Guy Johnson ‘27 recently shared his research involving biomedical engineering and neuroscience at a Research Symposium held at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

SUPREMES — Students Understanding Principles of Research Education through Medicine, Engineering and Science — gives students the opportunity to engage in research alongside mentors and professionals in medicine, engineering and science. The program connects classroom learning with real-world research, allowing students to investigate complex questions, analyze data and present their findings in a formal symposium setting.

For Johnson, the experience offered a meaningful introduction to the intersection of science, engineering, data analysis and medicine.

“I love science and research,” Johnson wrote in his research profile. “Completing this allowed me to learn deeply about neuroimaging and the science and mathematics behind it, so I may end up pursuing the field of neuroscience in the future.”

Johnson’s project, titled “Improving Comfort in Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Neuroimaging Headsets,” focused on making brain imaging technology more comfortable for users, particularly children and adolescents.

The research was conducted with Anthony Zinos, Zawwad Saif and Dr. Scott Beardsley through a collaboration involving the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at Marquette University and the Medical College of Wisconsin and the SUPREMES program.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS, is a non-invasive brain imaging technique that uses near-infrared light to measure changes in hemoglobin levels in the brain. Because it is non-invasive and more tolerant of movement than some other imaging methods, fNIRS can be especially useful in research involving children and adolescents.

However, Johnson and his research team examined a practical challenge with the technology: comfort. Users can experience significant discomfort after wearing an fNIRS headset for an extended period of time, with pain often increasing around the 45-minute mark.

After studying the source of the discomfort, the team determined that the detector’s edge contact with the scalp was the primary cause of pain. In response, they developed a silicone insert designed to cushion the detector and distribute pressure more evenly.

Testing showed promising results. During the latter half of a 45-minute session, subjects using the silicone insert reported pain ratings that were, on average, 3.5 points lower on a 10-point scale than when they wore the headset without the insert.