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Author
Name Gaab, Nadine
Research field Psychology
Career stage professor
Home university/institution Harvard Medical School, Boston
Department/Research unit at home university/institution -
Chair/Working group at home institution -

International activity
Country Germany
Location Bochum
University Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB)
Fund Research School VIP
Type of activity research stay
Period starts 01-01-2015
ends 31-12-2017
Keywords -
Report Research internship at Nadine Gaab’s laboratory at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA (July – October 2014, Marisa Nordt)

I completed a research internship at Nadine Gaab’s lab at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA, from July to October 2014. The major goals of this internship were to learn how to conduct neuroimaging studies with children and to exchange research related ideas with the members of Nadine Gaab’s lab.

Nadine Gaab is a leading expert in the field of pediatric neuroimaging and she and her team have developed well established methods to successfully conduct neuroimaging studies in children, and also infants. During my internship I had the opportunity to learn these methods step by step: While, at first, I observed many functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements with children conducted by Nadine Gaabs’ team members, later on I was able to actively assist Nadine Gaab’s team in conducting these measurements. Furthermore, I was introduced to fMRI data analysis and specifically to solutions to challenges that come with fMRI data from children and infants. Building upon this experience, I was able to successfully implement a protocol for pediatric neuroimaging at the lab for Developmental Neuropsychology headed by Sarah Weigelt at Ruhr-University Bochum. Until now I have scanned over 30 participants for an fMRI study with 7-10-year-old children and adults. The data of this project will be a major part of my dissertation.

Apart from the gain in expertise in pediatric neuroimaging and the analysis of neuroimaging data, I had the opportunity to visit lectures by Nadine Gaab in the context of a course on “Typical and atypical Neurodevelopment” at Harvard Graduate School of Education, participate in lab meetings, and hear talks by invited researchers. All in all, I benefited enormously from this research internship, both by broadening my methodological skills and also by providing me with new ideas and inputs for my own research projects.

Visit of Prof. Nadine Gaab at Ruhr-Universität Bochum to give a talk at the meeting of the DFG-network entitled "Neurowissenschaftliche Methoden in der Entwicklungspsychologie” (11.06.2015)

Prof. Nadine Gaab visited Ruhr-Universität Bochum on June 11th 2015 to give a talk at the meeting of the DFG-network called "Neurowissenschaftliche Methoden in der Entwicklungspsychologie”. This network connects researchers using neuroscientific methods in the field of developmental psychology. As an expert in pediatric and infant neuroimaging Prof Gaab presented some of her latest research findings at the meeting and stayed for a discussion on methodological approaches in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. The title of her talk was "The typical and atypical reading brain: Developmental evidence from infants, preschool and school-aged children".

Research stay at Gaab Lab, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA (10/15 – 12/15)

I stayed at Gaab Lab, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School (MA, USA) from October to December 2015. The aim of my visit was to acquire new methodological skills by learning a complex technique in the lab of Nadine Gaab who is one of the leading experts in this field. I was able assist in every step of the research projects such as obtaining (functional) magnetic resonance imaging data from infants and children from various populations, e.g. autism and dyslexia, as well as data analysis, scripting and scientific writing, and have also gained competences in order to conduct my own research projects in the future. Participating in the scanning sessions was especially fascinating for me as was the introduction to preprocessing and analyzing data obtained during these sessions. As a final part of my research stay I had the opportunity to conduct my own small project focusing on sex differences in language processing.
Furthermore, I participated in lab meetings where I had the opportunity to hear more about current research projects, gained insight in the organization of large research projects and enjoyed various interesting talks given by other researchers at Harvard University. Concluding, I’d like to say that this research stay has definitely been beneficial not only for my Ph.D. project but also for my future as a researcher.

Talk of Prof. Nadine Gaab at the Heckhausen-Kolloquium at the Faculty of Psychology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (13.07.16)

On July 13th 2016 Prof. Nadine Gaab presented her research on developmental aspects of reading acquisition and dyslexia at the 2nd Heckhausen-Kolloquium of the Faculty of Psychology of RUB. After her talk entitled “"Examining the developing brain from infancy to adolescence: how developmental cognitive neuroscience can shed new light on contemporary questions in psychology and education" she discussed her research with Faculty members including several PhD students from the developmental Psychology and Developmental Cognitive neuroscience research groups.
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