Cinthia Muñiz Sanchez fits an elastic cap studded with metal discs over the patient's head. She plugs a wire into each disc, painstakingly testing each connection and adding a dab of conductive gel where needed to reduce electrical resistance.

Once everything is connected, the patient begins performing a series of tasks on a computer while Muñiz Sanchez monitors her brain activity on a separate screen.

Before joining the College of Arts and Sciences, Muñiz Sanchez had no idea that the study of the brain was its own science. Today, the fourth-year neuroscience major is studying the brain waves of patients with Parkinson’s disease to see how their neural activity compares with healthy patients.

Since joining Assistant Professor Nicki Swann’s human physiology lab in 2022, Muñiz Sanchez has performed dozens of electroencephalogram (EEG) tests, which measure electrical activity in the brain using electrodes attached to the scalp.

The Swann lab investigates how different parts of the brain interact to control movements, with a focus on how these processes can be disrupted in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. Sanchez is working with human physiology graduate student Apoorva Karekal to identify different brain activity patterns—both those related to muscular motion and those related to information processing—involved in movement.

“Cinthia's interest is in cognition during moments of surprise or conflict and how that might be modulated in the brain,” Swann says. “She’s trying to relate the brain activity patterns acquired with EEG to these behaviors and how they relate to medication in Parkinson’s patients.”

Muñiz Sanchez, who plans to attend medical school, says working in the lab has given her the opportunity to interact with patients and gain a greater understanding of Parkinson’s Disease, a disorder that leaves patients impaired in producing movement.

Due to the sensitive nature of the disease, connecting with patients requires a lot of compassion, Muñiz Sanchez says.

“You can see with your own eyes how difficult it is for someone with Parkinson’s,” she says. “It made the experience more significant because you would see the patient and you would want to get the best data so you could analyze it and try to find something important.”

Working in the lab has also provided the inspiration for her Clark Honors College thesis, which involves comparing EEG data to evaluate how brain waves behave differently in patients with Parkinson’s Disease versus in a control group of healthy patients. The project propelled her to learn Python so she can efficiently analyze the massive body of data she has collected.

“I tried learning about it myself and I couldn’t understand it,” says Muñiz Sanchez, who is a Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholar. A workshop at the Knight Campus helped her develop her Python skills, she adds.

Now that she’s able to use the programming language to access and analyze her EEG data, Muñiz Sanchez looks forward to completing her thesis project.

“I want to keep going with my own research and continue to push myself because I’ve already come so far.”

—Bailey Meyers, College of Arts and Sciences