Where Neuroscience Meets the Real World

Every Wednesday morning just before 8 a.m., Dua Khan boards a shuttle bus from U of T Mississauga to downtown Toronto.

By the time she steps off near University Avenue about an hour later, she’s no longer just a fourth-year neuroscience student. She’s on her way to work as a researcher at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.

At the BRIDGE Lab, where Khan is a trainee, she is taking part in hands-on, equity-focused research on neurological disorders and brain health. By bringing together different disciplines and lived experience, the lab builds partnerships aimed at improving prevention and rehabilitation.

That interdisciplinary approach is what drew Khan to the lab. The 20-year-old hopes to pursue medicine after graduation and says she is interested in research that sits at the intersection of an individual’s biology and psychology – how physical health, thoughts and behaviours influence one another.

“Going downtown every week makes my studies feel real,” says Khan. “Being in a health-care environment motivates me. It confirms that this is where I want to be.”

In her placement – part of a biology course requiring 200 hours of experiential learning – she is supporting the lab’s early-stage research on to discover which sleep parameters, such as heart rate, brain activity and duration of sleep stages, differ between sexes. “It could be anything that’s measured during sleep,” she says.

The findings could help improve treatment for patients living with traumatic brain injuries, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Khan is one of a growing number of U of T students seeking research- and work-integrated learning opportunities. At U of T Mississauga, the Research Opportunity Program has almost doubled, from 245 student placements in 2015-2016, to 467 in 2022-2023.

Stephanie Vega-Morello, manager of experiential education at UTM, says the growth reflects changes in job market trends and students wanting to ensure their skills remain current and competitive. “Students want to know how what they’re learning translates to real work,” she says. “Experiential learning helps them see that connection.”

For Khan, the internship has been both rewarding and challenging. Early on, she was asked to help narrow down more than 3,000 research papers to those directly relevant to the lab’s work – a list that now stands at 40. “It was intimidating at first,” she says. “But I learned how to do it efficiently and accurately.”

The pace of research also surprised her. Unlike coursework, she learned that progress can be slow and uncertain, and results aren’t guaranteed by effort alone.

“I didn’t realize how long it would take to get us to the stage that we’re at now,” she says. “It has made me appreciate how much time and effort this type of research takes.”

Khan says one of the biggest adjustments was learning how to carry herself in a professional research setting. She was initially nervous about working alongside researchers with far more experience.

That uncertainty faded quickly. “It’s a very positive environment, and everybody’s willing to talk to you if you strike up a conversation,” she says. “I realized I just had to put my best foot forward.”

Khan adds that there was a learning curve when she started her internship, and she needed to pick up concepts that are not always taught in the classroom. Through the literature review, Khan was introduced to the Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcomes (PICO) framework, a tool commonly used to assess and compare studies.

You can be told a specific theory, but it’s when you see that theory in action that you realize the value of what you’re learning.”

“I had never heard of PICO before,” she says. “My supervisor asked me if I knew it, and I said, what’s a PICO? I didn’t even realize it was an acronym.” She adds that her work is allowing her to directly contribute to her field of study. “I might be a citation on someone’s paper, and I think that is so crazy.”

Khan says her internship has changed how she understands what she learns in class. Concepts she had encountered in lectures – such as study design – became concrete once she saw how they shaped real research questions in the lab. That perspective proved especially useful when she was asked to design a mock study proposal for one of her classes. “Being immersed in the process, I knew how to approach it.”

“You can be told a specific theory, but it’s when you see that theory in action that you realize the value of what you’re learning.”

As she wraps up her placement, Khan says the internship has helped clarify what she wants from the next stage of her education. The experience also confirmed her interest in medicine, while giving her a clearer sense of the research skills and professional habits she’ll need moving forward.

“Experiential learning gives you the skills and experiences that prepare you for what comes next.”