九色视频

Authors: James Wang and Zeynep Alsancak聽

"If you're not targeting someone, you鈥檙e missing the target." -聽Hilary Sweatman

Hilary Sweatman is a PhD candidate in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience studying memory formation in autism spectrum disorder. She is currently part of several science communications initiatives including Brain Info Cerveau, an information service with a question-and-answer style blog channel. We recently had the privilege of interviewing her about her work with Brain Info Cerveau.听听

Briefly, can you describe Brain Info Cerveau?聽

Brain Info Cerveau is an online consultation service for answering brain and neuroscience related questions. It鈥檚 designed for people with any curiosity about neuroscience and those with a limited scientific background. They go onto our website and submit a question. On our side, we have [neuroscience] graduate students trained in science communication providing a research based, but accessible, response and resources.聽

How long have you been part of the project? How did you come to BIC?聽

I'm actually one of the co-founders. In 2020, I co-founded , a neuroscience outreach program, and through this initiative I started talking to the director of the Integrated Program in Neuroscience at the time, . Brain Info Cerveau was his idea, and he was looking for students to make it happen. In 2022 some other members of NeuroLingo and I got together to ignite Brain Info Cerveau.聽

What is the motivation behind this project?听听

What inspired Dr. Farivar is the legal information clinic at 九色视频.聽 The clinic is staffed by legal experts who offer free advice to any 九色视频 students. This can help increase access to services that are usually unaffordable and actively combats misinformation. Dr. Farivar thought: 鈥渨e need this for neuroscience鈥�. It comes down to the idea of helping people find reputable information. Misinformation is everywhere and it has very real problematic consequences. It's our job as scientists to step in and say: 鈥淭his is not true. This is true鈥�. Instead of a Google search, if people use Brain Info Cerveau, hopefully, we can help them avoid bad information.聽

What sort of audience do you cater towards?聽

One of the things that鈥檚 been really challenging about science communication is defining an audience. A lot of the time, authors just say, 鈥渋t's whoever, it's open to everyone.鈥� If you're not targeting someone, you鈥檙e missing the target. Right now, we try to target people who are already interested in science and engaging with other science communication. Also, people who might have current neuroscience health related concerns. However, we do not give medical advice, because we're not medical professionals. But we understand that people who have neurological conditions, or have family members who do, want to know: 鈥渨hat is the research that's going on? How can I use the research to inform my choices?鈥� So that's one of our major groups and the people who probably need our support the most. Finally, we target people who are generally curious about neuroscience. This group might already attend public lectures or subscribe to newsletters and magazines about science communication. I would say that they鈥檙e not actually my ideal audience, because I think they're the people who need the help the least. I think the people who would benefit the most are the people who are less willing to participate or to learn from neuroscience or science communication. But it's very hard to get to that group.聽

How do you determine the focus of information for your audience?听听

Brain Info is unique because it's a one-on-one kind of communication. We have an extensive form where readers submit their question. We ask them to give us a bit more context, so we make sure that we're really tailoring this to their preferences and needs. We also ask for their desired length and complexity. On the volunteer side, we give training in written science communication with lots of examples and techniques on the best way to convey complicated scientific information to an audience without a scientific background. We never just take the first answer and send it; we always have someone else on the committee review it, look out for jargon, maybe find where we didn't quite answer the question or made a recommendation that isn't appropriate. This is our iterative feedback process; it's very collaborative.听听

What are the impacts/outcomes that you hear about your work? How are they measured?聽

Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of dialogue with our question writers. We always ask people to fill out our feedback form. We try to offer them raffles as incentives to get mores responses. Overall, people are very positive, but I do think something that we're missing is a concrete way to evaluate if we're meeting our goals.听听

Is there a part of your work that you like the best?聽

Every once in a while, there's someone who's really enthusiastic about a response. I understand it's important on a big scale that we're reaching a lot of people, but I really value these individual impacts that we're making, it feels very meaningful. I also really enjoy from the volunteer side, seeing the enthusiasm of volunteer writers who put in all this effort. Most of them don鈥檛 have any science communication experience. Over the course of a few semesters, they're writing these really excellent responses. It's very rewarding to feel like the next generation of neuroscientists are building these skills along the way, because I think it's something that's really missing from our education.听听

What are some of the challenges that you've encountered and how has the project changed or adjusted to overcome them?聽

I would say one problem is the medical advice. It's super understandable that people come to us with medical concerns, because the way a lot of people engage with neuroscience is when they have a medical concern. But it's so important that we don't make recommendations. We are not doctors. However, we fixed this issue through plenty of disclaimers, neutral language and recommending a doctor鈥檚 appointment.听听

How might the project work or change in the future? What are you hoping it looks like in two years or five years?聽

It鈥檇 be awesome to have different formats for feedback. Maybe having a phone line in the future, whether it's an answer on the spot, or a way to receive questions. Also, providing more opportunities for dialogue such as 鈥渃ome talk to a neuroscientist鈥� events. But those are challenging, because, on the spot, you can't do the research. I'm hoping in the future we can engage with people in different ways.聽

What advice would you give to a young neuroscientist who wants to get into science communication and outreach in the future?聽

First off, see what's out there. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can always bring fresh ideas to a group that's already got funding and has an audience. Collaborate with people as well. If you decide you want to start your own thing, leverage audiences that other people have, because they are already engaged. Reaching an audience is one of the hardest parts.聽

You can follow along with Brain Info / Info Cerveau on Instagram at or submit a question on our 听听