Academia Ghetto Thread

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So last night I went to a talk delivered by a rising star neuroscience researcher whose lab I badly want to work in. I asked a question that got me high-fived by a geneticist, and afterward I introduced myself to the illustrious doctor, who gave me his card and told me to email him.

One of my mentors is the director of the community health program, holds the keys to the largest grant in the University's history, and happens to be a good friend of the doctor.

I have an in, you guys. I totally have an in to a lab on the hill. I think this might really be happening.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

So last night I went to a talk delivered by a rising star neuroscience researcher whose lab I badly want to work in. I asked a question that got me high-fived by a geneticist, and afterward I introduced myself to the illustrious doctor, who gave me his card and told me to email him.

One of my mentors is the director of the community health program, holds the keys to the largest grant in the University's history, and happens to be a good friend of the doctor.

I have an in, you guys. I totally have an in to a lab on the hill. I think this might really be happening.

FUNK YEAH!

[xXRon_Paul_42016Xxx(weed)]

So last night I went to a talk delivered by a rising star neuroscience researcher whose lab I badly want to work in. I asked a question that got me high-fived by a geneticist, and afterward I introduced myself to the illustrious doctor, who gave me his card and told me to email him.

One of my mentors is the director of the community health program, holds the keys to the largest grant in the University's history, and happens to be a good friend of the doctor.

I have an in, you guys. I totally have an in to a lab on the hill. I think this might really be happening.

When youre genetically splicing tarantula legs onto kittens and growing world destroying super-viruses just promise youll remember us little people.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

You ever feel like no matter what you do and how well you do it, you're just not going to make the cut?

Of course you do. It was a stupid question.

But it needs to be asked now and again.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So last night I went to a talk delivered by a rising star neuroscience researcher whose lab I badly want to work in. I asked a question that got me high-fived by a geneticist, and afterward I introduced myself to the illustrious doctor, who gave me his card and told me to email him.

One of my mentors is the director of the community health program, holds the keys to the largest grant in the University's history, and happens to be a good friend of the doctor.

I have an in, you guys. I totally have an in to a lab on the hill. I think this might really be happening.

When youre genetically splicing tarantula legs onto kittens and growing world destroying super-viruses just promise youll remember us little people.

Ooooh, thanks for the excellent ideas!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You ever feel like no matter what you do and how well you do it, you're just not going to make the cut?

Of course you do. It was a stupid question.

But it needs to be asked now and again.

Hell yeah.

I'm competing against hundreds, possibly well over a thousand, completely excellent and mostly much younger students, many from vastly more prestigious schools.

I am wracked with fears and doubts whenever I stop to think about it. So mostly I try not to think about it, but rather to just do my best at whatever I need to do to improve my odds.

[Cain]

I'm not sure why we're discussing the Charlie Hebdo attacks.  By which I mean I'm not comfortable with it.

I was asleep when this happened, so I missed a LOT of what went down, the media coverage etc.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm not sure why we're discussing the Charlie Hebdo attacks.  By which I mean I'm not comfortable with it.

I was asleep when this happened, so I missed a LOT of what went down, the media coverage etc.

Hmmmm, that sucks. Are there adequate recorded broadcasts that you can get filled in?

[Cain]

Some on Youtube, but lots of conspiracy theorists cherry-picking or very small segments, unfortunately.

Well, lecture is over anyway, so whatevs.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am procrastinating the fuck out of a presentation that I need to finish/post powerpoints for tonight.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Jesus fuck. The other two TAs are nice people, but I don't know why they agreed to TA this term, as they clearly don't have time to do it. They don't even respond to emails from students asking for study help unless I CC the professor; I don't mind that they make themselves completely unavailable during the day Mon-Fri, but given that I'm doing twice the grading that they are, responding to emails, and scheduling study sessions during the week, and their excuse is that they're only available weekends and evenings, you'd think they could bother to respond to the rare student who can't meet during the weekday and wants to know whether anyone is available weekends and evenings.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

OK, nobody cares, but... I wrote this up for my part of a group presentation on Wednesday. I am deeply dissatisfied with it, but given the time I had to work on it I think it's probably good enough. I have a question, though; does the "What's the connection with attention?" part seem shoehorned in? Should I just cut it, or maybe merge a couple of the key points with the next section?

1. What is Temporal Lobe Epilepsy?

Ramachandran introduces us to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, which I will henceforth refer to as "TLE", as a form of focal seizures localized to one region of the brain,  in this case the limbic system, characterized by symptoms of intense emotional experience, simple partial seizures, also known as auras, complex partial seizures, also known as absence seizures, and memory loss or disruption.

According to the Epilepsy Foundation, TLE is the most common form of epilepsy, making up about 60% of all epilepsy diagnoses. Its onset tends to be preceded by head injury or febrile seizure, and usually occurs prior to puberty or near the end of adolescence.  Seizures can be difficult to recognize; simple partial seizures most often take the form of gastrointestinal upset and mood disturbances along with auditory or olfactory hallucinations, while complex partial seizures often involve freezing in place, "spacing out", and inability to speak comprehensibly or to understand words being spoken.

There are two types of TLE, neocortical temporal, which makes up about 20% of cases, and mesial temporal, which makes up about 80% of cases; I am most interested in the mesial temporal form, mTLE, which typically originates in the hippocampus or nearby limbic structures.

2. What's the connection with attention?

In 2010 a small brain imaging study conducted on boys with ADHD by Kobel, et. al. found decreased gray matter in regions of the right temporal lobe, as compared to the controls. 

Another study, conducted in 2010 by Zhang et al, found that the attention network is impaired in patients with mTLE. They also found differences in default mode network disruptions between patients with left mTLE and right mTLE.

But the most clear-cut connection so far is that there are much higher rates of ADHD among people with epilepsy, including TLE.
   
3. Epilepsy and ADHD

According to a 2009 literature review by Kaufman, Goldberg-Stern, and Shuper, research has found that at least 20% of children with epilepsy have ADHD, dwarfing the 5-to-7% rate in the general population.  A 2003 study by David Dunn found that out of the 175 children with epilepsy examined, 38% showed clinical signs of ADHD.

Interestingly, in a reversal of trends in the general population, of the children with epilepsy who met the criteria for ADHD, more were girls; 44% as opposed to an inclusion rate of 32% for boys, while in the general population boys are diagnosed with ADHD more frequently than girls, at about a 3 to 1 ratio. They also found that the inattentive type of ADHD was more prevalent among both boys and girls, at about 64%, while in the general population ADHD-inattentive type is found in only about 13% of boys and is more common in girls, at about 35%.

Although Dunn anticipated finding higher rates of ADHD in children with seizures focused in the frontal lobe, due to earlier research implicating the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as important for attention, his research found no statistically significant difference in rates of ADHD between children with frontal-lobe focal seizures and children with seizures focused in the temporal lobe.

4. Why does this connection exist?

There are many reasons there might be a correlation, but the ones I found most intriguing are the following two possibilities:

•   Epilepsy causes disruption in brain function that causes ADHD, or
•   ADHD and epilepsy share at least some causative factors in common, so that when one is present the other is also likely to be present

The latter possibility, in particular, interests me because of studies that found that rats with a genetic predisposition toward epilepsy have brains that are deficient in catecholamine neurotransmitters in some areas, and other research that indicates that children with ADHD may have a dysregulation of catecholamine neurotransmitters. This is unsurprising due to the roles of dopamine and epinephrine in motivation and attention. Furthermore, most medications for ADHD, such as Methylphenidate, act by inhibiting the reuptake of catecholamines, particularly dopamine.
   
5. Implications for further research

Given the clear link between ADHD and research implicating that the medial temporal lobe may play a mediating role in the attention network, further research should be undertaken in this area, focusing on differences in the medial temporal region in children with ADHD-inattentive type vs. control groups. I would also be interested in further research on patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, using larger sample sizes for more conclusive results.

[LMNO]

Perhaps it should be a statement rather than a question?

"Possible connections with attention" or some such.  It's an interesting subject, by the way.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Perhaps it should be a statement rather than a question?

"Possible connections with attention" or some such.  It's an interesting subject, by the way.

Thanks! It's a verbal presentation rather than a research paper, so the headers are cues for my tonal quality (and a reminder to advance my slides) while presenting.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Speaking of interesting subjects, I am currently "watching" a video which is not only not interesting (demonstration of how laboratory mice are given PTSD) but is also far, far too long, and voiced over with such a heavy accent that I pretty much have to read the subtitles, minimizing my ability to do other things while it's playing.