Day 4: To the Laboratory!

If you caught my "Dexter's Laboratory" reference in my title, I'm impressed! Kudos to you.

On Day 1, I mentioned how I had to read about if TMS and fMRI can predict the outcome of a hemispherectomy for Friday. The article was a case study of a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy and untreatable epilepsy. When we discussed the article ("Unaffected motor cortex remodeling after hemispherectomy in an epileptic cerebral palsy patient. A TMS and fMRI study"), the Journal Club came to the conclusion that it was inaccurate due to its inconsistency in testing. For example, when comparing the pre-operative fMRI study and post-operative fMRI study, they used two different tasks. For the pre-operative study, they obtained the results during a right hand finger-tapping task, but for the post-operative study, they obtained the results during a repetitive thumb-last finger tapping (Pilato et al. 248). It would be helpful if they had mentioned why they changed the tasks. Maybe the girl couldn't move one of her fingers after the surgery? I wasn't able to fully understand the article because (1) it had words and abbreviations that I had never learned before and (2) it wasn't very consistent with its testing.

So Day 3 was a very busy day. Before Journal Club at 12:00 pm, we had a lab group meeting in the conference room at 9:00 am. Many of the 14 people that attended I've never met. I did not know about this meeting until the moment I arrived at the lab. In these meetings, we discuss other people's projects and see if we can improve or help them in any way. It was quite interesting learning about other projects being done here. Now that I think about it, I've never really said much about the actually lab here at ASU.

I do not own this picture. 

This is Physical Education East, or PEBE. I've pondered on the use of the B in the abbreviation, since most buildings here at ASU don't have B in their abbreviations, but I'd like to think it's because if the B weren't there, the initials would spell "pee." So I came to the conclusion that B stood for building. The PEBE is located on Terrace Rd. and is just a 5-minute walk from Memorial Union. This building used to be for the Engineering department, but when the Engineering department moved, the building was converted into the ASU School of Dance. The reason why I go here is because the labs are still in this building. So now, we're here.

I do not own this picture.

All the projects done in this department investigate motor control in a variety of situations: how it relates to the brain, how can it be improved, how certain mental illnesses affect it. The lab I work in is filled with friendly students, and I even have my own desk! But I can't get to it because I don't have a key to any of the doors here. (Look at my Photo Gallery for pictures!)

So back to today... Day 4 will be spent reading a new article: "Early consolidation in human primary cortex." I haven't started reading it yet but it seems to be easier to understand than the last one. Since I won't be here Friday, I won't be able to attend Journal Club, and therefore, I won't be able to discuss with you the credibility of the article in quite as much detail as the Journal Club does. 

References:

1. Pilato, F., Dileone, M., Capone, F., Profice, P., Caulo, M., Battaglia, D., Ranieri, F., Oliviero, A., Florio, L., Graziano, A., Di Rocco, C., Massimi, L., Di Lazzaro, V. Unaffected motor cortex remodeling after hemispherectomy in an epileptic cerebral palsy patient. A TMS and fMRI study. ELSEVIER. 2009 85, 243-251.