Thirteen local high school students learned about the human brain up close in the Virtual Reality Studio at the Health Sciences Library during Go4Brains, a week-long summer program for students that seeks to diversify the field of neuroscience. 

Go4Brains was first started in 2021 by the University of Minnesota Medical School and the Department of Neuroscience. It aims to improve neuroscience research and clinical care, and make academic and health outcomes more equitable, by providing students who are underrepresented in science and medicine a pathway into neuroscience. 

In addition to holding a brain and getting an EEG scan of their own brain, the students spent an afternoon in the VR Studio, learning how human anatomy works in Primal VR and Sharecare You VR, seeing a map of neurons in Eyewire, and interacting with artifacts from the Wangensteen Historical Library.