurrent with advances in neuroscience. Read more about Neuroethics »


NEUROSCI 278: Sex/Gender - Nature/Nurture: Intersections of Biology and Society

Fall 2023
Instructor: Ara Wilson, Christina Williams

This course will explore how debates about sexuality, sex and gender hinge on radically different ideas about the relative effects of biological forces vs. social forces, or nature vs. nurture. Read more about Sex/Gender - Nature/Nurture: Intersections of Biology and Society »


Undergraduate/Graduate Courses

NEUROSCI 595: Language, Music and Dementia: Neuroscience Approaches

Spring 2024
Instructor: Edna Andrews

This course will explore the neuroscience data on cognitive processing of languages and music in healthy subjects and pathology. Read more about Language, Music and Dementia: Neuroscience Approaches »