Learning About the Brain: GSU’s Neuroscience Lending Library Brings Science to Life
The Lending Library, housed at Georgia State, originated from a collaboration with the Atlanta chapter of the Society for Neuroscience and Emory University. After Larry Young, a longtime CBN investigator and outreach advocate, passed away last year, CBN stepped in to preserve and expand the collection of brain specimens, integrating it into their extensive collection of teaching materials available for educators. Today, the library includes human, primate, dolphin, rodent, horse and sheep brains, alongside detailed anatomical models and hands-on learning tools.
The impact is profound. “Seeing a real brain up close makes neuroscience tangible in a way textbooks never can,” says Jennifer Walcott, project coordinator at the CBN. Some students are fascinated, others hesitant — but nearly all are amazed when they realize that “every thought, feeling and memory they’ve ever had comes from an organ just like this.”
It’s not just science classrooms benefiting. Sarah Yoo, STEAM coach at Herman J. Russell West End Academy, learned about the program from her daughter, an Advanced Placement psychology student who came home exclaiming, “You’re never going to believe what we did today — we touched brains!” Intrigued, Yoo arranged an interactive session for her seventh-grade English language arts (ELA) students who had been studying Phineas Gage, the 19th-century railroad worker whose brain injury changed history. The Lending Library’s specimens brought the lesson to life.
“GSU tailored the presentation to what the students were learning,” Yoo says. “And they did an incredible job engaging them.” Every seventh-grade student — 100 in total — had the chance to participate. They drew brain structures on shower caps, examined monkey and human brains, and asked researchers about neuroscience careers. Weeks later, says Yoo, some students were still wearing their brain-printed caps in the hallways.
The program’s outreach extends beyond school visits, reaching students at STEM nights, career days and local events. Volunteers — ranging from undergraduates to faculty neuroscientists — also discuss career paths in neuroscience, ensuring students see the field’s relevance beyond medicine.
As David Waxler, a senior lecturer at GSU, puts it, “Not every student will become a neurosurgeon, but understanding the brain is critical in fields from psychology to marketing.”
Through the Lending Library, CBN is inspiring the next generation of neuroscientists — one brain at a time.
