Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Joshua Henderson

Undergraduate Joshua Henderson, who is currently studying abroad in Scotland, was drawn to the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience lab because of a desire to learn more about people. “The more you know and understand people and their psychological workings, the easier it will be to help them. Fundamentally, that’s why I love this field.”

A Rhode Island native, Henderson began working at the lab in his sophomore year. In the spring of that year, he assisted post-doctoral student Phil Lee in a project studying the brain activity of autistic children. This experience afforded Henderson the opportunity to learn the skill of processing imaging data from the fMRI. “It was a fantastic chance to engage with more difficult and engaging material.”

Lee’s project had to do with an embedded figures task, where a participant would first be shown the image of a small object, followed shortly thereafter by two larger ones. The participant then was asked to identify the larger object that contained the smaller one. This visual processing task requires one to focus on the details of an image rather than the image as a whole. Henderson and Lee used a control group of children, and found that children with autism often exhibited superior performance in this task, due to their ability to process the local elements of a visual stimulus without being able to incorporate those pieces into a meaningful and organized whole. Henderson delivered a preliminary report on the location and intensity of brain activation for the two groups of participants.

The following summer, Henderson received a GUROP summer scholarship to begin work on his own psychology research project in the DCN lab. “For me, this has been the most exciting part. I was allowed to choose the focus of my study, Economic Decision-Making in kids with ADHD, and I have now been able to see research from inception and idea to, in a short time, completion and publication.” Henderson did the background research, designed tasks, learned to use several computer programs, tested participants, collected data, and is now prepared for the final goals of analyzing the data and writing a journal article. “It will be an enjoyable challenge to finish my research.”

While pleased to have a project to call his own, Henderson says, “despite the name of the author that goes on the final published journal article, the finalized result has been the success of a whole team of contributors.” His favorite part of the DCNL experience has been the weekly discussions. “The interactions between the members of our lab and the productive feedback and constructive debates that often liven up the room are fascinating, and they’ve given me a new appreciation for the whole process underlying a particular line of research.”

After Georgetown, Henderson hopes to attend medical school, and aims to someday become a radiologist.

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