interesting...

Oh dear god these lyrics. I cannot.

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:42:08 -0400

Never knew I could feel like this
Like I’ve never seen the sky before
Want to vanish inside your kiss
Every day I love you more and more

Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing?
Telling me to give you everything
Seasons may change, winter to spring
But I love you until the end of time

Come what may, come what may
I will love you until my dying day

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace
Suddenly my life doesn’t seem such a waste
It all revolves around you

And there’s no mountain too high, no river too wide
Sing out this song and I’ll be there by your side
Storm clouds may gather and stars may collide
But I love you, I love you
Until the end of time

Come what may, come what may
I will love you until my dying day
Oh, come what may, come what may
I will love you, I will love you

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Come what may, come what may
I will love you until my dying day

Dancing

Sat, 18 May 2013 21:20:58 -0400

whatshouldwecallme:

Expectation:

Reality:

Everyone I know #butreally

WHEN SOMEONE ASKS WHAT HOBBIES I HAVE

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:05:48 -0400

whatshouldwecallgradschool:

Trying to go for a run after spending the last 10 months sitting in the library

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:25:27 -0400

whatshouldwecallmedschool:

How I feel by the end of every Monday

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:16:19 -0400

whatshouldwecallme:

WORKING IN A LAB

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:14:52 -0400

whatshouldwecallgradschool:

EXPECTATION:

REALITY:

credit: D

How I feel about most people

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:38:28 -0400

brainyloma:

whatshouldwecallme:

Monica_marie_

@monica_marie_

In undergrad, when someone asked me about my post-graduation plans

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 02:21:14 -0400

whatshouldwecallme:

How I feel about my bed in the mornings

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:29:27 -0400

whatshouldwecallme:

When someone says that they don't like cheese

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 19:33:49 -0400

whatshouldwecallme:

When someone uses their Facebook status as a personal diary

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:19:12 -0400

whatshouldwecallme:

@monica_marie_

All of my non-med friends lately

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:32:46 -0400

whatshouldwecallmedschool:

@monica_marie_

ucresearch: “The vast majority of the mass in the universe is...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:30:23 -0400

ucresearch:

“The vast majority of the mass in the universe is completely invisible. It’s not made of atoms — in fact it’s not even made of the things that atoms are made of: protons, neutrons, and electrons. It’s something completely different.”

— Joel Primack, Professor of Physics, UC Santa Cruz

[Calvin and Hobbes was created by the wonderful Bill Waterson]

themicrobiologist: a new video about extracellular RNA from the...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:04:25 -0400

themicrobiologist:

a new video about extracellular RNA from the people who made the amazing cell biology video (XVIVO animations)

Yes.

MY FIRST "PI"

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:09:11 -0400

whatshouldwecallgradschool:

neurosciencestuff: Stanford psychologists uncover brain-imaging...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:03:34 -0500

neurosciencestuff:

Stanford psychologists uncover brain-imaging inaccuracies

Pictures of brain regions “activating” are by now a familiar accompaniment to any neurological news story. With functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, you can see specific brain regions light up, standing out against the background like night owls’ apartment windows.

It’s easy to forget that these brain images aren’t real snapshots of brain activity. Instead, each picture is the result of many layers of analysis and interpretation, far removed from raw data.

“It’s just one representation of brain activity,” said Matthew Sacchet, a PhD student in the Neurosciences Program at the Stanford School of Medicine. “As you process the data, it can change.”

Sacchet works in the lab of Stanford psychology Associate Professor Brian Knutson, who studies reward processing in a small area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens. Precisely how that structure activates is at the heart of an ongoing debate about reward circuits – a subject that holds relevance for our understanding of everything from addiction to financial risk-taking.

Unfortunately, according to a paper from Knutson and Sacchet, hundreds of research papers on this circuit may be unintentionally biased. When the labs processed their fMRI findings, many used a one-size-fits-all strategy that skewed which regions of the brain appeared to be activating.

“I honestly think most people want good data,” said Knutson. “I’m excited that we can make this kind of research more rigorous.”

The paper appeared in the journal NeuroImage.

Too much smoothing

Functional magnetic resonance imaging measures changes in blood flow in the brain. It’s a powerful tool, but the signal fMRI actually detects – the result of the magnetic differences between oxygenated and deoxygenated blood – is noisy.

Researchers need to statistically process the data in order to make the resulting data interpretable. One of the most common approaches is known as “spatial smoothing,” which involves averaging the activity of each brain region with that of its neighbors.

But fMRI has only been in use since the mid-1990s. Many of the most common analyses in use today are holdovers from older, lower-resolution types of imaging and seem to have some undesired effects on the finer-grained signals fMRI can provide.

Knutson and Sacchet found that when researchers process fMRI data with a traditional “smoothing kernel” of 8mm, they end up averaging their images over too large an area. Activity in smaller brain structures can then be overlooked, or even shifted to areas that receive more blood flow and where the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal is stronger.

“It might seem strange that a systematic bias like that could bias the whole field,” Knutson said. “But if half the people use 8mm and half use 4mm, you might end up with very different results, and it could add up.”

Reward structure

These statistical pitfalls are particularly glaring when studying the small, structurally complex nucleus accumbens.

Findings from the Knutson Lab, which has been using the smaller, 4mm smoothing kernel for years, suggest that different parts of the nucleus accumbens have different functions. The forward portion seems to distinguish between positive or negative stimuli, reacting specifically to rewards. Meanwhile, the rear section responds more to the intensity of the motivation.

While some other labs have corroborated this finding, others only found activation in the rear half of the structure.

These contradictory findings now appear to have been skewed. Because the back of the nucleus accumbens is larger and surrounded by more blood-infused gray matter than the front, the smoothing step made it appear as if all the nucleus accumbens’ activity originated far to the rear.

A collaborator in Germany already has taken the paper’s advice, Sacchet said. “She had a colleague reanalyze her data and found the same thing we found.”

Knutson emphasized that the research paper doesn’t mean “the methods are bunk.” Simply improving the way scientists process signals can enhance their ability to locate specific brain functions.

“There may be a debate, but you can resolve that debate with data,” he said.

Photo

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:41:32 -0500

Photo

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:55:04 -0500

neuromorphogenesis: Thank the cerebellum—the convoluted lobe of...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:54:12 -0500

neuromorphogenesis:

Thank the cerebellum—the convoluted lobe of tissue at the back and bottom of the brain—for your ability to dance or ride a bike. It’s all about motor coordination. In this stained slice of cerebellar tissue, support cells called glia are in blue, and cells called Purkinje neurons are in green. Purkinje neurons are some of the largest neurons in the brain and have extensive branching networks of projections called dendrites.

Realizing tomorrow is Monday

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 10:24:15 -0500

whatshouldwecallme: