Career without Borders: innovation applied to cognition and mental health

How can reports be transformed into data capable of indicating cognitive and emotional patterns? The intersection between neuroscience, language and data science guided this Tuesday’s (28) meeting of the ‘Career without Borders’ project, which brought together students from the three IMPA Tech classes. The guest was Natália Mota, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, professor at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and chief scientist at the startup Mobile Brain, which develops tools capable of analyzing oral narratives with the support of artificial intelligence.

An international reference in innovation applied to mental health, Natália showed the students how mathematical and computational concepts can contribute to more objective and humane cognitive assessments. During the talk, the researcher shared behind-the-scenes details of her interdisciplinary career and showed how technology can support schools, companies and health professionals in monitoring emotional well-being and cognitive development.

The platform has been live for around two years and has already collected more than 20,237 data points from 10,571 users in different regions of Brazil. “We have a power in our hands, which is the smartphone, but we continue to make subjective assessments in medicine, which only use a doctor’s understanding. And this can improve with technology. In a precise and objective way, we use natural language processing to support decisions based on data,” explained Natália.

Based on the analysis of oral narratives, the tool identifies patterns that reflect the cognitive and emotional development of: students, making it possible to monitor learning progress; company employees, making it possible to identify areas and environments with the greatest potential for improvement in communication and human interactions; and medical patients, supporting interventions focused on prevention.

The academic basis of functionality is language, a fundamental evolutionary advance in the development of humanity. “Spoken language is something especially important for our species. Over the years, we have developed a sense of collectivity that is fundamental to social organization, which is enhanced by language. When we analyse a speech, we observe the chain of ideas and the mental organization of the individual,” explained Natália.

Professor Cilene Rodrigues accompanied the presentation and praised the researcher’s work. “Natália is a winner. She has created a product that has practical use and values basic science in this country. Each of us has a responsibility to foster basic science in the things we do, using innovation and interdisciplinarity,” she said, urging the students to come up with new ideas and innovative solutions.

For Italo Souza, a student studying Mathematics, the meeting was inspiring. “The lecture showed how graph theory can support neuroscience, an unlikely but brilliant solution that has helped many people. I’m increasingly open to interdisciplinarity, which is precisely one of IMPA Tech’s proposals, connecting different areas of knowledge. Basic science is fundamental, it’s the ‘building blocks’, the tools that build useful applications for society.”

Natália also spoke about the challenges of gender in science, and addressed undergraduate girls. “It’s not easy being a woman and occupying academic environments, which are marked by structural sexism. We have to multitask, deal with insecurities and relationships at work.” To try to reduce the difficulties along the way, the researcher founded the Sci-Girls Brasil group, which organizes mutual help discussions for women in science.

At the end of the chat, she once again defended the importance of interdisciplinarity, one of the pillars of IMPA Tech, and the freedom to change course throughout one’s professional career. “Don’t think that a single choice will define your career forever. The mix of environments allows new ideas and innovation to emerge. Don’t lock yourself into what you’ve already chosen, allow yourself to be open to new ideas,” he told the students.

The Careers without Borders project is run by the Careers and Internships Center (NCE), when an external guest shares behind-the-scenes information about careers, research experiences and real innovative solutions. In February, at the first meeting, Mexican graphic designer Francisco Rodarte talked to the young people about the challenges and opportunities of international work in the technology sector.