Project Title: BRAINwashing: An Exploration of the Neuroscience of Radicalization
BASIS Advisor: Ms. Das
Internship Location: Koç University
Onsite Mentor: Dr. Emel Sokullu
My Posts
Week 8- Differences in Defining Radicalization Depending on the Ideology
May 22, 2022
Welcome back! This week through my research, I wanted to focus on a subgroup that is often overlooked when it comes to studies on radicalization. My main goal is to dispel perceptions of what radicalization means, and to recognize “[The] two common false narratives about terrorists who attack America…that terrorists are always [brown] Muslims [and […]
Week 7- Women’s Role in Radicalization and Nuances
May 15, 2022
Welcome back! This week I started bringing all of my sources for the final paper. I will keep working on it for the next month. However, I also wanted to explore radicalization in a gendered way. That’s why I shifted my research towards women. For the majority of my research, I always came across men […]
Week 6- Experimental Design
May 15, 2022
Welcome back! This week I worked on creating an experimental design with the graduate students that I work with. We started by analyzing previous research done on radicalization to determine the areas we wanted to target with this experimental design. We identified that the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and the temporal sulcus were the areas of […]
Week 5- The MAO-A Gene and Other Leads
May 13, 2022
Welcome back! I’m sorry for the delay. I was unsure of how to structure and present my findings in a way that makes sense. So in the next few weeks, I will build up an experimental design that I will create with the graduate students whom I work with. This week I focused on the […]
Week 4- Lab Protocols and Plan
Apr 23, 2022
Welcome back! This week I went into the lab to learn about lab etiquette and to prepare matrices that I will use to observe cells later on. I have started a list of all the biology terms that I do not know the meanings of and I’m sure it will keep getting longer. I sat […]
Week 3- External Factors of Radicalization
Apr 23, 2022
Welcome back! This week, I focused on continuing my research and outlining the paper that I will present at the end of this project while the graduate students were on break. I explored multiple empirical studies that focused on the impact of external factors on radicalization. The main topics I focused on were the physiological […]
Week 2- An Introduction to Epigenetics and its Connection to Radicalism
Apr 08, 2022
Welcome back! I went into the lab this week and introduced myself to the graduate students who were doing research there and sat in on an epigenetics lecture. I also spent this week doing further literary analysis on the topic. Epigenetics is the study of heritable phenotype changes that do annoy involve alterations in the […]
Week 1- Running Definition and the Cognitive Aspects of Radicalism
Apr 02, 2022
Welcome back! Over the past week, I looked into the meaning of radicalism, which is simply defined as, “the belief or actions of people who advocate thorough or complete political or social reform” by the Oxford Dictionary. While it is possible that extremist thinking does not turn into violent behavior, in this study, most of […]
Week 0 – An Introduction
Mar 18, 2022
Welcome to BRAINwashing; An Exploration of the Neuroscience of Radicalization! Over the next few weeks, I will conduct close readings and examine previous research on the topic. Then, I will supplement that with the experience I will gain helping Ph.D. students with research at a neuroscience lab that experiments on the chances of synaptic transmission […]