mBrainTrain mobile EEG workshop
Each person is different and so is their brain activity. Whatever we do, wherever we are, we are always influenced by the world around us. This in turn affects our mood, our experiences and finally our neuronal activity. In scientific settings, this multitude of external influences can be undesirable as it hardens the interpretation of causal influences. In practice, we typically try to minimize potential confounds by conducting experiments in well-defined laboratory settings. Obviously, those look very different from our everyday reality which is one of the reasons why often scientific findings don’t easily generalize. However, research typically isn’t done for its own purpose but at some point should have an impact on our society and change it for the better. When talking about EEG systems, this has very practical implications for hard- and software components. Mert Keser and I were thankfully invited to mBrainTrain’s first workshop on mobile EEG in Belgrade to discuss advances in this field.
The focus on mobile EEG was also clearly reflected in the selected speakers such as Klaus Gramann from the mobile brain/body imaging lab, Arnaud Delorme who you may know as the developer of EEGLAB, Tim Mullen, CEO and research director of intheon, Barbara Händel from the University of Würzburg or Stefan Debener from the University of Oldenburg. All of them work with EEG in challenging settings and constantly push the boundary of what is possible a bit further. An impressive example of this was shown by Marius Nann who in his work literally pushed an EEG system off for an almost 200-meter bungee jump to measure the readiness potential1. The keynote lectures as well as the panel discussion on possibilities and perspectives of mobile EEG are available at https://mbraintrain.com/workshop/.
Besides debating about scientific questions, we of course also enjoyed the culture and nightlife of Belgrade. The workshop took place in the middle of the historic city center with all its delicious restaurants and old buildings - to the Belgrade Fortress it was just a 5 min walk. The farewell party at the Beton Hala, an accumulation of modern bars and clubs directly at the promenade of the river Save, concluded the workshop and offered a nice opportunity to get to know each other in a less formal location. After the two-day workshop, we are back in Munich with a lot of new insights about mobile EEG, an increased network and last but not least lasting impressions from a lovely city at the edge of Europe.
-
Nann, M., Cohen, L. G., Deecke, L., & Soekadar, S. R. (2019). To jump or not to jump-The Bereitschaftspotential required to jump into 192-meter abyss. Scientific reports, 9(1), 1-9. ↩