Brain Encyclopedia

neurobiology | learning | extended intelligence

roles: open-source programmer | educational neuroscience developer

Description

A programmable and opensource Discord bot that acts as an encyclopedia about brain anatomy with JavaScript. It features an in-text assistant that provides brain region lookup, image search, crowd science neuro research, and retrieves neuroscience libraries.

Motivation

During the pandemic, many of my neuroscience classes were online. I could only study with and talk to my classmates on virtual chat servers, like Discord. There would be delays during our online study sessions because we would need to look up specific terms for neuroanatomy. So I decided to create a built-in discord bot for our chat server to use. Where each user can type out a term in the chat bar and the bot texts the brain term like a text search engine. I made the bot opensource so other classmates could add specific terms too. It was also helpful for exam studying, since my friends could quickly index a definition and create their own, like chat flashcards for neuroscience. It’s amazing how small technology features can make learning easier, especially for something as complex as the brain!

Neuroanatomy Index

Bot retrieves labelled brain regions when a user types out its name in the chat server. The definition is visible to all the users in the channel for easy access and immediate learning feedback.

Neuroscience Research Resources

The user can request curated neuroscience research resources to encourage relevant search engine results. Options range from crowd science research sources like:

code is open-sourced and available for contributors :)