The rewards of research

So one of the benefits(?) of being on the postgraduates mailing list is receiving regular offers of money for being a research subject. The latest one was rapidly followed up by an appeal for people to stop volunteering - the researcher had managed to recruit enough subjects willing to have a plastic tube (for anal manometry) inserted up their backsides - for £50. 

The going rate for an EEG seems to be just £8 though.

2013 Feb 15

Yesterday:
Applied electrodes and performed an EEG on Colin. Being sleep deprived (he's got a baby too), he reached Stage 2 sleep within 10 minutes! And had loads of sleep spindles. This gave me the idea of looking for periodicity in spindle power to try to detect the 'EEG signature of memory consolidation'.
Re-read some key references; marvelled that I had not noticed before that the slow oscillation requires DC EEG with head restraint(!) to detect. Or at least it did circa 2002. Which was 10 years ago - maybe things have moved on a bit since. 

2013 Feb 13

Rest of yesterday: 

removed electrodes using acetone (fumes!!!); got to see the new space-age medicine cupboards in the treatment room (nurse fingerprint recognition!!) 

Today: 

Emailed sleep lab technician re: AASM manuals. 

EEG teaching: 

Introducing my PhD/ new mum blog

OK it's time to revive this old thing, I think, as I can't think of a good place to record my informal supervisory (and other) meetings for my project. A combination of cycling to work (therefore needing to travel light), having 3 different workplaces, and having a baby (logistical nightmare!) means that a conventional paper log is just not going to work. A full update in the next post, but here's what I needed to record somewhere before I forget it all:

 Tuesday, 5 Feb 2013
 My first clinic since returning from maternity leave. On the theme of Dravet (or Dravet-like, with a big deletion containing 3 SCN genes)syndrome. Luckily Prof H thought my letters were excellent.

Thursday and Friday 7, 8 Feb 2013
Met H, and then S and K the following day, to discuss the technicalities of wiring up pre-surgical patients to PSG given limited headbox ports. Still need an AASM manual - to email R. At YE: to email IT guy re: portable encrypted hard drive for data back-up. Also re: space on network server.

Weekend:
Cleaner came on Saturday morning for 3 hours. Booked tickets and hotel for Tubingen - bringing the baby along again! Chinese new year reunion dinner on Sat - A's first!

Monday 11 Feb 2013 Spent the morning helping the telemetry crew to wire up patients, including one for a single night of (almost) polysomnography. Did some VIREPA coursework. Finalised details of Tubingen visit with lab team. Delivery of new computer (not impressed with Windows 8).

Tuesday 12 Feb 2013 No more breast milk this morning. A seems to have accepted this with little fuss. Dug out old (pre-pregnancy) bras.