Matthew S
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at Duke University
Expertise
Cognitive neuroscience, memory/Alzheimer’s/dementia; music composition
Bio
Matthew Slayton is a PhD Student in the Psychology and Neuroscience program at Duke University. His research explores the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to improve memory loss in Alzheimer’s Disease using neuroimaging. He earned his BA in Neurolinguistics at Duke, an MA in Philosophy of Biology at the University of Chicago, and an MM in Music Composition at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In addition to his work in science, Matthew is a composer of contemporary classical music, and his work can be found on www.matthewslayton.comProject ideas
Narrative or Systematic Review
Read and process current scientific papers in a topic area of your choice. There can be a variety of outcomes, including a formal paper aimed at a science audience (such as a narrative or systematic review) or something public-facing, like a video, blog post, or podcast. The point is to distill a huge body of information and communicate it in a clear way. What are some possible topics? For example, how are whole-brain networks altered during the progression of dementia? Why is the name and function of everyday objects difficult to identify, or personal memories hard to recall? Maybe your interest is more medical and you want to review current pharmacological or behavioral treatment. Maybe your interest is more theoretical and you want to understand how concepts are represented in the mind and brain. You decide the direction!
Neuroscience methods
Get your feet wet with some neuroscience methods. Want to learn how MRI works and how to analyze fMRI data? This is an ambitious project for a motivated student where you can learn how to preprocess and analyze fMRI data, model a behavioral task, correlate brain activity with that behavior, and make a figure that presents your analysis. Could be a fun enrichment project, part of a science fair submission, or whatever else you can think of.
Music composition
Are you interested in writing music? This project would be focused on notated music (so, writing a score that a performer would read and interpret) or a DAW (e.g. GarageBand, Ableton etc) Previous music experience is a good idea though not strictly required.