Q&A with Pawan Sinha, MIT Professor of Vision and Computational Neuroscience
Pawan Sinha is a professor of vision and computational neuroscience in MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. He received his undergraduate degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi and his Masters and doctoral degrees from the Department of Computer Science at MIT.
Using a combination of experimental and computational modeling techniques, research in Pawan’s laboratory focuses on understanding how the human brain learns to recognize objects through visual experience and how objects are encoded in memory. The lab’s experimental work on these issues involves studying healthy individuals and also those with neurological disorders such as autism.
On January 25 at 4:00 pm ET, Professor Sinha will join a panel of experts from MIT Open Learning, the Media Lab, and the Brain and Cognitive Science Department for an OL Talks webinar on MITili’s new Mental Wellness Initiative (MWI). Learn more and register now.
When did you first become interested in neuroscience?
I think my interest in neuroscience germinated in my fascination for art. As a child, I loved painting (I still do), but was always puzzled by the process of creating a simulacrum with strokes of my brush. How did those dabs of paint come to be recognized as specific objects or people? What was the crucial minimum information a viewer’s brain needed to interpret my painting as I had intended? These are essentially the questions that are at the heart of neuroscience. So, you can say that I was unwittingly drawn into the field when I picked up my first painting set.
How does mindfulness and mental wellness affect educational outcomes?
I think the answer is complex and not fully defined yet. Lots of research suggests that mindfulness has beneficial effects for reducing anxiety and stress, and enhancing focus. We would expect both of these to improve information uptake, retention and recall. Additionally, I believe that mindfulness may have some even more significant impacts on cognitive function by increasing brain plasticity. We do not have firm empirical data to back this belief yet, but I think this is a very important avenue to investigate, given how far-reaching a positive result can be.
The pandemic has been stressful for a lot of people, but particularly learners. What interventions might help students still learning from home?
The brain thrives on change, and being confined to one setting because of the pandemic can severely limit such change. What can we do to overcome the sameness? We can draw inspiration from people who have managed to not only tolerate, but thrive, in really impoverished circumstances. My thoughts turn to polar explorers (I have been reading about them lately), who lived for months on end in cramped quarters. Their escape was a mental one. Reading about others’ experiences allows us vicarious change and makes us transcend our less than ideal circumstances. So, my recommendation would, quite simply, be to make the time to read travelogues or well-written fiction that can transport you beyond where you physically are.
You and MITili are collaborating on the new Mental Wellness Initiative (MWI). Can you tell us a bit about that project?
It’s a really wonderful confluence of skill sets and interests. All of the faculty members in MWI share an interest in neuroscience, mental well-being, and education. The brain is, of course, the central actor in all of these domains, and yet it is not often that they are studied together. Our hope, in this initiative, is that by adopting a more integrative approach, we may be able to arrive at insights that can be deeper and more impactful than if we were to be studying the domains separately.
What is your favorite thing about working at MIT?
Can I say ‘everything’? Honestly, there are just so many aspects of MIT that I am imprinted on. I remember coming to Killian Court just to clear my head when I was pulling all-nighters as a graduate student at the AI Lab. I fell in love with the quiet gravity of the place in those moments of solitude. As a faculty member, I love the chance to work with the most driven, talented (and yet, modest) students in the world. I love not just the license, but the mandate, that MIT gives us to work on big problems. And, on a non-academic note, I love the fact that I met my wife here, as a fellow graduate student.
Originally published at https://mitili.mit.edu/ on January 13, 2021.
