On January 28, 2026, five third-year students from Kyoto Municipal Saikyo Junior High School, attached to Saikyo High School, visited Associate Professor Zenas Chao at IRCN, as part of their group activity (company or university visit) during their school trip. One junior high school student from Tokyo, who is interested in neuroscience, also participated in the discussion.
After a brief introduction, the five students first presented their slides on their hypothesis for “ideal future” focusing on music. Dr. Chao asked several questions and made some comments to deepen their and his understanding of the ideas. He then introduced what kinds of technologies are available and what can be achieved using such technologies.
Next, Dr. Chao picked up students’ idea of “reading brainwaves to create one’s own music” and expanded the topic to human-machine interface. Examples such as technologies assisting individuals with disabilities were introduced. The topic then moved to decoding of brain activities, with a focus on “accuracy”, one of the keywords used in the slide presentation. Everybody joined the discussion about what accuracy is and how we judge it when we decode what we see, what we dream, and what we think.
Finally, Dr. Chao showed EEG caps (gel-based and dry electrode-types) and fNIRS system, which are used in the research group. EEG demonstration using the dry electrode EEG cap was conducted by lab members on 2 junior high school students.
Although both visitors and the host were shy and nervous at first, with Dr. Chao’s friendly and warm facilitation, we had a good open discussion, which is, we believe, fruitful for both parties.
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