Week Four . . . Testing Memory and Emotion

Things in a lab don't always turn out perfectly, I've learned. I began the week by performing another reliability test on the olfactory sulcus, which is in an area near the nasal passage. After drawing the same five cases, another research assistant and I compared volumes, and mine were much bigger. The difference was large enough that our first method was considered unreliable. So, we went back and did one case together, then tried again. The second time, we switched places; her results were much larger than mine, and we were still unreliable. Somewhat frustrated, we overlaid our results from the same case for comparison. When we overlaid our results of the same case, we realized that we needed to more clearly define the boundary rules. At times, I would include whole areas that she would not, or vice versa. To fix this, we did some research about the olfactory tracts to find reference points where it begins and ends. Next week, we will start over with a new, more clearly defined method.

I also participated in a number of psychological studies in order to fill some requirements for my course. These studies ranged in time from 10 minutes to 2 hours. In one study, I was shown rapid slideshows of simple images like pens, elephants, buttons, and bread. At the end of each slideshow, I was asked to say what came before the question mark (the last image). It was actually much harder than I expected! In another, I took a 40 minute test in which I tried to find patterns among groups of images. After that, I read some short stories and wrote down everything that I was reminded of while reading. In one of the easier ones, I filled out surveys to rate consumer items, periodically switching over to rate my own emotions. I found it interesting that the researcher would never reveal the actual point of the study until the end. This way, the participants would not be biased toward helping (or hurting) the results. All in all, it was a fun experience to actually become one of the pieces of data in a study.

Week Three . . . Learning About the Lab

Last week I got a broader perspective on the lab and the groups with which it is involved. During the first few days, I spent a lot of time in some different meetings and presentations. Each Monday, there is a presentation by someone in the lab about their personal project. Last week, a woman presented her work investigating a certain gene and its possible relation to schizophrenia. It was extremely complicated, so I won't pretend that I understood it all. Regardless, what parts I could understand were very interesting.

On Tuesday, the whole lab went to a hospital in Brockton for a monthly meeting with some other related labs. At this meeting, each ongoing project was briefly presented. This allowed me to meet the people that actually deal with schizophrenic patients and perform brain scans.

On Wednesday, the director of one of these other labs came to the PNL to give a presentation about his work. Once again, it was very complicated, but very interesting.

In the actual lab, I jumped around a bit, assisting different people on a variety of things. Thursday, I created a mask for one of the other research assistants. While this is normally a rather mundane task, it turned out to be quite intriguing because there were some strange objects at the bottom and rear of his brain. On Friday, I teamed up with two other summer students to convert a bunch of files into a different format. It was somewhat tedious, but necessary and it went by faster with three of us.

Back at Harvard, we studied learning and cognition (language, problem solving, etc) in my course. Learning was a fascinating lecture, probably my favorite one yet, and cognition was a close second.

Anyway, my midterm for Intro to Psych is later today so that's all for now!

Week Two . . . Dreaming at Harvard

I can’t believe that two of my eight weeks here have already flown by.

This week I completed a reliability test in the lab, finishing Friday afternoon. In completing this, I helped verify the replicability of a study with which my research assistant, Kate, is involved. This study is exploring the correlation between a sulcus in the anterior cingulate cortex and the cognitive complications of schizophrenia. For a more detailed explanation of the study, see last week’s entry “First Days in the Lab.” I do not yet know how reliable the results are, but I’m hoping they will turn out well.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I leave the lab a little early to go to my course at Harvard, Introduction to Psychology. I’m really enjoying the class so far. The professor is brilliant (and hilarious) and I find the content fascinating.

On Tuesday, I learned about the visual system (structures of the eye, depth perception, etc). On Thursday, I learned about sleep (how to measure stages of sleep, various sleep disorders, and dreams). I found this lecture particularly interesting. For example, did you know that you probably had 230 different dreams last night? It is unlikely that you remembered most of them, but you had them!

Week One . . . First Days in the Lab

My first week has been awesome. As a part of the SFS program, I am able to live and take a course at Harvard Summer School while working at my internship in the Psychiatry Neuroimaging Lab of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I’ve settled into Harvard and my course, I’m getting along well with all my roommates, and I’ve started working at the lab. I spent the weekend settling into my room in Hurlbut (a dorm at Harvard). I’m in a double that’s part of a fourth-floor suite with six people and a bathroom.

I got started at my internship on Wednesday. In the morning, I went to a routine orientation for all Brigham and Women’s Hospital volunteers. That afternoon I went over to the lab, where I was paired with a full-time research assistant, Kate. I took some quick online training courses, and then Kate set me up with an account and taught me the basics of how things work on their computer system. She also taught me how to use Slicer, a computer program that allows the user to view and edit 3-D brain scans by working with roughly 100 slices of the brain from all three directions (front, top, and side).

On Thursday I actually got to start working. I learned two processes: masking and realignment. In masking, I basically create a volumetric measure of the grey matter, white matter, and CSF (Cerebral Spinal Fluid, or fluid that the brain sits in). To do this I use Slicer to put a blue “mask” over the desired parts, leaving the unwanted parts of the brain scans aside. These masks are then used in studies to compare different volumetric ratios between different people’s brains.

Thursday afternoon, I learned realignment. In order to properly compare different brain scans, the lab must have them all facing the same exact way. However, the lab receives brain scans from multiple hospitals, and occasionally people will hold their head slightly sideways while being scanned. This is where realignment comes in. To realign a brain scan, I locate key structural points in the brain and place a point on them. Using these points, Slicer realigns the brain scan so that it is not tilted, leaning, or twisted in any way. Once each brain scan is realigned, comparisons go much more smoothly.

On Friday I began a reliability test for Kate. She is currently on a project that is exploring the correlation between the cognitive issues involved with schizophrenia and cortical folding in the left and right anterior cingulate cortex. In simpler terms, the general population tends to have a more prominent sulcus (or groove) in a specific area of the left hemisphere of their brain than they do in the same area of the right hemisphere of their brain. This is referred to as left asymmetry, because the left side has a greater groove. In schizophrenic patients, however, this does not appear to be true. Rather, it appears that schizophrenics have either right asymmetry or equal left-right symmetry.

While this is an interesting lead, more data still needs to be collected. Collecting the data can be difficult, however, because the “prominence of a sulcus” tends to be a rather subjective judgment. In order to verify the data that Kate collected, I am performing a reliability test. This means that I go through the same 60 cases that she went through, classifying each sulcus as prominent, present, or absent based on length and continuity. If my results closely resemble hers, the study is more “reliable” because two independent researchers came up with the same results. On Friday, I completed the first 10 cases of 60.

Next week, I will continue this reliability test and I might also be assigned to a longer-term project.