Week of Nov. 9

Lots of data collection going on these days. I was out at Stonehenge on Friday (always a stressful experience) - despite some trouble getting started due to the women being on a nature walk, I did manage to collect 7 participants worth of data. That's six extra for the face devaluation paradigm, and one solitary person for the Mondrian Value Learning. I was supposed to have an extra three, but two of them were embroiled in some sort of drama and one had a hugely hard time with the paradigm, so she didn't want to take part.

I am also running an extra 12 (or so) undergrads for my Mond Deval study. I analysed the data and it is looking a bit funny (ie. quite a few people appear to like the loss stimuli better than the gain, in opposition to my lovely pilot study) so I am also giving them a quick questionnaire about what strategies they are using. I hope this will help!

Angele has taken over the Hot or Not analysis. She has been having trouble with it, but I have gone over it with her quite a few times, so hopefully now she is able to do the analysis and report it. She was confused about how to report the statistical significance, so I will send her an example of that for reference.

Other than that I have been super busy with marking and work for my NEUR*6000 course. Two more assignments for that are due in November, though I have to say on the whole it is not as much work as I feared. (Luckily!)

Also, Alex, Asma and I are doing an inhibition/self-regulation study. My "job" is to enter all the questionnaires we will be using (self-regulation, social desirability, etc) into E-Prime. That is pretty much done and I think we will be ready to go with this one very soon.

Had a meeting with Mark yesterday, and this week I will be trying to a) reanalyze all the STC data, looking at RTs, ACC etc and also doing all the correlations, and b). start writing up the Hot or Not/Mondrian Deval stuff. I need to at least have an abstract by Dec 1 so I can apply for VSS. Gonna be a busy week.

Whoops, haven't updated for a while. This is due to insane busy-ness and not lack of things getting done, though. I've added a to-do list section to my wiki, which is invaluable in terms of keeping track of what is going on. So, from that list, here are things that got done in the last few weeks.


Week of Oct 19


Mondrian Value Learning

- Make Red+ learning

- make Red+ practice

- look at pilot data

- counterbalance devaluation - red go first



NEUR 6000
- start Research Proposal




TAing

- check re: what images they can use

- meet with groups 1 and 3



Other to dos:

- read articles from Karly

- update Fenske wiki on self-regulation paradigm

- email Jan

- make thing for Jan to read to women/send signup sheet



Week Oct 14

OGS

- Due TODAY - write up academic credentials thingy



NEUR 6000

- write presentation

- get fMRI background



TAing

- look over proposals

- info from Mark on what he is looking for?

- Mark 2360 exams

- mark 4600 exams

- email 4600 groups

- sort out lesson plan for Monday



Mondrian Value Learning

- new learning part

- devaluation part

- practice



Week of Oct 5



TAing:

- look at Wikipedia tutorial

- see if there are obvious gaps in the current Wikipedia info on Cog Neuro



Other to dos:

- start OGS

- Friday: send out article to lab (for next week's lab mtg)



NEUR*6000

- read through Dan Meegan paper

- start thinking of how to present

- seminar critique done/sent


Value Learning:

- get a few people to run through it

- analyse data





week of Sept 28



SD Review

- read through

- fix by Friday!



TAing:

- email Robin re: swapping invigilation

- deal with student emails

- make rest of groups



Other to dos:

- write Wiki article for TAbloid

- register for NACS?

- email Angele re: running the last of the Hot or Not

- get set up on SONA

- sign up participants for Friday



Value Learning:

- fix various bits and pieces of VL experiment

- make Yellow+ and Red+ versions


NEUR

- read articles for this week

So, quite a lot really. I am pretty pleased with productivity. I applied for everything I'm supposed to apply for, scholarship-wise, finished running Hot or Not, made and ran a pilot for the Mondrian Value Learning and analysed the data, made and started running the Mondrian Devaluation experiment, did a presentation for NEUR*6000, kept up with all my TAing stuff and did a few other little things like writing an article for TAbloid, the TA newsletter.

Next week our huge NSERC proposal is due for NEUR*6000. I have started, but don't really have a clear idea of exactly what experiments I will propose. As well, I want to get the rest of my data for the Mondrian Devaluation stuff collected this week. Right now with everything else that feels like a tall order, so it will be another busy one.

Oh, and of course the most exciting thing - we have results for both the Hot or Not and Mondrian Devaluation experiments - and looks like there's something there for both! Angele is in charge of doing some of the analysis for the Hot or Not, and I will finish up looking at the Mondrian Devaluation stuff once I have the rest of the participants run.

Meeting Sept 21

Sorted out TA stuff. To do:

- look at Wikipedia tutorial
- look at setting up group discussions in courselink
- see if there are obvious gaps in the current Wikipedia info on Cog Neuro

- talk to Amber Johnston about swapping invigilation

Other to dos:

- Make change form for Ben for Stonehenge and ask him to send it, otherwise we can't test out there anymore

- update change request for the Value Learning and send to Sandra (done)
- fix various bits and pieces of VL experiment
- make Yellow+ and Red+ versions
- get a few people to run through it
- analyse data

- get all data for Hot or Not, add to analysis and send to Mark
- speak to Angele about starting testing again

- finish NSERC proposal, send to Mark
- get Danae to read over?
- finish Contributions and Statements and send to Mark
- update resume

- speak to Karly about sorting out references for SD Review
- decide on EndNote vs. RefWorks

Whew! Looks like another busy week...

1st week of classes craziness

Good lord, it has been a busy week. I spent most of it feeling frantic, but everything is getting done so it is all good.

Very short meeting this week so we just dealt with the major issues.

1. TA stuff - signed and off to Robin

2. I don't seem to be listed as a student for some reason
- spoke to Robin about this and she thinks she may have got it sorted out. Robin is a star.

3. Value Learning
- Mark hasn't had a chance to look at the program yet. Hopefully on Monday.
- ethics change form needed

4. NSERC
- in progress, had a good discussion of what to write.


This week, I have written up an ethics change form, did a lot of work on the SD review and did more with my NSERC app. The SD review is now in Ben's court, which is a huge relief as I feel I've been doing all of it. He will add what he can before next Friday and then I will look it over one more time. I have also spoken to Karly about helping out with references, so will get that started too.

To do this week:

- NSERC research proposal fully written by Monday
- other bits of NSERC to be worked on during the week (CV, personal statement thing etc)
- TA conference all day Sat plus volunteering
- Sort out EndNote
- Speak to Karly about getting the references sorted
- find out about Helena's stuff about in utero cocaine exposure
- do all versions of VL exp't if approved
- write SD review abstract


To discuss with Mark on Monday:
- Go over ethics change form and submit
- Go over exp't and make sure ready to go
- Decide on exact procedure re: paying ppts
- NSERC: will have research proposal ready, so go over that
- ask re:NSERC letter of reference

Beginning of September

It has been a really good week, as I finally solved all the problems with the Value Learning E-Prime (thanks to Kamil and Mark) and have a version up and running. This is VERY exciting after weeks of staring at it wondering why it won't work properly. I am waiting to hear back from Mark on nitpicks and also the ethics situation, but as far as I'm concerned I think it is nearly ready to run.

Had a look at the data from the Hot or Not Inhibition study this week as well. If we remove one person who rated everyone of both sexes very low, we get significant differences between go and no go on the people who they are not attracted to, but non-significant on the people they are attracted to. However, our N is still pretty low so I will run more ppts to get us up to 24 usable ones. Then we should have a better idea of what exactly is going on.

In other news, heard from Jan at Stonehenge that things are crazy there right now and could I please not bother her for three weeks or so. (not in so many words!) Fair enough, so that project is on the back burner until the end of September.

We have a draft of the SD review!!!! Sort of. But I have been working quite hard on it this week and it is getting much more readable. Ben finally uploaded something, but I haven't really looked at it as have been working on fleshing out the final section on attentional training. Some quite cool experiments, but sadly not looking like the results are clinically applicable.

And finally, Christian stopped by and determined that my Python problems are something Mac-related. He is determined to find a solution. Once one is found, I will attempt to make the Value Learning experiment in Python as well (and then we will have a choice of methods).

To do*:

- try modifying E-Prime so that we can modify the win/loss contingency
- work on SD review
- NSERC proposal

* but I may be away portaging all next week, so not too much may get done.

Week of Aug 24

After the Week of Frustration last week, things are beginning to pick up. We have some data from Hot or Not, and are testing here and there.

Had a huge breakthrough in the Value Learning E-Prime programming today (thanks to my neighbour who knows Visual Basic) and now have a working version of a program that will present Gain and Loss stimuli, add five cents for a correct response, take five cents away for an incorrect response, and update the total after every trial. Victory! Still working on a version that will handle Neutral stimuli - hopefully that will be ready soon.

Spent a whole day yesterday with Ben working on the SD Review. We revised the outline to make more sense and flow better, and I am much happier with it now. There are a few sections where Ben has papers and just needs to add the info to the wiki, so am just waiting for him to do that and then I think we will have most of a draft. I feel like we are much further forward after yesterday.

Started brainstorming ideas for NSERC applications. I think I will end up pitching the Value Learning stuff. Need to work on this more next week.

Emailed Jan at Stonehenge twice, but no reply. I guess we will leave that for now.

Things I learned this week:

1. Tabbing matters when programming Inlines. Things that are tabbed in will run only in the current Procedure (local). Things that are flush to the left side of the window will attempt to run globally - ie. they will run through once when the experiment starts and not every trial.

2. Declaring everything as an integer = BAD IDEA if you are working with decimals.

From Kamil:


There are a series of different types:
Bit, or boolean (1 and 0, or true and false)
- Dim x As Boolean
Integer (+ve and -ve whole numbers)
- Dim x As Integer
Unsigned Integer (+ve whole numbers)
- Dim x As UInteger
Floating point values (decimal numbers)
- Dim x As Single
Double values (decimal numbers, higher precision, higher range)
- Dim x As Double
ETC...

Once again, floating point values are sufficient for basic calculations.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/47zceaw7(VS.80).aspx
Gives a detailed description of what exists, and what are the specifics of each.

Mark & Anne Meeting Aug 20: Week of Frustration version

- Went into long-winded explanation of recent E-Prime problems with script not generating

- Hot or Not:
- Stop testing now till students return
- For now, will not use people who indicated 4, 5, or 6 on the attractiveness scale because everyone is motivationally relevant to them
- will have a look at the data with Angele and show her how to analyse it

- Value Learning:
- having mega trouble getting Vision Egg to talk to my Mac
- have just tested the program using Asma's laptop, though, and the problem appears to be the code. Will speak to Christian
- New plan: keep working on Python, but also make a version in E-Prime just for the preliminary stuff
- 10 images per category (3 categories), each image seen 5 times each in learning
- testing will use both previously-seen and novel images
- ratings of 30 old and 30 novel images

- SD Review:
- going to meet with Ben next week to get this thing whipped into shape
- plan is to have a super detailed outline ready for Thursday so we all know exactly what we are saying

To do:
- brainstorm three ideas for NSERC
- start VL E-Prime program
- meet with Ben re: SD review
- email Jan at Stonehenge to ask about testing
- try to get Python stuff working (try on Windows side of testing Macs?)

no meeting this week, so just an update

I would just like to say, it is amazing how unmotivated I feel on weeks we don't have a Wednesday meeting. Well, I am still motivated (lord knows I am DYING to collect some Hot or Not data!) but I don't have the same excitement about the research as after I've just spent an hour discussing it with someone who thinks it is equally cool. I guess you can take that as a giant compliment, Mark.

Anyway, things continue. Today I am off to Stonehenge to (hopefully) collect a bit more data from the women. I was sort of worried I'd collect all this and never use it, but Mark seems certain we will use it for SOMETHING, so that's good. It really is a giant pain, so I'd hate to do it all for nothing!

Last week I went to the Stonehenge recognition lunch in an attempt to build some bridges. It was kind of weird - they have a LOT of rules about which I know nothing. It's really like being in a foreign country sometimes, where you have no idea what the etiquette is. However, they fed me a hot dog and red juice, and then I went to their little awards ceremony and that was nice. (Oh, and attended a fire drill, just for authenticity!)

In other news, Ben has cancelled our SD review meeting for this week, so am guessing he hasn't done much. I've collected some information but haven't done much writing. Maybe today or tomorrow - really want to get some kind of draft done, even a rubbish one.

On the plus side, we are in good shape with Hot or Not. Had a big setback last Friday when the images weren't lining up properly and it was a matter of messing with the code rather than the easy non-code E-Prime. I went in on the holiday Monday (dedicated, I know!) and managed to get it working again. The images were also really small, but I have come to the conclusion that they looked full-size on the SurveyMonkey site just due to differences in how they are displayed for the web vs. on E-Prime. I doubled the size of them for the E-Prime and they look fine. I've also gone through and fixed a bunch of images that got cropped incorrectly (looks like they were run through a batch processor at some point), so that is all done.

So currently, Angele is making the practice programs (I am hoping it should be easy enough for her - the images are all selected) and then I need to run through the whole thing and have a look at the data, and then I think we can run. We are having technical issues where I can't get my thumb drive to connect to the testing computer so she can work on it at the lab - very annoying. However, we will get it done.

And finally, should I get a burst of energy this week, I would like to a). do my Python homework as I've fallen way behind from missing a few weeks, and b). sort out the value learning experiment. It may be that we could test both together within an hour, which would be excellent.

All right! Back from all vacation and stat holidays and working hard. Just had a quick meeting last week. Here are the highlights:

1. Hot or Not:
- Angele kindly ran the rating bit while I was away. As of the meeting last week, she was supposed to be getting me the data.
- When she did, it turned out that there were some big problems with the spreadsheet - numbers not matching up, etc. I took Thursday to fix this stuff and get it 100% right.
- gave it back to Angele to update the data on it now that everything was correct, but didn't get this back until Friday afternoon because her computer was overheating
- however, I have now finished the list of the top 48 people in each group and have adjusted the whole thing until the average ratings were the same for each group.
- have given back to Angele to add to E-Prime
- also need to have a quick look at the inter-subject variability
- with any luck, should be testing by next week for sure

2. SD Review - attempting to set up a meeting for Thursday afternoon, but have only been hearing from Ben sporadically.

3. List of things that need fixing in lab: forgot about this with all the excitement of moving. Will email to Mark ASAP.

4. NSERC timeline - will ask Robin but think she is on holidays just now.

5. On the to-do list: grad student progress report and TA applications are both due, but both are in progress.

Also, in other big news, we have moved labs! Asma and I put together our fancy new chairs today and they are great. (Have also shelled out for a memory foam pillow, so hopefully no more debilitating pinched nerves and whatnot). Liking the new place so far, even if it is only temporary.

Mark and Anne Meeting June 24

Bad news - did not get the gambling scholarship. Very disappointing - that was a lot of work! However.

In other news, the SurveyMonkey stuff is pretty much ready to go. I have fixed the instructions and am in the process of fixing the blurry photographs (which happened when a too-small photograph was used and then made bigger). We will be ready to run very soon. Dustin has tested it, though, and it took him 1.5hours, so not sure what to do about that. We may have to split up the task between subjects.

The review continues apace. Spending today locked up in Ben's lab working on it from 9 -4 - that ought to get us somewhere. Tomorrow we will meet and get a new draft of the outline ready to go.

Did a lot of thinking on the value learning stuff, and will discuss with Mark tomorrow.

To do:
- sort out external advisor
- finish up hot or not surveys
- send Mark data from Stonehenge
- SD review - 2 days of hard work - all papers summarised

And finally, need to sort out my advisory committee ASAP, so spending some time researching that this week.

Mark & Anne Meeting June 17 (plus updates)

1. Hot or Not: at a good point with this. Angele and I have photoshopped (well, Graphic Converter-ed) all 400 stimuli. Angele has set up placeholders in SurveyMonkey so we can add them in. This will take forever, but am hoping to have at least one ready to go by Wednesday or so. The rest we will do as quick as we can, but this way at least we could start running.

2. Value learning: had a talk about how best to do that. Need to decide on what type of stimuli to use (have pretty much decided to have people learn classes of stimuli). Mark suggested either mondrians or Leptons. Need to discuss this further, although I have written out a few experiments we could try and can get moving on this once the details are decided.

- The value learning bit is basically written in Python and could be ready to go with a bit of fiddling once we have stimuli

- the inhibitory devaluation will likely use the same paradigm we are already using for the Stonehenge stuff, so also more or less ready once the stimuli are done.

3. SD Review - met with Ben last Wed and again today. He's now got some articles summarized, just not in the outline section yet. I am hopeful that will be done by Friday. My stuff is nearly done - one more topic to go.

- we have planned to spend this Thursday and Friday exclusively working on this.


Also went to the SWAP conference in Hamilton this week. Lots of grad student and other presentations.

Mark and Anne meeting June 10

Whoops, accidentally skipped the June 3 update, but nothing much happened. That was a productive week SD Review-wise, and I collected some Stonehenge women data. I analysed it to see if there was anything useful (in case I could present at this SWAP conference), but no luck. Two of the women had really low Go/No Go accuracy, which was very disappointing and left us with not much to go on. Here is the email I sent Mark regarding that data:

> Well, the women are all over the place. However, I just read a paper
> for the SD review saying that women use different brain regions for
> inhibition, so they would have to have a high N to get decent
> results (it was an imaging study). So maybe they are just more
> variable in general. Also, there are only three of them currently.
>
> At any rate, I added in the controls (from the data we used for the
> poster) and have attached the new graph. On the no-go Trust ratings
> the women are going entirely in the opposite direction of all other
> groups. Apart from that, looking at all the SD people vs. the
> controls, they are not that far off. I am going to go back in a sec
> and see if I can find my original control data including women, and
> add that in to see if it helps clarify.
>
> I'm not really sure what to make of this, but I get the impression
> that we could really use a few more participants before being able
> to really tell what we are seeing.

So basically, nothing doing at the moment.

HOWEVER, I am set up to go out to Stonehenge tomorrow afternoon. I will give my little spiel about my research, and see if I can't convince some women to either be tested right then, or to set up a time for next week. Fingers crossed.

In other news, my half of the SD review is going well. Have figured out a great method for quickly going through papers and summarizing, then re-summarizing to a one-or-two-line sentence that could go straight into a paragraph of the finished paper. Really pleased as this is quick and totally traceable (always know where to find the paper in question but also have a detailed summary for memory-refreshing purposes).

Unfortunately, Ben hasn't started his yet (bar doing some reading). I am a little disappointed, but hopeful that we can get moving on it. In the meantime, I've shown him my method and we've divided up the remaining sections so there is always something to work on.

Mark decided to put the London alcoholics collaboration on the back burner for now, until we have some good, consistent data so we have something to try and replicate.

Had a meeting for the Hot or Not study. Angele is working hard on collecting stimuli. Still having a bit of trouble with the blond men. I sent her what I found, but it turns out some is not useful if they are not standing up. However, rumour has it she is leaving for ten days in June, so we are meeting Friday to re-evaluate where we are and make a plan of action. I would be happy to sort it out while she's gone (just want to be careful as it is her project!)

And finally, I want to try out some of this Value Learning stuff, similar to Jane's but a bit more direct. To that end, I wrote up an experiment and sent it to Christian. He has made it into an awesome Python program, which we worked on today in Python class. My next steps are to gather more info about expected value for Mark, and to figure out what our output data should look like for Christian.

To do:

- read up on EV
- find key references and send that and a summary to Mark
- decide how data output should look and send to Christian/Alex/Asma (copy Mark)
- meet re: Hot or Not, do whatever needs to be done re: E-Prime etc
- Stonehenge - give talk, maybe collect data
- SD Review: ongoing
- find book on python and read it

Mark & Anne Meeting May 27

- fMRI conference went really well
- been a busy week!
- am in charge of journal club articles this week, so am going to suggest doing the mind-wandering papers mentioned by Kalina Christoff at the conference

1). Hot or Not:
Totally forgot to get Ben's ethics. (Oops). He has now agreed to send them and his stimuli but still hasn't done so. Met with Angele yesterday and we went over possible experiment design and found the form we need to make changes to ethics. Problem is, I haven't seen the original ethics form we are proposing to change so I couldn't fill it all out. Meeting this afternoon to hopefully sort this out. Mark wants Angele to write the ethics, but without seeing what we're working with I'm not sure what to get her to do.

We have IAPS now, and Angele and I went through and categorized potentially useful ones. They are fine, but there aren't a lot of them, so really depends on the experiment design. Or I suppose we could do one IAPS block and one block of random hot people off the internet (or borrow Ben's).

At today's meeting I hope to get the ethics entirely sorted (to the point where I know what to do and can go do it), decide on stimuli for sure, and find out if there is an existing E-Prime program I can use or if we should make a new one (which I will get Angele to do, for practice/learning purposes).


2). STC

In very good shape here, in my opinion. Managed to collect four participants' worth of data on Monday and Tuesday, which is pretty good going. It went well. Unfortunately that is all we can do for now, as the other two women currently at STC are not interested. I am returning to Stonehenge on June 5 to give another presentation to the new women who will have started by then. I plan to bring the laptop along in case I can set up a few bookings for that day. Otherwise, I will sign them up for the following week.

Something important to bear in mind: one girl mentioned she has ADHD, which we hadn't been asking about. I will add in a question regarding ADHD, depression or any other diagnosis which may be relevant. This girl had a very hard time with the go/no go task, which makes perfect sense as those with ADHD find it difficult.


3). SD Review

Lit search is done (for now) and we are started on reading/summarizing/making a greatly detailed outline. Met with Mark yesterday, which was very helpful. I am burning through papers and plan to make the outline super detailed, to the point where it will practically write itself. Both Ben and I are motivated to have it done by the end of the summer.

4). Potential collaboration with London people in Jo's lab

Jo has passed on information about her supervisor. We will discuss potential projects next week. Will email Jo to let her know.



In other news, had a hugely hard time with my Python homework this week. Am hoping to give it another shot on the weekend. Been a busy week, though, and very productive.

Meeting May 20 and further updates

I was sick pretty much all week, so not too much progress.

- Studentship proposal handed in (mean post office lady notwithstanding) and all seems good

- Meeting at Stonehenge as reported below
- major problems with figuring out who has signed up led to missing participants on Tuesday when staff did not return my email asking if anyone has signed up and what time
- to avoid this in future, will try to start a schedule of leaving a sheet one week/picking it up the next, although with only 6 women in currently will not be testing too much
- Ben and I have met and I now have all the info (consent form, debrief, questionnaire). Also up on the-craic.


- bit of work done on lit review, but have just met with Ben and revised outline - is starting to come together!

- Met with Mark and Angele last week. Stimuli will hopefully be in for Hot or Not soon, but either way am meeting Angele tomorrow and hoping to get started

- Python homework

Other news: my friend Jo (in London) has been down with some kind of horrible disease, but will speak to her supervisor today and send us some info on their lab.


To Do:
- work on lit for SD review
- Stonehenge - nobody today, but will go in Monday/Tuesday to get started
- meet with Angele and sort out stimuli (if arrived)
- fMRI conference this weekend

Meeting May 13 and May 11 and 14 Stonehenge visits

Ben and I went to visit Stonehenge on Monday to attend a staff meeting and update the staff on our research. I brought along copies of our Neuroscience Day poster and a print-out of the experimental paradigm itself, in case anyone was concerned. They were a very attentive audience and seemed quite keen to continue our collaboration. They were even kind enough to give us a ride back to the bus (cutting down on cab fare!)

During that meeting, I set up a meeting with Jan from the women's centre for the following Thursday (May 14). That went extremely well also. I didn't realise she was planning have me give a presentation to the women while I was there, but actually it worked out really well to do it that way as now they've all met me and had a chance to ask questions. I talked a little about the background of the research and what we hope to accomplish eventually (hopefully helping to reduce drug-stimuli-induced cravings etc) and told them exactly what the experiment would involve. They all seemed interested and have asked me to come back and present the results once I've got the data collected and analyzed (which I would be happy to do). Jan then spoke and emphasized how this sort of research might help people like them in the future, and how not much research has been done with women struggling with addiction.

Ben sent me his sign-up sheet, and Jan filled in times that the women would be free for me to test. I made the on-the-spot decision to accept everything she was offering, even if that makes it awkward since Ben and I will have to share a laptop. The sooner we get through this, the better! Currently I have next Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, as well as the Monday after the bank holiday.

Meeting with Mark: Just a chance to check in, really. Things are starting to hum along, finally. Stonehenge project is getting started, as above. Ontario Problem Gambling studentship is done and handed in (as of now) except that I still need to post my documents before 5pm.

Met with Angele last Friday re: the Hot or Not project. We decided the first major issue to get our paws on a copy of IAPS, unless Robin has some other database of stimuli that would be more useful. From what I understand, Angele is currently conducting a lit review. She is keen to learn E-Prime, so I will go over that with her once we have our stimuli ready to go.

Lit review for the SD/Attention stuff is moving forward. Met with Ben this week, who has promised to update the wiki with the literature that he has collected over the course of his PhD. We did go over our respective lists and noted which papers were duplicates. Ben has agreed to do a short meeting every week, then spend an hour or so sitting somewhere and working on this project, which I think will help a lot in keeping things moving.

To do:
- Ontario Problem Gambling studentship handed in
- continue lit review
- Python homework
- meet Mark/Angele re: Hot or Not
- talk to Ben about consent/debriefs etc for Stonehenge and arrange laptop custody
- see if I can jury-rig Ben's laptop so the plug doesn't fall out!

Mark & Anne Meeting May 6

Things are ticking along. Gambling proposal draft is done (Mark to edit via Track Changes and get back to me), lit review is well underway, and planning to get Hot or Not project started ASAP.

To Do this week:

- continue lit review
- contact Cheri at Stonehenge and ask if I can come by on Monday
- give presentation to Stonehenge on Monday
- meeting with Angele Friday for Hot or Not
- look up IAPS
- Python homework for Christian
- finalise gambling proposal
- collect all letters and transcripts and post
- write CV
- look up price of next level of PBWorks so we can get backups (if necessary)

Stonehenge

Finally made it to Stonehenge! Ben and I went to the men's house this morning to meet with Cheri and the staff. Cheri was lovely, as promised, and very keen to help. She had no problem at all with the idea of my doing some testing on the women (we emphasized that for this round, no drug-related stimuli will be involved) and has promised to ask her supervisor about it. I left my email address and am hoping that Cheri will email me soon to let me know what Heather (supervisor) said. Then I hope to either meet with both of them, if they'd prefer that, or go straight out to the women's centre and meet the staff and residents there. With any luck, I may be able to start testing shortly after that. Cheri seemed to think it definitely would not be a problem, which is very encouraging.

Also learned a little about the therapeutic treatment centre model. I am pretty ignorant about anything to do with actual treatment, having never taken anything clinical at all, so it was interesting. I was then given a tour of the buildings by a resident called Mike R. That was an eye-opener. Besides the tour, he told me a lot about what kind of things he is doing in the course of his treatment, and a LOT about his anger issues and the deeper issues that cause them (eg. hurt is acted out as anger). It was pretty interesting. Bit hard to know what to say, but I guess that will come with time. Anyway, everyone made me feel very comfortable (although it is a bit of a weird atmosphere if you're an outsider) and I think testing there will probably work out, since the staff are so helpful.

Mark & Anne Meeting April 29

Got a little distracted from updating there because I have a giant staph infection on my leg (they think). However, got two types of antibiotics now, so should be all good.

Anyway, another good meeting. Feeling that things are moving forward (finally, one could say). Got a draft of the gambling proposal done except for the actual experiments involved. However, I have a pretty good idea of how they will work, so should have a final draft done for next week, giving time for revisions (if necessary) and formatting.

Also decided on a specific list for the SD lit review. A nice concrete list of goals to focus on, my favorite! Showed it to Ben and he was quite impressed.

Stonehenge tomorrow, for real this time. We have an appointment, we have a way to get there, and we have a plan.

Also this week: started proceedings to switch into PSYC+NEUR. That should go quickly - Asma's already done hers.

And finally, mentioned our research interests to my friend Jo in London, and she told me that her supervisor and others in the department (I believe it's a hospital) are doing work along the same lines. She passed on my info to her supervisor and we are considering joining forces at some point. We shall see.

To do:

- write experiment descriptions for gambling proposal
- speak to Harvey M. about subjects for gambling exp'ts and what the gambling research centre is up to
- make suggested revisions and finalise gambling proposal
- trip to Stonehenge
- paperwork for PSYC+NEUR
- SD lit review on the topics discussed
- get new recruit Danielle up to speed on lab stuff

Mark & Anne Meeting April 22

Another meeting that addressed problems I've been having getting moving with some of these projects. Most of my problems stem from not being exactly sure how to tackle these things. It all seems obvious once we've discussed it, though! Sigh.

1). Ontario Problem Gambling Studentship
Feel like I've got a pretty good start on this. Transcripts ordered (not without difficulty!), letters of reference requested, etc.

The proposal is started, but is still in hacked-together format. I wrote up the affective devaluation stuff (to be posted on the wiki in due course) but now need to rethink the whole thing, develop an outline and go from there.

Discussed adding in some self-regulation stuff. I know very little about it just now, but sounds like it's a pretty good fit for this proposal. Mark has sent me some information from the SSHRC grant to have a look at.

Here is a skeleton outline of the proposal:
Attention/disordered attention are important in problem gambling.
This could help us treat problem gambling in two ways:
1). Improve self-control via self-regulation
2). Reduce the salience of gambling-related cues via inhibitory devaluation.


To do:
- read stuff on self-regulation
- decide if it's useful for this proposal
- draft proposal outline
- write up draft
- Ask Robyn Fraser re: letter of registration from the uni

2). Stonehenge
ARGH still no luck. Couldn't do last Friday. Ben has promised this Friday. Fingers crossed.

Agreed that if Friday is not a go, Mark and I will start looking at alternative ways to get me in there.

3). SD Review
Have been doing reading for this but feeling like I don't know where to start. Mark sensibly pointed out that I might think about starting at the beginning.

New plan: draft outline and find papers/evidence that fill in sections of that outline. Much more sensible.

Ben postponed yesterday's meeting till tomorrow. My goal at that meeting is get him to agree to a REALISTIC timeline for this, so we have something to work towards and it doesn't fall by the wayside. Also, I plan to pick his brain re: his use of erotic stimuli as a model for the attentional effects of SD cues in the normal population. Sounds like Angele will be in on this one too, but in the meantime at least I can find out about how Ben's been using this.

And that about covers it. Meeting tomorrow to go over experiment ideas. Asma and I plan to work together to get as much as possible done in both our areas. Also, Journal Club started and was really awesome. Nice to toss some ideas around and get Alex's input particularly.

Dr. Gabor Maté

Went to an excellent talk by Dr. Gabor Maté today called "The Four Compassions: A humane response to addictions". It was really worthwhile. Dr. Maté was excellent on the topic of reasons for addiction - ie. adverse childhood experiences. He also talked about epigenetics, in a nice counterpoint to Dr. Kolb's talk at Neuroscience Day. Dr. Kolb talked about animal models of infant neuroplasticity, while Dr. Maté's talk was effectively about the exact same thing, only he used examples taken from his work in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He works with addictions and mental health problems, and most if not all of the people he works with show this pattern of childhood trauma and lack of attachment. He said they compare the feeling of using heroin to getting a hug. These people never received affection, and the closest thing they can find comes out of a needle.

There was also a very strong theme of "judge not lest ye be judged", which is definitely going to be something to keep in mind while working with these kinds of populations. (I would imagine, anyway - hopefully this Stonehenge visit will happen soon!)

Finally, in the questions section, Dr. Maté talked about the very strong link between ADD/ADHD, gambling problems, and addiction. Hmmm. Possibly something to screen for in our populations? Maybe even address?

However, this did depress me a little in research terms. Most substance-dependent individuals clearly have a lot of underlying problems. How likely is it that a purely cognitive manipulation will help? I'm eager to get started on seeing if we can get this devaluation effect in undergrad using sexual stimuli or however we decide to do that - or maybe in a population like smokers. Just to see if it's going to work so we can get moving on the bigger stuff.

Mark meeting April 8

Had a good long talk about some things that have been on my mind.

1. Advisory Committee:
This needs to be decided by six weeks into the semester. After having a talk with Ben about the whole committee-choosing thing, I think maybe we should ask Dan Meegan to be the internal committee member. As for external, I've been having a look. There is that guy who came to give the talk on emotions being adaptive for NACS. His lab does some attention/emotion stuff. Beyond that I'm not really sure - suggestions welcome.

2. Qualifying Exam
Don't need to worry about this so much until the committee is selected. However, it is worth checking with Robin when exactly the thing has to be done.

3. Switching to PSYC + NEURO
I think this is kind of a given. I think it might be quite challenging for me, but I think the knowledge will definitely come in handy. Plus, as Mark points out, it definitely doesn't look bad to have something with "Neuroscience" written on it on your degree...

4. Atmosphere in the lab
- chatted about getting more collaborations going on
- Asma seems to have taken this to heart, and we're starting a reading group (which means Asma, Alex and I) Mondays at noon. I think I might start bringing cookies. We will take turns choosing 2-3 journal articles in our area of interest and we'll all discuss 'em.

5. Stonehenge - have pinned Ben down to bringing me the Friday after next (April 17), although he is testing before the meeting so he is worried about what to do with me during that time. So awkward not to have a car.
- once I'm in, can hopefully test some females and get that inhib deval stuff out the door
- Ben reminded me once again that this is a very hard population to work with, etc. etc. As if I'd forgotten...

6. Review Paper
- feel MUCH BETTER about this now. Agreed to make a wiki for it, and Alex just showed me how this morning. That wiki is up and running (as is my PhD-related wiki for keeping track of everything to do with my research - far too cool a tool not to use for myself!)
- subsequently met with Ben, who has agreed to do it. He will take the "attentional deficits in SD" bit, and I will look at "cognitive consequences". We agreed that the brain areas will become apparent through both of our reading, so probably not necessary to specifically assign that to someone.
- furthermore agreed to meet every week, starting the Tuesday after next at 2pm. Then I will be fully up to date for the Wednesday Mark meeting :)
- Ben has also agreed to mention this to Francisco, just in case Mark hasn't already

So that about covers it. I feel 100% better for having a specific idea of what I need to accomplish and when, plus a shiny new tool for keeping track of it all! Even if I just use the wiki for a dumping ground of documents, that's still progress. Here's to a productive summer...