How Many Neuroscientists Does it Take to Unlock a Door?

First published by the Duke Research Blog on June 5, 2019.

Duke’s Summer Neuroscience Program kicked off their first week of research on June 4 with a standard morning meeting: schedules outlined, expectations reiterated, students introduced. But that afternoon, psychology and neuroscience professor Thomas Newpher and undergraduate student services coordinator Tyler Lee made the students play a very unconventional get-to-know-you game — locking them in a room with only one hour to escape.

Not the usual team building activity: Students in Duke’s 8-week Summer Neuroscience Program got to know each other while locked in a room.

Bull City Escape is one of a few escape rooms in the Triangle, but the only one to let private groups from schools or companies or families to come and rent out the space exclusively. Like a live-in video game, you’re given a dramatic plot with an inevitably disastrous end: The crown jewels have been stolen! The space ship is set to self-destruct! Someone has murdered Mr. Montgomery, the eccentric millionaire! With minutes to go, your rag-tag bunch scrambles to uncover clues to unlock locks that yield more clues to yet more locks and so on, until finally you discover the key code that releases you back to the real world.

This summer’s program dips into many subfields, in hopes of pushing the the 16 students (most of them seniors) toward an honors thesis. According to Newpher, three quarters of the senior neuroscience students who participated in the 2018 SNP program graduated with distinction last May.

From “cognitive neuro” that addresses how behavior and psychology interacts with your neural network, to “translational neuro” which puts neurology in a medical context, to “molecular and cellular neuro” that looks at neurons’ complex functions, these students are handling subjects that are not for the faint of heart or dim of mind.

But do lab smarts carry over when you’re locked in a room with people you hardly know, a monitor bearing a big, red timer, blinking its way steadily toward zero?

Apparently so. The “intrepid team of astronauts” that voyaged into space were faced with codes and locks and hidden messages, all deciphered with seven minutes left on the clock, while the “crack-team of detectives” facing the death of Mr. Montgomery narrowly escaped, with less than a minute to spare. At one point, exasperated and staring at a muddled bunch of seemingly meaningless files, a student looked at Dr. Newpher and asked, “Is this a lesson in writing a methods section?”

The Bull City Escape website lists creative problem-solving, focus, attention to detail, and performance under pressure as a few of the skills a group hones by playing their game — all of which are relevant to this group of students, many of whom are pre-med. But hidden morals about clarity and strength-building aside, Newpher picked the activity because it allows different sides of people’s personalities to come out: “When you’re put in that stressful environment and the clock is ticking, it’s a great way to really get to know each other fast.”