Untangling Hair Bias in Brain Science
- Psychology of Black Womanhood
- Jul 27
- 2 min read
Brain Science studies not accounting for Black women's hair
Many neuroscience and health technologies have historically excluded Black women, often because of hair texture, protective styles, or biased research practices. Many widely used techniques—such as EEG, fNIRS, and other scalp-based measures—rely on direct contact with the scalp. But these tools were designed for loose, thin textures. These assumptions create unintended barriers for participants with thick, tightly coiled or protective hairstyles, leading to their underrepresentation in research samples. These tests are critical when seeking epilepsy diagnosis, ADHD assessments, cognitive aging and dementia or brain injury and concussion evaluation. Unfortunately, may clinical studies that can give us critical insights in these areas exclude Black women entirely — not because we aren’t interested, but because the technology isn’t built for us.
In this episode, we dig into how common neuroscience and psychophysiological research methods — especially those requiring access to a participant’s hair and scalp like EEG and hair cortisol sampling — can unintentionally exclude people with diverse hair types and cultural hairstyles. Join us as we talk with Dr. Courtney Louis, a clinical psychology postdoctoral fellow whose research explores how anxiety, ovarian hormones, and physiological processes to inform treatment targets. Her work also centers how to advance this area of research for Black communities. Dr. Louis is passionate about advancing equitable, community-partnered research that addresses health disparities across the adult lifespan.
More Works by Dr. Louis:
To learn more about Dr. Louis, click here.
This episode will be available July 27.
Season 3 Episode 12
Running Time: TBD minutes
