Divya Singhal
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Omar Ahmed
Co-Presenter: Meng, Rachel
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 4 – 2:40pm – 3:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Divya Singhal, Rachel Meng, Danny Siu, Omar Ahmed
Presenter: 66
Abstract
At the University of Michigan and across the nation, the number of people that are studying a field related to the brain sciences is growing exponentially every year. However, despite recognizing that these students come from diverse backgrounds and varying experiences, there aren’t many tools or models available to allow them to conceptualize the various types of neuron interactions. Our project team has been working on designing and developing an interactive, educational neuroscience tool: Neuropia. Currently, Neuropia supports some simple simulations such as inhibitory neurons and neural synchrony. Students can interact with the neurons on the web page to see how they are interconnected, alter the different thresholds available, and run the simulation to see how the neurons dynamically react to changing conditions. For instance, in the synchrony model, students can change the time at which each presynaptic cell fires an action potential and observe how they impact the postsynaptic cell’s membrane potential through the generated graphs. Our work this year consists of implementing more complex neuroscience models such as gap junctions and a gamma rhythm simulation, which involves excitatory and inhibitory neurons communicating back and forth. We also emphasize stress testing our model to understand how much of a payload it can handle and how we can prevent the system from being overloaded with too many requests. In the future, we hope to release this engine as a usable and critical tool simulation to all University of Michigan students, free of charge. By doing this, our infrastructure will allow many of these neuroscience concepts to be better understood by our students with little, or even extensive, background in the field.
Biomedical Sciences, Engineering, Interdisciplinary
