Valentina Chukwu ’28: Yale Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, AZA Lab

At the AZA Lab, we merge neuroscience, social behavior, and tools like music, mindfulness, and psychedelics to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying socioemotional function and treat mental health symptoms.

Community Drum Circles for Dementia and  Chronic Pain - We used multiple biological (EKG, EEG, BP, blood markers) and psychological metrics to explore how Drum Circles can be used to alleviate the stress and symptoms of patients with dementia and chronic pain.

Summer Takeaways

What I learned about myself and my career aspirations:

Clinical research is so fun, and I’ll definitely incorporate a sizeable amount into my career. But I don’t want to be an MD/PhD. MD is enough for me.

Some skills I learned this summer:

• How to collect, read, and analyze EEG and heart rate (HR) data
• Designing and successfully co-producing a Python app to more effectively collect HR data
• Working with eye tracking data
• The post collection processing of bloodwork before it’s sent to the lab
  
  

Favorite parts:

• Interacting with the study participants
• Working on bloodwork processing and data collection
•  Journal Club (presentingpapers related or connected to our research)
• My coworkers (!!!)
• Taking advantage of everything having a Yale ID badge could offer
  
  

Internship funded by Peter Buck Internship Fund