Who we are

What is the BrainHelpDesk?

Many people are interested in the brain and want to know how it works. You can find a lot of information on the internet, but this is not always correct. There are many misunderstandings about how the brain works, and some things we simply do not know yet or even experts do not agree on.

The BrainHelpDesk was founded to help find reliable information about the brain. Understanding the brain requires knowledge from many different disciplines, from psychology to computer science and from linguistics to biology. For every question that is asked to us, we look for a suitable expert, inside or outside the Donders Institute, to answer the question. In this way, we try to share scientific information about the functioning of the brain in an understandable way with everyone who wants to know more about it, in understandable language.

We were inspired by the KlimaatHelpDesk (Climate HelpDesk) and collaborate with them.

Who is behind the BrainHelpDesk?

The BrainHelpDesk editors are enthusiastic students and employees of the Donders Institute and the Netherlands Institute or Neuroscience. Do you have a question or remark? Contact us via brainhelpdesk@donders.ru.nl!

How do we answer questions and select experts?

We consider every question carefully.

First we check whether the question is suitable for the BrainHelpDesk. If a journalist is in need of a fast answer, we redirect them to the public outreach officer of the Donders Institute. If a secondary school student is in need for information or guidance about their school research project (‘profielwerkstuk’), we point them to the Radboud Pre-University College. Next, we check if the question has not been answered before, whether it is indeed about the brain and whether it does not contain personal or medical information we cannot share (in which case we refer to their GP or medical professional).

Next, we start looking for who can answer the question. Sometimes, it falls within our own expertise (we are neuroscientists ourselves) and we can answer a question ourselves. Otherwise, we look for researchers within the Donders Institute and the Netherlands Institute or Neuroscience, or other academic research institutes. Often, the first expert we contact will point us to another one that has more to-the-point expertise, and that way it sometimes takes several referrals. We do this until we find an academic researcher that can answer the question.

Once an expert has written an answer, we will edit the answer so that it falls within our guidelines on language use and structure. We also make sure that resources (‘Read more’) are accessible.

Finally, once the editorial team and the expert agree on the text, we publish the text and post it on social media. Note that the process from question to answer varies from weeks to months, which is necessary to provide a thorough and well written answer.

Copyright

All texts of the BrainHelpDesk are licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 . All copyright remains with the authors. Since scientific experts frequently change institutions, we only provide the authors’ institution at the time they answered the question, and no links.

Cookies

Read here which data we collect, and how we process them.

Follow us

We post our questions at Facebook, Instagram, , BlueSky and LinkedIn.

Finances

The BrainHelpDesk is 100% non-profit and can only exist thanks to donations, sponsorships and gifts.

Want to donate to keep BrainHelpDesk going? Send an email to the board: brainhelpdesk@donders.ru.nl

The BrainHelpDesk was set up with a Donders Innovation Voucher from the Donders Institute, and was later sponsored by the Donders Institute and by NWO (Aspasia grant (nr 015.021.037) for Fleur Zeldenrust).

Team

Alumni

Joosje Kist, Roelof Segers, Arezoo Alizadeh, Juraj Bevandic, Bryan da Costa Silva, Roel Vrooman, Natascha Roos, Carlo Rooth, Nestor Timonidis, Sarah Tjeerdsma, Melanie de Wit, Lara Dilger

Financiën en partners

Main sponsor

Other sponsors

Partners