Junior studies impact of food insecurity on the brain

As soon as she began her Carolina journey, Ria Patel knew she wanted to explore her majors in neuroscience and nutrition beyond the classroom through undergraduate research opportunities.

Patel joined the Child Imaging Research on Cognition and Life Experiences laboratory — led by Margaret Sheridan, associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ psychology and neuroscience department — as an MRI analyst during her first year at Carolina.

A few months later, Patel also began researching factors that contribute to adolescent malnutrition in Kenyan informal settlements with Stephanie Martin, assistant professor in the Gillings School of Global Public Health’s nutrition department.

This summer, the junior from High Point explored an intersection of her two research interests through a self-led Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship through the Office for Undergraduate Research. Under Sheridan’s mentorship, Patel analyzed brain scans and participant questionnaires to study the possible effects of food insecurity on structural brain development from childhood to adolescence.

She shared her experience in this interview with the College.

What are you researching in your SURF project this summer?

My project aims to examine the relationship between food insecurity and structural brain development from childhood to adolescence — in other words, how the brain anatomically changes from being affected from food insecurity during childhood.

I do this by using preexisting data sets of participants that include various questionnaires and MRI scans of their brains from different age points. I use the questionaries to determine if participants match measures of food insecurity. Then I run analyses that combine how they have met those measures with the participants’ brain scans. Those analyses give me insight into if and how brain development changes as a result of food insecurity in childhood.

Is there such a thing as a “typical” day in your SURF work?

There is no typical day in my SURF work. However, there are routine tasks I do to progress through my research, including meeting weekly with my graduate mentor, Esmeralda Navarro, creating Excel sheets and code to organize my data, and conducting analyses in FreeSurfer, software used to visualize and analyze neuroimaging data.

Tell us a bit about your SURF adviser, Margaret Sheridan, and how she has helped you.

Dr. Sheridan has been an incredible mentor. She has shared a wealth of knowledge on conducting, writing about and presenting neuroscience-based research and has provided me with an abundance of support and resources to fuel my research endeavors. In fact, Dr. Sheridan has paved the way for my newfound interest in the intersectionality between neuroscience and nutrition — which is the basis of my SURF project.

How will you share your research with the Carolina community?

I plan to share my research at the 2025 Celebration of Undergraduate Research next spring. I hope others take away the importance of having access to food and proper nutrition at a young age, as it plays a role in brain health and development.

What is the best part about conducting original research?

The best part about conducting original research as an undergraduate student is getting to be at the forefront of my education and research question. SURF has given me the freedom to choose how I collect my data, analyze it and present it. I have been able to experience every step of unfolding my research inquiry.