‘It Was Great to Look at Scientific Achievements through the Eyes of a Journalist, not a Scientist’
HSE University in Nizhny recently hosted the 2nd Autumn Neuro-linguistic School ‘NeuroSciCom: Popularising Language and Brain Studies’ for scientists and students at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain Studies in Nizhny Novgorod. The school was held as part of the 'Human Brain Resilience: Neurocognitive Technologies for Adaptation, Learning, Development and Rehabilitation in a Changing Environment' Strategic Project of the Priority 2030 programme.
At the school’s opening ceremony, Igor Sokolov, the project coordinator, stressed that the project aims to create a centre for assistive technologies and augmented intelligence, and is the first unified infrastructure in Russia for research in the field of neurocognitive studies, as well as for generating, promoting and commercialising ideas in the field of neurocognitive technologies and research.
Strategic projects focus not merely on fundamental developments, but are more concerned with the creation of digital tools and products. For example, the goal of the HSE Centre for Language and Brain Studies in Nizhny Novgorod is to develop an application that helps to automatically diagnose symptoms of various psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as depression or schizophrenia. It is important for scientists who are engaged in the development of such products to convey the results of their activity to the wider public.
‘We have launched and organised a school that will be able to offer solutions to the very specific problem of communication between scientists and the general public, helping introduce various ways of popularising research, development and communication with a wider audience,’ explained Mariya Khudyakova, director of the Centre for Language and Brain Studies at the Faculty of Humanities (Nizhny Novgorod)
The school programme gives young scientists an opportunity to look at their research from the media’s point of view. Therefore, HSE University scientific communicators, as well as journalists and popularisers of science were invited as speakers: Grigory Tarasevich, founder and editor-in-chief of the popular scientific journal ‘Schrödinger's Cat’ and Daniil Kuznetsov, chief editor of the HSE science and education media brand IQ.HSE.
The school participants also practiced creating popular science texts on the topic of their research. The results of this work were presented by young researchers on the second day of the school during the master class 'How to speak about research in the field of neuroscience’.
‘The audience for the neuro-school turned out to be absolutely wonderful - smart, and most importantly, motivated people. We discussed future projects, for example, articles in the ‘Schrödinger's Cat’ scientific journal and the neuro-linguistics workshop at the ‘Summer School’ (the summer school of the ‘Russian Reporter’). We also discussed how to popularise neuro-linguistics among high school students, for example, through involvement in scientific volunteering project. I believe that this school will help to popularise neuro-linguistics in Russia because, currently, it is much less appreciated than, let’s say, popular astrophysics or anthropology.’
During the lecture ‘Scientific news as the main tool for promoting research: features, structure, and the basic rules of writing’ by Daniil Kuznetsov, participants learned how and when it is best to start interacting with scientific communicators and brand media editors at their university so that their research can be effectively covered in the media. In addition, the students learnt how their large, detailed scientific article can be turned into a short news article, as well as why creative and catching headlines are vital.
Daniil Kuznetsov
It was very important to me that our young scientists could put themselves in the place of journalists, walk in their shoes and look at the scientific process and the functioning of the media through their eyes. In most cases, this kind of experience removes various blocks and prejudices when working with the media in the future. Researchers understand why media specialists do certain things, which means they can help them create fascinating, but at the same time factually correct articles. The small exercise I proposed — to read a scientific paper from an unfamiliar field in half an hour and create a short piece about the research based on it — turned out to be a difficult task, but it allowed me to fully get into the daily routine work of a scientific journalist.
Grigory Tarasevich, Daniil Kuznetsov and researchers of the HSE Centre for Language and Brain Studies Nina Zdorova and Alina Minnigulova participated in the round table ‘Experiences of interaction between scientists and the media’. As a result of the discussion, most of the participants agreed that scientists and journalists need intermediaries – scientific communicators.
‘The open discussion aroused a lot of emotions,’ says Ekaterina Sergeeva, Advisor to the Director of the HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod. ‘Such events can make a great impression on the participants and allow young scientists to look at their research from a different angle.’ She supported Grigory Tarasevich's assumption that modern scientists need to discuss their scientific achievements with schoolchildren, explaining everything in the most accessible language. She adds that widespread use of such ‘scientific volunteering’ will raise the average level of education, which will positively affect the competence of scientific journalists and prepare young people for a conscious choice of science as their life's work.
A poster session presenting the results of 15 studies in the field of psycho- and neuro-linguistics was held during the school. The use of special video oculographic glasses that allow you to record eye movements when viewing the poster was an interactive part of the session’s programme.
Nina Zdorova
We recorded how people from three different professional fields viewed the posters: a linguist, a programmer, and a journalist. We then analysed the data and presented the results in the report ‘Eye movement in the evaluation of a scientific poster’. Of course, it was a pseudo-experiment, since there was only one person in the sample and one poster as the material. However, potentially it can be developed, and we plan to conduct a study on how viewers focus their attention when watching TV series with and without subtitles.
Kapitolina Untila, research assistant at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain Studies, agreed that it was useful to look at scientific achievements through the eyes of a journalist, not a scientist, because these are two completely different approaches. ‘During the School, we constantly returned to a lively discussion about the share of science in pop science and how to present it correctly. Before that, I had never thought about how difficult it was to maintain a balance between scientific accuracy and media attractiveness. In general, I had a lot of impressions, a lot of food for thought,’ she said.
During the school a screening of the film about the future through the eyes of HSE scientists 2052: See the Future took place. Liudmila Mezentseva, Head of the HSE Science Communication and Outreach Office, presented it to the participants. This film triumphed in the main Russian competition of scientific journalists, communicators and popularisers — the 9th all-Russia prize 'For Loyalty to Science' of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, winning the 'Special Prize for the Popularisation of Russian Science' category. The film features 15 HSE experts who share their forecasts about changes in the economy and society, talking about foresight and scientific forecasting, research in neuroscience, the use of artificial intelligence, and the widespread introduction of digital technologies, including in the humanities and law.
See also:
New Development by HSE Scientists Helps Design Reliable Electronics Faster at a Lower Cost
Scientists from HSE MIEM have developed a new approach to modelling electrothermal processes in high-power electronic circuits on printed circuit boards (PCB). The method allows engineers to quickly and accurately predict how electronic components heat up during operation, helping prevent overheating and potential failures. The results have been published in Russian Microelectronics.
HSE University and Moscow DIT Partner to Advance 5G and 6G Networks
The Moscow Department of Information Technology and HSE University have signed a cooperation agreement in the field of innovative development of the capital’s IT infrastructure. The parties agreed on joint research into modern and promising communication technologies, including 5G and 6G, as well as AI, the Internet of Things, and other smart city technologies.
HSE University Presents Research Results at AI Conference in Oman
In April 2026, the International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Artificial Intelligence Applications (ISAA 2026) was held at the University of Nizwa in the Sultanate of Oman. The event was co-organised by HSE University, the University of Nizwa, and the University of Technology and Applied Sciences–Ibri. Researchers from HSE University were among the key speakers at the conference.
Wearable Device Data and Saliva Biomarkers Help Assess Stress Resilience
A team of scientists, including researchers from HSE University, has proposed a method for assessing stress resilience using physiological markers derived from wearable devices and saliva samples. The participants who adapted better to stress showed higher heart rate variability, higher zinc concentrations in saliva, and lower potassium levels. The findings were published in the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience.
HSE Researchers Propose New Method of Verbal Fluency Analysis for Early Detection of Cognitive Impairment
Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain and the Mental Health Research Centre have proposed a new method of linguistic analysis that enables the distinction between normal and pathological ageing. Using this approach, they showed that patterns in patients’ word choices during verbal fluency tests allow clinicians to more accurately differentiate clinically significant impairments from subjective memory complaints. Incorporating this type of analysis into clinical practice could improve the accuracy of early dementia diagnosis. The results have been published in Applied Neuropsychology: Adult.
How the Brain Processes a Word: HSE Researchers Compare Reading Routes in Adults and Children
Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain used magnetoencephalography to study how the brains of adults and children respond to words during reading. They showed that in children the brain takes longer to process words that are frequently used in everyday speech, while rare words and pseudowords are processed in the same way—slowly and in parts. With age, the system is reorganised: high-frequency words shift to a fast route, whereas new letter combinations are still analysed slowly. The study was published in the journal Psychophysiology.
How Neural Networks Detect and Interpret Wordplay: New Insights from HSE Researchers
An international team including researchers from the HSE Faculty of Computer Science has presented KoWit-24, an annotated dataset of 2,700 Russian-language Kommersant news headlines containing wordplay. The dataset enables an assessment of how artificial intelligence detects and interprets wordplay. Experiments with five large language models show that even advanced systems still make mistakes, and that interpreting wordplay is more challenging for them than detecting it. The results were presented at the RANLP conference; the paper is available on Arxiv.org, and the dataset and the code for reproducing the experiments are available on GitHub.
HSE Researchers Experimentally Demonstrate Positive Effects of Urban Parks on the Brain
Scientists at HSE University have investigated the effect of parks on the cognitive and emotional resources of city dwellers. The researchers compared brain electrical activity in 30 participants while they watched videos of walks through parks and along busy highways. The results showed that green urban environments with trees produce a consistent effect across individuals, helping the brain calm down and relax. By contrast, walks along busy streets were found to be distracting. The findings have been published in Scientific Reports.
Scientists Reveal How Language Supports Complex Cognitive Processing in the Brain
Valeria Vinogradova, a researcher at HSE University, together with British colleagues, studied how language proficiency affects cognitive processing in deaf adults. The study showed that higher language proficiency—regardless of whether the language is signed or spoken—is associated with higher activity and stronger functional connectivity within the brain network responsible for cognitive task performance. The findings have been published in Cerebral Cortex.
Scientists Show That Peer Influence Can Be as Effective as Expert Advice
Eating habits can be shaped not only by the authority of medical experts but also through ordinary conversations among friends. Researchers at HSE University have shown that advice from peers to reduce sugar consumption is just as effective as advice from experts. The study's findings have been published in Frontiers in Nutrition.