So many updates, so little time.
Em left on Saturday for the US. She's spending 4 months there finishing her degree at a nice looking Uni in Virginia. It's lonely here without her, but interestingly I'm getting by much better than I thought I would. Thankfully I've got the APA scholarship or else things would have been very difficult financially. As it stands I'll be able to lead a life of hedonistic wonderful (read: 2 minute noodles with veg) until she gets back. If my brother moves in for 3 of those months then I MAY just be able to upgrade to Ramen...
The Ph.D's going well too. While the first few weeks have been a major sprint in terms of information collecting and generating the "bigger picture", that seems to have slowed down this week. It seems I'm now passing from the broad strokes section to the thin strokes, finding parts that I simply can't fill and having to find work arounds. For example, I was (and still am) planning on using an imaging technique called Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS for short). MRS uses an garden variety MRI machine but does this nifty thing where it can detect chemicals in a small area of interest. What I had wanted to do was detect levels of various neurotransmitters and hormones in different sections of the brain, then plot that with biomarkers, structural information and cognitive tests to get a better understanding of the pathogenesis of depression. Unfortunately however, it doesn't quite work like that. MRS has a very specific range of chemicals it can detect, but thankfully (like most things neuro), these are usually found in conjunction with many other chemicals and can be used as an indirect measure. Now it's turned into a challenge, where I need to read all I can about MRS and which chemicals are associated with what and link my chemicals of interest to them. That's going to take a bit of time. While this is just the first hiccup and I'm sure there'll be plenty more it did throw me however. I mean I was "planning" this for a while, and for some reason didn't look up MRS limitations. Ah well.
The Ph.D's going well too. While the first few weeks have been a major sprint in terms of information collecting and generating the "bigger picture", that seems to have slowed down this week. It seems I'm now passing from the broad strokes section to the thin strokes, finding parts that I simply can't fill and having to find work arounds. For example, I was (and still am) planning on using an imaging technique called Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS for short). MRS uses an garden variety MRI machine but does this nifty thing where it can detect chemicals in a small area of interest. What I had wanted to do was detect levels of various neurotransmitters and hormones in different sections of the brain, then plot that with biomarkers, structural information and cognitive tests to get a better understanding of the pathogenesis of depression. Unfortunately however, it doesn't quite work like that. MRS has a very specific range of chemicals it can detect, but thankfully (like most things neuro), these are usually found in conjunction with many other chemicals and can be used as an indirect measure. Now it's turned into a challenge, where I need to read all I can about MRS and which chemicals are associated with what and link my chemicals of interest to them. That's going to take a bit of time. While this is just the first hiccup and I'm sure there'll be plenty more it did throw me however. I mean I was "planning" this for a while, and for some reason didn't look up MRS limitations. Ah well.