In a small village in India—a place so remote it has no electricity, no telecommunication system, and no cars or buses—a research worker prepares to place an EEG headset on a female villager’s head. The woman, who earns $3.75 a day laboring in a nearby rice paddy and who has never ventured outside her village, eyes the futuristic device with trepidation.
“Is it going to hurt my head?” she asks.
Sathish, the research worker, has heard this question before. In fact, he’s heard several similar queries from anxious villagers who have gotten scared when they saw the brainwear.
“Will it give me a headache?”
“Is it going to give me an electric shock?”
He assures the woman the headset is painless and explains that all she has to do is sit quietly and allow her mind to wander. Sathish gently adjusts an array of electrodes on the woman’s head and [Read more…] about What’s normal? When it comes to the brain, it’s hard to say, and that’s why we need to study global neurodiversity
