Café Scientifique – Henley: 21st March 2018

On a Wednesday evening in Henley, Gemma gave a talk and live demo at a local Café Scientifique to over 80 science enthusiasts. Gemma talked about near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), how we use light to monitor the brain and then demonstrated this live on an unsuspecting member of the audience!

 

With our NIRS system taped to his forehead, Gemma monitored his brain oxygenation and metabolism levels while he was doing mental arithmetic. As you can see in the picture, as his brain was working on the maths there were huge increases in his brain oxygenation to feed the increase in brain activity, as can be seen by the increase in brain metabolism! After the live demo, the audience overwhelmed Gemma with interesting questions and ideas for future experiments. Finally, Gemma ended the night by giving an overview of the research happening in the hospital to monitor brain injured babies using NIRS.

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