Neuroscience

Andrew Chitwood '24 landed an internship with the head of neurosurgery research at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine after his neuroscience advisor here at Roanoke College connected him with the program.

The opportunity allowed him to learn firsthand about translational research and regulations as well as assist in clinical research work. He counted himself fortunate for the strong mentoring culture cultivated at Roanoke that led to him being recommended for the job.

"It's been another extremely valuable experience,” he said. “I spent the whole summer at Carilion doing research in neurosurgery and learning directly from someone in the field that I want to go into. And that was all possible originally at least because of the people I've met here and the faculty I have here."

Chitwood went on to graduate school in Virginia Tech's Translational, Biology, Medicine, and Health program on the Ph.D. track.

You whisper it to yourself over and over: There’s no such thing as monsters. But when a beast lunges from the shadows on a movie screen or game console, you still jump out of your seat. It seemed so dang real! 

The question of just how real was the focus of a project that Eliza Bain ’24 pursued in the lab of Assistant Professor Lauren Kennedy-Metz. Her project investigated whether VR in video games was immersive enough to trigger a real physiological, stress response. Hooked up to monitors that tracked heart rates and respiration, two groups of subjects — one on VR and one on traditional interfaces — jumped into the ghost-hunting horror game “Phasmophobia.” 

Their fright responses could tell us more about this increasingly versatile, virtual resource that scientists are also starting to employ in training simulators, mental health therapies and other real-world needs. Bain was invited to present her work at an international assembly of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback .

For her, the project also tapped into a passion for chasing answers to the big questions facing science. “This was my first time designing my own experiment, and I realized that I just love it so much,” she said. “I want to go on to grad school and continue doing research.”

Bain is now pursuing a master's in experimential psychology at Radford University.

Every waking second, a human eye can take in thousands of data points, translating light, shape and color into meaning. It happens instantaneously, a powerful and continuous instinct to make sense of the world around us — even when it shouldn’t make sense.

Ellington Cooke ’24 had an opportunity to work with Assistant Professor Anthony Cate on a project investigating that fundamental mental process, asking how we perceive patterns in random clusters of objects, like a field of scattered dots, one of the tools that Cate's research lab uses with test subjects.

By unraveling the commonalities in how people create order from chaos, light could be shed on larger questions about how we process and store information. The chance to join the project while still an undergraduate also helped Cooke sharpen his skills as he pursues plans to go onto graduate school and a career in clinical psychology.

"As I take the next steps in my studies and career, I anticipate that having research skills and a firsthand understanding of how the scientific process works will be hugely beneficial," he said.

Dr. Vernon Mountcastle, universally considered the father of neuroscience, was a Roanoke College graduate. His research on how brain cells work together to process perceptions and movements led to groundbreaking discoveries that set the stage for modern-day neuroscience.

In the true spirit of a Maroon, he brought a tireless passion for scientific exploration to his decades-long career. Reflecting on the last lab he worked in before retirement, Mountcastle once wrote, “I was nearly brokenhearted to leave it, for I found no greater thrill in life than to make an original discovery, no matter how small.”

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Nikki Hurless '14 went on to earn a doctorate from the University of Missouri-St. Louis where she delved deeper into the nuances of mental health and how to train a new generation of professional counselors. She now puts those skills to work as a visiting professor of psychology for Washington College in Maryland and as a counselor specializing in the treatment of traumatic stress. 
 
Her journey started right here at Roanoke where strong faculty mentors inspired her to tackle research and more closely examine the inner workings of the human mind. “My research methods class was a foundational component of my academic career," she said. "I loved learning research design — my instructor instilled a scientific curiosity in me that motivated me to get involved in as many research-related experiences as possible."
 
As early as her sophomore year, Hurless was able to work with professors on research into emotional reactivity and later held a research internship with the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Her work got her published in a highly cited article in an undergraduate neuroscience journal
 
Those invaluable experiences set her up for success as she embarked on her career. "In general, the psych department’s strong focus on writing has also been very useful to me in publications and in communicating my ideas at professional conferences," she said.
 
Hurless continues to do research today with focuses in the effects of self/external stigma and queer-affirming strategies, among others.