Welcome to my week 7 blogpost!
This week I finished up the aging and stress study. I had everything grouped in Excel and transferred it over to a program called Prism. Prism is a program that graphs data. I made a total of 6 graphs. The x-axis of the graph is distance away from the cell body of the neurons, and the y-axis is the amount of breaks in the dendrites. I graphed the mean value for the SS, the LS, and the combined SS and LS neurons for both young and old mice. I have yet to analyze what the graphs show but plan to first check the numbers that I have entered and to then draw conclusions with the help of Bryce. I hope to also post pictures of the graphs but I’ll need to double check that I am allowed to do that.
Since I have been working on the aging and stress study and not on the fear conditioning study that I had anticipated, I am going to need to change my research question. Initially, I was going to focus primarily on PTSD but am going to make my research question a bit more general. Simply, what is the impact of chronic stress and can one recover from it? I am going to use the aging and stress study to talk about the impact it has on different ages. I will also have to do a lot of research surrounding the chronic stress and the recovery from it.
I have been helping the graduate student I am working under, Bryce, find articles to cite in a paper he is working on. So Wednesday was primarily spent scouring Google Scholar. I used search terms such as chronic stress, resilience, recovery, spatial memory, and dendritic retraction. I read through the abstracts of the paper to ensure that they would be of use in Bryce’s paper. In addition, a not so fun but a necessary fact if you’re going to be looking at a lot of articles, is most articles have an IMO which is a group of letters and numbers used to identify the work. If you put the IMO into a search engine it’ll pull up the exact article. I don’t know how I went so long without knowing that considering I’ve done a fair amount of research throughout my high school career. I plan to look more thoroughly at these papers and hopefully use them in my presentation as well.
Thanks for reading!
Hey Gillian!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you had a very productive week. For the aging and stress study, were you in the wet lab at all this week or was it just looking at the results? I can't wait to hear about next week!
Shivalee Nigam
The aging and stress study was conducted a few years before I joined the lab, so I was looking at the data they hadn't yet got a chance to review. In other words, I didn't do any of the work in the wet lab.
DeleteGillian,
ReplyDeleteSounds like everything is going well. I'm glad that you have been able to adapt your project to the research you are doing. I hope everything continues to go well and I cant wait to read more.
Thanks for following a along! Hopefully the changes that I've had to make won't impact my project too much, but I wasn't to sure about what I'd be doing until I got here.
DeleteHi Gillian! I can certainly relate to the struggles of finding articles so I hope you and Bryce don't run into any difficulties. I did not know that bit about IMO's, so thanks. Have a great week 8.
ReplyDeleteHi Dani! Looking for articles is quite a bit of work, but it is quite satisfying to look at the list that I have compiled. Thanks for your comment!
DeleteHi Gillian,
ReplyDeleteIt's great to hear from you. What conclusions do you expect to draw from the Prism graph data? Do you have to scrap all of your research on PTSD, or simply the research question? Thanks for telling us all about IMO's, I'm sure it will be very helpful throughout my highschool career!
Thanks for posting,
Anya Wahal
The graphs are comparing the impact of chronic stress on old and young mice. I'm expecting it to have a greater impact on older mice as their brains aren't as flexible as younger mice. I believe younger mice have greater brain plasticity which refers to the brain's ability to form new connections and adapt to novel situations. Therefore, I predict that chronic stress will shrink the dendrites much more in older than younger mice.
DeleteI won't have to scrap all my research on PTSD as it is greatly related to recovery from chronic stress. If the brain is unable to recover, a consequence may be the development of PTSD. I'll just need to make my question a little more general as I have been working on more than PTSD.
Thanks for your questions!
Hi Gillian,
ReplyDeleteIt was nice learning about IMO's, it will definitely be more efficient to find articles that way. It's interesting how some particular changes can change the question of project.
Thank You!
-Vara
Thanks for your comment Vara! Hopefully changing my question won't affect my project too much.
DeleteHi Gillian,
ReplyDeleteWhere exactly is the IMO found on the article? Thank you for sharing that piece of information! I hope they let you show us the graphs from Prism.
Why did you have to scrap the fear and go to aging and stress? Good luck coming up with your conclusions.
Have a great week!
Jakob Krygier
The IMO is generally found at the top of the article either above or below the title. It's in quite small print and can take a little bit of looking.
DeleteI wanted to help out with whatever was needed in lab, so I was put on the aging and stress study. The fear conditioning study hasn't begun quite yet. I believe the restraints that I am making are to help prepare for the start of that study. Dr. Conrad asked if I wanted to continue my work with the lab over the summer, and I will be helping with the fear conditioning study then.
Thanks for your comment!
Hey Gillian! I like how you restructured your question so that you can make a more feasible and interesting claim through your research. Hope to hear more awesome stuff soon!
ReplyDeleteThanks for following along :)
DeleteHi Gillian! By having to change your research question, did you have to divert your focus from research regarding PTSD, or are you still going to be including PTSD in your project? Additionally, how can you find the IMO on an article? I can't wait to hear more about your project!
ReplyDelete-Jileena
I won't have to scrap all my work on PTSD, but I am making my question more general in order to incorporate everything that I have been doing (I explained why a little bit more in my response to Anya).
DeleteThe IMO is at the top of the article either above or below the title. Sometimes it takes a bit of searching!
Hi Gillian,
ReplyDeleteI have a quick question. Does chronic stress affect blood flow? As always, very interesting articles! Thanks!
Sincerely, Bhavik Rajaboina
I know that chronic stress has a negative impact on blood flow as in humans it is generally related to cardiac problems. I'm not too sure on the details, so that's something I'll be sure to look into!
DeleteHi Gillian! Wow it seems like you've been learning a ton at your internship. I am happy that you made the executive decision to generalize your research question as now you can provide a full on depiction on your findings
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting Frida (:
Delete