Phenotypic Bias in Human Neuroscience Methods: Creating an Equitable Research Field

Typical EEG systems, the standard of care for neurological monitoring and a popular modality for human psychological and neurosciences, do not work well for individuals with the coarse, dense, and curly hair common in African populations (Etienne et al., 2020; IEEE EMBC). With more than 1 billion individuals of African descent across the globe, this not only compromises neurological care for a significant portion of the population as well as others with this hair type, but also excludes these groups from basic neuroscience research studies. Our team developed the first solution to this problem by creating Sevo, a simple yet effective set of devices that leverage the strength of coarse hair to improve scalp contact during brain recordings in individuals with coarse, dense, voluminous, and curly hair. In this talk, I will briefly describe our solution and outline our ongoing assessments of its effectiveness in both research and clinical settings. Our work is the first step towards mitigating phenotypic biases embedded in this popular technology that may lead to misdiagnosis in the clinic and the exclusion of marginalized groups in research. I will also speak to other examples of phenotypic bias in neurotechnologies that we are studying at Carnegie Mellon University. I will outline ways that neuroscientists can join the cause and use equitable and inclusive methodologies based on published work (Webb et al, 2022; Nature Neuro) and my personal experience in preparing different hair textures for neuroscience research. Lastly, I will talk about my extracurricular work in racial equity, gender inclusion, and neuroethics.