Lab Manual

This lab manual provides important information for students doing independent study, honors, and/or summer research in the Nyhus Lab.  I expect you to follow all lab procedures as laid out in this document.  Please read it carefully and let me know if you have any questions or if there is anything I should add/edit.  

Expectations and Responsibilities

My Role

To create an inclusive lab community where everyone’s contributions are valued and we all help and support each other.  As a woman cognitive neuroscientist and first-generation college student I aim to support women and historically excluded students in my lab.  I support students in the lab by making expectations explicit in the lab manual, allowing flexibility by encouraging students to work on the area of research that is most interesting to them, making sure that everyone is given the opportunity to participate equally in the lab and in lab meetings, acting as an ally, and modeling inclusivity in the lab.  After reading the lab manual, please meet with me to discuss how I can most effectively support you.  

To give you the opportunity to participate in research.  I will help you design your experiment, train you in the techniques used in the laboratory, and train you and provide feedback on effective presentation of research.  I can also help you identify and approach additional mentors to assist you with your research.

Support you and your career goals.  If you are struggling or if any issues arise in the lab, please come see me.  There are many resources at Bowdoin to support your mental and physical wellness (see additional resources below).  I am happy to discuss graduate school, research opportunities after graduation, and fellowships, provide feedback on applications, and write you letters of recommendation.  There are many resources at Bowdoin to support your career goals (see additional resources below).  To request a letter of recommendation please go to http://goo.gl/forms/HhXswvI7 and send me your unofficial transcript.  

Your Role

Contribute to an inclusive lab community where everyone’s contributions are valued and help and support each other.  

To actively engage in the research.  Depending on the research project that you are involved in you may assist with experimental design, run behavioral subjects, run EEG subjects, run tACS subjects, analyze behavior and/or EEG data, present your research (as a talk and/or poster), write a paper on your project, and attend regular lab meetings.  Once you have gained experience in the lab, I expect you to become more independent in guiding the direction that your research takes and eventually taking on a leadership role and mentoring other students in the lab.

Be respectful of the lab and your lab mates.  Please keep the lab space tidy, turn off and put away your cell phone, and if you must use a laptop please turn off your wifi for any lab activities and lab meetings.  Please be quiet in the lab and shared research space.  We are all extremely busy.  Please respect everyone’s time by being on time, meeting deadlines, taking notes during meetings, and never share a first draft.  Plan well ahead of time and practice, reread, spell check, and revise any abstracts, talks, posters, and papers before presenting them to the lab or sending them to me for feedback.  I generally need about a week to provide feedback and you will need time to revise, so plan accordingly.

I have found that the most successful researchers think critically, act ethically, work hard, and are extremely organized and detail oriented.  This is an opportunity to practice these skills.  But nobody is perfect, if you make a mistake it is important to notify me and we can work together to resolve it.  Learning from your mistakes is important for becoming a scientist.  

You are responsible for reading, understanding and following the Bowdoin Academic Honor and Social Code as printed in your Student Handbook (https://www.bowdoin.edu/dean-of-students/student-handbook/the-academic-honor-code-and-social-code.html).

Lab Resources

I will give you access to all lab resources.

Lab: Kanbar 008 is in the basement of Kanbar Hall and has two EEG systems as well as computers for data collection and analysis.

Shared student research space: Kanbar 310 is on the third floor of Kanbar Hall and is available for use by all student researchers in Psychology.

Lab meeting rooms: My office, Kanbar 220, is on the second floor of Kanbar Hall where we will have individual meetings.  Kanbar 200 is on the second floor of Kanbar Hall and has a seminar table and projector for lab meetings.  

Psychology Office: Kanbar 202 is on the second floor of Kanbar Hall and has a printer/ photocopier (KanbarHall-Room 202), and fax machine for lab forms.  

Copy and Print Center: The Copy and Print Center is in the Mail Center on the first floor of Smith Union and has a large format printer for printing posters (https://www.bowdoin.edu/campus-services/copy-print-center/index.html).

Bowdoin Library: The library should have all the books and access to all the journal articles you will need for your research.  Please contact Sue O’Dell (sodell@bowdoin.edu) for any library questions.

Sona System: Sona systems is for running subjects in the PSYC 1001 subject pool.  If you are running subjects in the PSYCH 1001 subjects pool, please see Donna Trout in Kanbar Hall 201 to get access to the Sona system (https://bowdoin.sona-systems.com/).  

Google calendar: The Nyhus Lab Google calendar is for scheduling subjects.  Please enter all scheduled subjects in the Google calendar. 

Wiki: The Nyhus Lab wiki (https://sites.google.com/site/nyhuslabwiki/) is where you can find information and relevant papers.  This is also a space for lab members to share any useful information.  Before contacting anyone please check here first or Google it to see if there is already an answer to your question.  

Slack: The Nyhus Lab Slack (nyhuslab.slack.com) is where you can communicate with myself and other students working in the lab.  Please post questions here first before emailing me.  I will not answer computer programming questions via email.  If you have a computer programming question, please post it to Slack or come see me.

Server: The Nyhus_lab research space on the Microwave server is where the data is stored.  Please keep the data up to date and well organized.

HPC Cluster: The HPC cluster (https://www.bowdoin.edu/it/resources/high-performance-computing.html) is for computationally intensive data analyses.  Please contact DJ Merrill (deej@bowdoin.edu) to get access to the HPC cluster.

Lab Schedule

Other than scheduled lab meetings and running subjects, you will be working independently or collaboratively with other lab members.  If you are sick, please stay home.  It does not matter to me when you work as long as you are making good progress on your research project.  You are welcome to use the lab, the shared student research space, or anywhere else on campus to read papers and do analyses.  I am generally in my office and available outside of my class times and meetings to assist you with your project.  I am on campus and check email and Slack Monday-Friday 9am-5pm and generally respond within 24 hours and I expect the same from you.  Work/life balance is important and I want to model this behavior!  I do not work in the evenings or on the weekends when I am with my family.  

Background Training

Human Subjects Training

Understanding ethical issues regarding human research is critical for all cognitive neuroscientists.  In order to do research in the Nyhus Lab, you will need to do training in the ethics of human research.  Please go to the Institutional Review Board website (https://www.bowdoin.edu/grants-office/research-compliance/irb/citi-training/index.html)  and follow the directions for creating a CITI account and complete the Social & Behavioral Research - Basic/Refresher.  You do not need to do any additional modules.  If you have already done the course, please log in to the CITI website and print out another copy of your certificate.  Email me your completion report with all the modules completed (see my completion report).  If you will be working with the tACS equipment you will also need First Aid and CPR training (https://www.bowdoin.edu/hr/health-and-wellness/cpr-aed-training.html).

Background Reading

In addition to my review paper on oscillations in memory (Nyhus & Curran, 2010).  I would recommend reading a few books on oscillations.  Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life gives a general overview on oscillatory behavior in nature (from fireflies to neurons), Rhythms of the Brain discusses oscillations in the brain, and Event-related Potentials: A Methods Handbook which covers oscillation analysis in chapter 11.  It looks like all of them are available at the Bowdoin library.  If you will be working on a grant funded project, you should contact me to read the grant.

ERP Analysis

If you are unfamiliar with ERP analysis or need a refresher, please complete this free online course on ERPs (https://courses.erpinfo.org/courses/Intro-to-ERPs).  

EEG Analysis

Before we get started on the data analysis, it would be good for you to learn some basic computer programming with Matlab and the EEGLab tutorial.  Please complete this free online course on programming with Matlab (https://www.coursera.org/learn/matlab) (other good resources on programming with Matlab are https://matlabacademy.mathworks.com/details/matlab-onramp/gettingstarted, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MATLAB_Programming or MATLAB for Behavioral Scientists available at the Bowdoin library), the online tutorial for EEGLab (https://eeglab.org/tutorials/), and the ICALabel tutorial (https://labeling.ucsd.edu/tutorial/about).

Running a Subject

You must follow the IRB protocol for each study, including using approved recruitment materials, informed consents, reading the instructions as written, EEG checklist, and run logs.  Act professionally, treat your subjects with respect, and let me know if anything goes wrong during a session.  If there are any issues during analysis we need the information in the run logs to determine what happened during the session.  Make sure to put any session notes and impedences on each and every run log.  If you are paying subjects for your study, I will help you set up a petty cash account at the Controller’s Office and you will need to keep track of the money and make sure that subjects sign for payment.  Please let me know when we are getting low on any lab supplies (e.g. gel, syringes) or if towels need to be washed.  It usually takes about a week for supplies to arrive.

Please make sure to tidy up anything you take out in the lab, including any paperwork and lab setup equipment.  Please keep all lab forms and payments organized in case we are ever audited.  The signed informed consents and run logs should be organized in to separate folders and ordered by date.  

Data Management

EEG data is big data and in order for your results to be reproducible it is very important to follow data file naming conventions, keep the data well organized, and thoroughly document your analysis steps.  Please back-up and follow the data organization structure on the Nyhus_lab Microwave, double check, and comment your analysis scripts and save them on the Nyhus_lab Microwave.  Myself and other students in future years should be able to find your files, understand, and replicate what you did!

Funding

The lab is supported by Bowdoin and the NIH.  We should have all the equipment and supplies you need for working in the lab, but if you need to buy something or pay conference fees, you do not have to use your own money.  Please contact me and I can pay for it with my Bowdoin credit card.

Additional Resources

Graduate School and Research Opportunities

Alumni and research opportunities: https://www.bowdoin.edu/cxd/

Research opportunities after graduation: http://psychwikipart2.wikidot.com/predocs

Applying to medical school: https://www.bowdoin.edu/health-professions/index.html

Additional EEG training: https://pursue.richmond.edu/links/

Funding

Emergency funding for students: https://www.bowdoin.edu/dean-of-students/resources/emergency-funding/

Research fellowships and grant writing: https://www.bowdoin.edu/student-fellowships/index.html

NSF graduate research fellowship: https://www.alexhunterlang.com/nsf-fellowship

Mental and Physical Wellness

Study habits, quantitative, writing, and time management support: https://www.bowdoin.edu/baldwin-center/index.html

Mental and physical health: https://www.bowdoin.edu/counseling/

Additional information specific to doing an independent study, honors project, or summer research can be found below.