Cockroaches are a hardy pest, and often elicit disgust. But they do have a few things going for them: They are cheap, can be raised in a space as small as a shoebox, and aren’t dangerous to humans.
That makes the insects uniquely qualified for neuroscience outreach, according to researchers trying to create low-cost tools and free computer programs that can entice students in high school and college to pursue careers in the field.
The goal is to ensure that students who don’t have access to expensive lab equipment and powerful computers have some preparation for the increasingly complex technology that the field of neurophysiology uses to answer questions about how the brain uses chemical and electrical signals to process and respond to the world.
“We don’t want these students to fall behind. We don’t want them to end up in college where they’ve never heard about any of these tools before,” says Jessica Verpeut, a neuroscientist at Arizona State University. “The best way to learn something is to be able to use it, right? So this hands-on experience is going to be very important.”
One such possibility is laid out in a paper published by Verpeut and her colleagues yesterday in eNeuro, documenting an experiment that can be done with plexiglass, a cockroach, and a basic laptop.
The experiment instructs students to place cockroaches on a linear track. Students measure how far along the track roaches travel in response to being exposed to different gasses, like water vapor, nicotine, or just air, as a control. Students then analyze the data using a software that is free to use, and can run on most laptops. The set-up is simple enough that the researchers have traveled to different communities and run the experiment out of the back of a car.
“The way that we do this outreach, by utilizing equipment that is very accessible, has traditionally been viewed as just playing with cheap equipment,” says Ulises Ricoy, a neuroscientist at Arizona State University who was involved with the new study. “But that’s another misconception of science — that if you’re going to be doing science or research, then you must have a very expensive piece of equipment. Our argument is that’s not what science is. Science is about questions.”
As a whole, neurophysiologists work to understand how the nervous system uses chemical and electrical signals to respond to different situations or begin a certain behavior. But the field can be prohibitively expensive to students or scientists who aren’t at well-funded institutions. The equipment needed to measure electrical activity and collect data can often cost around $20,000.
The experiments outlined in the new study show that an entry-level exercise can work at a lower cost.
“There’s only a very small handful of the population that have access to an actual laboratory,” Ricoy said. Because of that, “Neurophysiology is a secret handshake community, in a way.”
Cockroaches are also part of the neuroscience education kits sold by Backyard Brains, including one in which students can turn a cockroach into a controllable cyborg.
“I think the roach definitely livens up the classroom; it gets everyone excited,” said Gregory Gage, a neuroscientist and CEO of Backyard Brains who was not a part of the new study. “It’s hard to be sitting down when you see your friend or colleague trying to wrestle with a roach.”