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The BMS Lab
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Neuroscience lab specialty and best practices

Facility summary

  • Specialization: EEG, fNIRS, BCI, Group Dynamics and Interaction, Physiological Response Research, Eye-tracking Research.

  • Max Capacity: 10 persons

  • Location: Langezijds, LA 1513

  • Get Room Key from: Langezijds, LA 1501

About the neuroscience lab space:

This lab space is set up specifically for carrying out neuroscience and EEG research. It is a spacious room set up with EEG sets. Additionally gel and tap are available in the room, allowing researchers to have their participants to fully prepare and clean up afterwards in the room from start to finish.

Researchers are further able to reserve (additional) equipment such as our Tobii eye-tracking glasses, our Empatica watch to measure physiological responses or the Scent machine to introduce different stimuli to the experiment. Read more to discover what all the room can be used for or to learn more about previous studies conducted in this room.

Using the neuroscience lab space and their equipment 

For EEG: The room is set up with equipment and utilities that allow researchers to be able to carry out cognitive research. Researchers are able to reserve further equipment such as the Empatica watch also measure different physiological responses. Furthermore, with use of other equipment such as the Scent machine and the use of speakers, monitor TV in the room researchers are able to introduce different stimuli or create different kinds of experiences to study their participants under. The room is further equipped with a mobile driving simulator that can be used in combination with EEG set to measure the brain waves of your subjects.

For Shimmers (Sensors): Researchers are able to use the room to carry out experiments in measuring the physiological responses of their participants. Aside from the Empatica watch, the BMS Lab has four different Shimmers (wearable sensors) that can be used to measure physiological signals in a non-invasive way. These are the: Shimmer ECG for heart related measurements, Shimmer EMG for muscle contractions, Shimmer GSR for skin conductance measurements, Shimmer IMU for inertia and gyroscopic

For Eye-tracking: Non-VR researches that require eye-tracking are also able to take place in this room. This room is spacious and is set up with a TV and an immersive 5m-wide double 4K seamless beamer setup, giving researchers multiple set-up options to carry out eye-tracking experiments.

Is the neuroscience lab suitable for your research?

When should you use the Neuroscience room?
The flexible and spacious set-up of this room allows the room to be used for different types of researches. However the primary usage of this room is for experiments requiring EEG, Sensors for physiological measurements, eye-tracking and interactions.

When should you not use the Neuroscience room?
While the room is ideal for researches requiring observation at the distance due to its observation room, not all researches needing this feature qualify for the use of this facility. For example, researches where only one or two participants behavior or interactions needs to be observed and recorded are also able to take take place in one of our Flexperiment Rooms.

Best practices neuroscience lab 

When in the room, there are some ground rules you must abide by.

Working in the room
  • Keep the room clean! Eat in the student lounge or down in the mess hall.
  • Keep silent in the room! This is not only for your own research but also for the other research taking place in the rooms next door.
  • Don’t move the equipment (unless discussed).
  • In case of questions or problems, report these to the BMS Lab Room LA1501.
  • Don’t overheat the room during winter.
  • Close windows and turn off light when finished.
  • Bring the key back to LA1501 or the key dropbox in front of LA1501
  • The room keys cannot leave the building. If you want to use the facilities outside office hours, indicate this in – your reservation. Make sure you are informed about the procedures regarding access of the building outside office hours.
Working with participants
  • When using Informed Consent forms, make sure you guarantee your participants’ anonymity, so do not leave the forms behind.
  • Participants can be noisy in the hallway when waiting to participate in an experiment. For this reason, participants have to wait downstairs in the mess hall or in the student lounge on the first floor of the Cubicus.
Working with our equipment
  • You can make use of the PC and equipment you reserved. You are not allowed to use equipment you have not reserved.
  • The PCs are not clean installed after every research, so take care of your data during/after your research.
  • It is obligatory to copy your data after every day of data gathering onto the T4P data server.
  • After the research, delete any sensitive data from the PC.
  • Let us know through the equipment reservation forms what hardware you want to use. This way we can make sure all the necessary software is there for you.
Hygiene protocol

The below states the hygiene procedures related to persons. For equipment, follow the disinfection procedure for the instrument. 

1 – Persons

1.1 – Postpone the study in case of flu, cold or other infection in the trial conductor or subject (V).

1.2 – Ensure good general body and clothing hygiene during the trial period (V).

1.3 – Always wear disposable gloves during the following physiological procedures:

a – cleaning/abrading the subject’s skin (V).
b – application of electrodes (V).
c – removal of electrodes (V).
d – all actions related to blood, sperm or vaginal fluid (V).
e – working with disinfectants (V).
f – in the case of clearly visible wounds or skin irritation in the subject or experimenter (V).

1.4 – The simplest disinfection procedure is hand washing. This should be done, regardless of the use of gloves:

a – prior to physiological actions (V).
b – after physiological actions (V).
c – after using the toilet (V).
d – after sneezing, coughing or blowing the nose (use paper tissues) (V).
e – after unexpected contact with blood or other body fluids (V).

1.5 – It is preferable not to wear rings during examination (V).

1.6 – Nails should preferably be kept short and clean during the study period (V).

Related

Education

Want to use the neuroscience lab space?

First go through the steps on how to reserve our facilities or or go directly through the registration of your request if you haven't do so already. If you have already followed these steps, go directly to our booqable page to make a reservation: 

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