Week 3

This Tuesday was the first time that I actually shadowed one of the grad students running a neuropsych test and the MRI technician and grad student running the fMRI scans. The MRI scan was a lot bigger than I was expecting it to be and a lot more intimidating. As I was watching the MRI techs help the patient lay down and prep him for the machine, I anxiously waited to see what the test was like or if anything astonishing would happen. The scan was not as spectacular as I thought, but it was still cool to watch the image of the patient's brain show up on the computer as they ran multiple scans. There were about 10-15 scans and they last anywhere from 20 seconds to 10 minutes (there was only 1 scan that lasted 10 minutes.) Three of the scans that they ran were meant to be "active" scans in order to activate the brain and get the neurons in the brain to move from a resting phase to an active phase. It was cool to see the different tests that they ran and look at the scans of the brain, and I'm really excited to see the end result of the brain later. My favorite part about this scan as getting look at the brain coming to life and the different images of the brain and the rotating of the brain as the scan went on. I feel pretty lucky that I get to work at this lab because everyone is so nice and so so humble, yet they all are incredibly smart and treat me like I'm just like them and have multiple degrees and masters even though I'm only just a senior in high school. Next week I will start helping with the other stroke study which is the "Stroke BCI" study. I'm not sure exactly what I will be doing, but I will have to transfer between WIMR and the other location which is on campus.

Cole is a grad student who has been helping me with data for another project that the VPlab is a part of. When he was talking to me he told me that the Prabhakaran lab and neuroscience in general are unique because neuroscience and this lab both use aspects of both social sciences (such as psychology) and biology.

I have always wanted to go to medical school and become a surgeon, but my mom's friend left me with a question that I have been mulling over for a while now. "Do you want to be able to treat people or cure people?" Becoming a surgeon/doctor would give me the opportunity to treat people, but doing research would give me a chance to search for a cure, like what Dr. Prabhakaran is trying to do with recovery for stroke patients.