2022 Undergraduate Summer Research Program Participant

Home Department: Undeclared
Mentor: Allan Reiss (Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and Radiology)

“Functional Neuroimaging of the Cognitive Load of Exercise in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder”

Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) will be used to monitor brain activity in 80 adolescent participants with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) before, during, and after cycling exercise, either indoors (i.e., low cognitive load) or outdoors (i.e., high cognitive load). This experiment is designed to uncover the neural mechanisms involved in the acute response to exercise in individuals with ADHD, which will further develop how exercise is prescribed to these patients. Sarah will be involved in all aspects of the experiment including protocol administration, troubleshooting, and data analysis. This will include learning the technical aspects of fNIRS and patient safety monitoring during exercise.