Brain Products Young Scientist Award 2020 presented to Esra Al

by Dr. Christina Florence Lavallée
Strategic Product Manager (Brain Products)

The Brain Products Young Scientist Award is presented each year to recognize a young researcher’s outstanding publication in the field of EEG-based psychophysiological research. The winner is chosen by an independent jury and was awarded to Esra Al this year.

Although we could not present the award in person this year at the popular Psychologie und Gehirn (PuG) conference as usual, we are happy to announce that the long tradition of the “Brain Products Young Scientist Award” could continue uninterrupted.

This award recognizes a young researcher’s outstanding publication in the field of EEG-based physiological research. The winner is elected by an independent jury, which is appointed by the managing board of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie und ihre Anwendung (DGPA).

Brain Products Young Scientist Award 2020 presented to Esra Al

Award Winner 2020: Esra Al

At Brain Products, we want to have a positive impact on the fields of psychology and neuroscience and thereby award and celebrate excellent EEG research in these domains. By recognizing young scientists, we aim to support the next generation of researchers and their scientific discoveries.

This year’s winner, Esra Al, is a PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. Her primary research and experimentation is conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and her research interests include the science of consciousness, heart-brain interactions, as well as psychophysics.

In her publication, “Heart-brain interactions shape somatosensory perception and evoked potentials”, she and her co-authors investigated how the heartbeat modulates conscious perception. This study targeted mechanisms linked to heart, brain and perception using somatosensory detection and localization tasks together with EEG. This work provides a general framework to explain how internal signals may be integrated into our conscious perception of the world. For more details, see the original abstract (below) and don’t miss out on reading the full publication. If you’re interested in checking out more of her scientific research, check out other contributions here.

On behalf of the whole Brain Products team, congratulations, Esra, on winning this award. We will for sure continue to follow your research and wish you all the best for your future!