Day 3

So I'm just starting this blog on day three of my internship. In the past week, I have possibly learned more than I have in a long time. Last week I was learning UNIX (a computer programming language) and MATLAB (a linear algebra program) so that I could prepare for this internship, and today I was teaching somebody how to use UNIX. Weird.


Today I had my first real fMRI experience! I was a subject in a study about something (no idea what yet). I was in the fMRI machine and the task was an Alcohol Stroop Test. Most people have actually done some form of stroop test without even knowing. Have you ever seen those websites that have names of different colors written out in different colors? (ie green yellow orange purple blue) The task seems pretty simple. In trial 1, you have to read the words, not the colors of the words. However, in the second task, you need to name the colors of the words rather than the words themselves. It's a bit tough. After the Color Stroop test was made, it was expanded into other fields, and this Alcohol Stroop test is a result. In the machine, I was shown series of pictures. In each picture there was an image of either an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage, and the name of either an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage. In trial one, I had to identify the image as alch or non-alch, while in trial two I had to identify the word. It was a cool study, but wow, that machine is LOUD! The room that the machine is in is freezing cold, so you are in this machine with blankets on top of you, ear plugs in, head taped to a board and secured by cushions. It seems weird that I had to lie still for almost 45 minutes, but honestly, it was nearly impossible to move!

After I got out of the machine, I went back to my desk (yeah, I have a desk... kind of...) and started reading some lectures about how magnetic resonance imaging actually works, specifically fMRI and DTI (Diffusion Tensor Imaging). For the moment, I am (kind of) helping process data in a DTI study involving skilled musicians. DTI tracks the direction in which water molecules diffuse in the brain. These molecules are diffusing along axons (white matter), so by tracking the direction of diffusion, we can see paths of axons in the brain. (DTI is also interesting because it is, I believe, the only type of MRI that tracks white matter. All others track gray matter.) To be totally honest, I am not positive what this study is looking for. I'm going to ask tomorrow. However, what I do know is that the data being used is from 14 highly skilled musicians and 10-16 non-musicians. That's about all I know. What I find interesting, however, is that many of the non-musician's data is coming from older, unrelated experiments. I had no idea that was allowed, but I guess it makes sense. So far we have only moved most of the data into one place (this was when I was teaching somebody UNIX). We should be able to start reading data tomorrow.

Also, I found out today that I get to go into to OR and see two brain surgeries in July! How awesome is that?!