Blogging for Business

I recently came in contact with Diana Lucaci, an enterprising young WOMAN (girl power!) and University of Toronto graduate that has spearheaded Canada's first Neuromarketing company - True Impact Marketing. Already prominent in Europe and other parts of the world, marketing companies are tapping into the interdisciplinary fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience to understand consumer behaviour and provide marketing and strategy advice to their corporate clientele.

I actually came across Diana and True Impact when browsing an online news article, and noticed a figure of one of their test subjects sporting the same Emotiv headsets I am using in my research (see post on conquering EEG and MatLab, in progress!). We got in touch and I was very pleased to guest blog for her on two occasions, with a post on the default mode network and a brief overview on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) geared towards marketers and business professionals who are interested in understanding our wonderful world of neuroscience! Diana and I shared some common ideas for the amazing and useful (and ethical) applications of neuroscientific methods to marketing, advertising, and business models in general. Understanding the emotional undertones of buying behaviour can make for more efficient business practices, save Marketing dollars and improve the end user experience with products and services.

For updates on the latest in the burgeoning field of Neuromarketing, and to stay updated on Canada's premier Neuromarketing firm True Impact, follow Diana Lucaci on Twitter (@NeuromarketingCanada) - I'm sure we'll be seeing more of them, either in the news or through ads and products, very soon! ;)

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Matlab & Research Update

While I wouldn't say that I have dominated the beast that is Matlab, I can say that I have stumbled upon some great online resources:

- Antonia Hamilton's lab for Social Cognition

- MATLAB Tutorial

- Matlab tutorial from University of Utah 

- Matlab tutorial c/o Kristian Sandberg at the University of Colorado at Boulder

- Fieldtrip toolbox, Donders Institute, with lots of samples and helpful tips to work through for this particular toolbox

I am also happy to say that my first Matlab code worked successfully!! :)

I modified a simple code from Keith Schneider (fMRI guru at York U) to serve as a localizer for the extrastriate body area, one of the ROIs in my ongoing PhD studies. Many thanks also to the generosity of Kalanit Grill-Spector and Kevin Weiner for sharing their code and stimuli files with us.  Can't wait to see if it validates the anatomical ROIs I created in Brain Voyager! Results to come soon! :)

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Making Life Easier for York U Students

As if there aren't a zillion ways to waste time in graduate school, I thought I'd take a few minutes to help other researchers and students at York University save some and make the most of theirs!

Neuroscience Research Guides Page > Link to
Neuroscience Journal Databases, with Songza on
in the background (work music is a MUST!)

Free access to article link (left), or link to article through
York U library access (right)

- Finding research articles can often seem like a tactical mission (Saving Private Ramachandran...), but a great place to start is on the York Library website's Research Guides page. Rather than starting off on the home page and general catalogue search, on this page you can select your specific area of research and link to its most useful and relevant journal databases. I have bookmarked the Neuroscience Research Guides page, which includes other useful resources like links to theses and tips on scientific writing. The 'Journal Articles' link under 'Finding Articles" is where the money is; it takes you to a whole list of databases like PubMed, Web of Science and PsychInfo that can find virtually any research article you could ever want. Unfortunately, this page does not bookmark, but it's just one click away from the Neuroscience Research Guides page. Once you select a database, it will redirect you to a search page where you can enter any information you have on your specific article (i.e., authors, journal, article title, year of publication, volume/issue/doi numbers, etc.). Once you find your article, look for a 'Find it at York' link in the upper right corner - this will take you back to the York library server with multiple links to your article. Sometimes, articles are available for free from the journal publisher, and an alternate link will appear where 'Find it at York' will be, and it will take you right to it.

Often, York's libraries do not have the licences for more recent journal issues, but you can request a pdf copy of your article from RACER - an inter-university service that essentially shares academic resources to help York U students with a valid library card find what they need. Graduate students can request as many articles as they want/need per year, and undergraduates can request up to 25 articles per year at no charge ($5/article after the 25). You have to register with your student number before your first RACER request, and articles will be emailed to you in a pdf link, which you can access for free 5 times before the link expires. (Tip: just save the pdf to your hard drive the first time you open it to avoid expiry or viewing restrictions).  
      --> It has happened on a couple of occasions, but when the Find it at York link does not turn up any results, I tried searching the name of the journal in the York Library homepage, and one of the links may suddenly include the year you're looking for, and you can find your article this way.

Google Scholar search results can have free access to pdfs,
or if connected to Air York, will search it through
York's library website

If these tips still don't help you locate your article, try Google Scholar; if being accessed from the Air York network, the 'Find it at York' link should appear in your Google search results too.

If this still doesn't work, consider contacting the corresponding author on the article and kindly requesting a copy of their paper - I'm sure most researchers would be happy to share their hard-earned publications (and if they don't, they're jerks).

- Once you find your research articles, you may want to print them in hard copy. If you don't have a printer in your lab, or want to print from your graduate bursary ($300/year! Use it or lose it!!), install one of the drivers to the printers around campus to print remotely from your laptop. Just make sure you're on the Air York network, and install the proper driver for your operating system & the specific location and printer (black and white or colour) that you want.
      

Make sure you log onto this pop-up screen
before heading to the printer to ensure
your print job is sent!

   ****When sending a print job to a campus printer, make sure the Go Print window pops up, which will ask for your Passport York ID and password. You must select your print jobs and click 'Send to Printer'; otherwise you may end up making a trip all the way to the printer and there is no queued document to print :S ****

Once that's done, you just have to walk to the printer, sign in with your Passport York ID and password, select the document from the queue and print away! Graduate students should see the balance of their graduate printing bursary in the top right corner, but note that some printers do NOT have this capability (like the ones in the Hebb Computer lab in the Behavioural Science Building, get on that Maleki!), but I know the printers on the ground floor of Scott Library, Steacie Library, and the William Small Centre do. This is a fast and easy way to print (for free for grad students) from the library without having to line up for a computer, logging on, etc etc etc.

WebFAS remote access to apps like SPSS, Adobe, Microsoft
Office and more! Remember to use Safari or Firefox browsers

- If you want to analyse some data on SPSS, MatLab or Minitab, or need quick access to Microsoft Office or Adobe Pro (filling in and saving PDF forms, helloooo scholarship applications!!), students with a valid Passport York username and password can remotely access the WebFAS system that is available on campus computers from their laptops. Just install the driver for your operating system in the previous link! Sometimes, accessing saved files on your local hard drive can be a bit tricky ("C: drive on John Smith's MacBook" may not show up in drop-down menu), and there can sometimes be server connection problems, but by and large this service is very handy for those of you like me who don't have SPSS or Adobe Pro on your laptop, and need quick access without having to make the trek to the campus computer labs. Also avoid signing onto WebFAS with Google Chrome; it may not work at all, so use Safari or Firefox. 

I hope these tips are helpful. Feel free to add further links, comments or suggestions in the comment field, and bookmark this blog page so you can come back to all of the embedded links provided above.

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My Experiences with Cupping Therapy

Dry cupping with plastic suction cups, like the
ones used on me. Air is removed with a pump,
raising the skin & dilating blood vessels.
It's uncomfortable, but non-painful, feels like
the skin is being stretched, and looks
as though there's a ping-pong ball
beneath the skin!

After hearing about the success of cupping therapy from two of my lab-mates (both of whom I trust to be very empirical and objective people), I thought I would give it a try for myself. Cupping has been practiced for thousands of years, and has even been documented in one of the earliest medical texts, the Ebers Papyrus. Cupping is a common practice of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), but is also practiced by a variety of other cultures, including many Islamic groups in the Middle East (even the Prophet Muhammad has approved of the Hijamah). 

Cupping is often used in combination with another form of therapy or treatment, and has been used to treat a multitude of conditions:

• Skin problems: herpes zoster (shingles), acne, eczema, and inflammation
• Anemia, hypertension & migraine
• Fever, cold & flu
• Menstrual cramps
• Hangovers (cupping>cup of joe!)

Cupping is NOT advised for pregnant women or those with hemophilia (inability or trouble clotting blood). According to my licensed acupuncturist and therapist, Lily, there is no age restriction on who can undergo this form of therapy, although she advises children be over the age of 7 or so.

Meridians of the human body.

There are two main forms of cupping therapy: wet and dry. Dry cupping consists of placing a small cup ranging from 3 to 10cm in diameter on various parts of the skin that correspond to various meridians on the body. Traditionally, a flame would be placed at the base of the cup, essentially extinguishing any oxygen inside the cup and creating a suction effect when placed on the skin. The main point of cupping is to increase circulation and effectively "cure" oneself by redirecting the flow of "bad" blood (likely deoxygenated blood in areas of poor circulation). My therapist, Lily, uses plastic cups that have a nozzle at the top to remove air via a plastic pump. The cups are initially placed for 10 to 20 minutes, at which point the blood vessels beneath the stretched skin are dilated. Lily uses her knowledge as a certified and licensed acupuncturist to determine which pressure points are problematic based on three main criteria: change in skin colour or bruising (if any), the texture of the skin and surrounding area, and the temperature of the skin after removing the cups. Just as with acupuncture needles, how long the cups are left on the skin depend on a variety of factors, including those just mentioned and the patient's symptoms and general health, the reduction of bruising from past sessions, and the degree and speed of skin colour change. All of these clues and the meridian points correspond to specific organs and body systems, allowing the therapist to infer which ones may be weaker and in need of more focused cupping in subsequent sessions. 

While dry cupping is completely topical and non-invasive, wet cupping involves puncturing the skin beneath the cups after initial placement, then putting the cups back on again in order to release the "bad blood" or toxins found in problematic areas. While this may sound freaky, and look quite severe depending on which websites/sources you look up, but having attended 14 separate sessions, I have experienced very minimal bleeding, and more water has been expelled than blood (which I have been told is a good thing). Lily uses a sterilized acupuncture needle (each patient has their own labelled one) to tap the most problematic areas to allow for the bloodletting, which is uncomfortable for a few seconds until she reattaches the cup. Lily also told me that cups are never placed on the exact same spot consecutively to ensure no damage is done to the underlying skin, tissue, and blood vessels.  

Many of you are probably asking yourselves if this is really worth the time and effort, and if it actually works. For my personal health concerns, I haven't noticed a startling improvement, although I did notice feeling more alert towards the end of my first 10 sessions (10 sessions = 1 treatment). I'm also one of those people that always feels cold and is perpetually bundled up, but I started feeling "internally warmer", with much more internally-generated warmth in my hands and feet after my first course of treatment. Aside from the funny-looking circular bruises all over my back, shoulders and arms, the most marked side effects I noticed were fatigue and soreness, which did dissipate towards the end of my treatment. Lily advised me that these are completely normal symptoms, but as with any medical or therapeutic treatment - you have to be patient. It's not a single-dose cure-all treatment, but an alternative form of self-healing that takes time. As acupuncture is partially covered by my health benefits, I have decided to see it through another round of treatment to see if my health improves. While a balanced diet with vitamin supplements and regular exercise are the best course of treatment for someone like me, who is (thankfully) in decent health, I have also been dealing with an autoimmune disorder which remains untreatable, and figure I have nothing left to lose by trying an alternative form of therapy.    

For those of you still not convinced and in need of some empirical proof, I came upon an article from an esteemed scientific journal - the Public Library of Science, or PLoS ONE - published in 2012 that reviews all of the studies that have examined the efficacy of cupping therapy. Additionally, the authors only included studies with randomized control trails in their analysis based on their finding that many experiments that account for the success of cupping were quite poorly designed. What they were able to conclude after reviewing 135 experiments were a) cupping therapy does not yield any serious adverse side effects, and b) cupping therapy was significantly better at improving patients' health when combined with other TCM treatments compared to the other treatments alone. Combined therapy yielded more cured patients in these studies, especially those afflicted with shingles, facial paralysis (as with Bell's Palsy), acne, and spondylosis (or osteoarthritis of the neck). 

I hope my experiences and very brief presentation of some evidence in (slight) favour of cupping therapy have been informative. I would recommend cupping to anyone with My sources include my therapist Lily, WebMD, Wikipedia (with a grain of salt), and Cao, Li & Liu (2012), PLoS ONE. Feel free to leave comments, ask questions, or start a discussion in the comment field below!

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Making EEG & MatLab my ho

Baby EEG at vendor stand @ SfN2009 - Chicago

In order to explore the mysteries of the brain, many researchers employ non-invasive neuroimaging methods, such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), MEG (magnetoencephalography) and EEG (electroencephalography). But once a brain has been put onder one of these magnets or electrode caps, what does one do with the mess of signals and frequencies in the data output? In order to draw conclusions about brain activity and corresponding functions, the data needs to be analyzed. This is quite a daunting task, which can be simplified (or complicated) based on the software being employed.

Emotiv wireless 16-channel EEG

With respect to EEG data, I am using an Emotiv 16-channel wireless headset, which is not only versatile but looks pretty cool too.  These are typically used in gaming technology, but have also been cited in a few research studies as well. Although Emotiv offers it's own software for acquiring data, I am currently in the midst of figuring out how to present stimuli concurrently with recording, with markers inserted in the data at stimulus onset and offset. Having NO coding or technical knowledge in this realm, I have started from the bottom up, and there will be much troubleshooting (in the dark) untl I get it right. Also with respect to analyzing the EEG waveforms, I will be using MatLab, which I am concurrently learning to use. Despite the fear of the daunting white screen that almost seems to taunt you with it's blankness, MatLab is an incredible tool that can perform a variety of tasks, with many great plugins to help with specific functions. It is also a highly valued skill in the research world and can definitely give one the competitive advantage over a MatLab-less peer when applying for highly coveted and competitive job postings. I know there is a long way to go before I can be proficient in even a small aspect of MatLab, but you gotta start somewhere! Even with raw data already collected and on-hand, there is much to do before being able to draw conclusions about what the squiggly lines actually mean functionally! Some of these steps include eliminating noise (or artefacts) induced by many factors including blinking and head movement, averaging signals from the multiple electrodes and cortical frequencies, and epoching (kind of like event-related chunking of the EEG waveforms).

**Please excuse my very limited use of jargon, which may or may not be used correctly, but I guess I'll learn more along the way!

So to get a leg up on what analysis will be like, I have begun reading the superbly clear EEGLAB Wiki, which explains how to use the EEGLAB toolbox plugin for MatLab that is specifically designed to analyze EEG data. The Wiki contains a ton of useful links, including how to download and install the toolbox, plus tutorials on specific functions and aspects on what it can do. Additionally, you can download the entire Wiki in a PDF and read it anywhere!

I hope that my enthusiasm lasts more than a day, and I'll be noting my successes here on my blog to help those of you out there who may find yourself in the same teeny boat surrounded by an endless sea of waveforms. 

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joeLAB project updates

so today we continued our grad student discussion on our respective lines of research and ideas we'd like to explore in our projects. mike presented a cool paper by montreal neurological institute giant robert zattore, who reviews cellular and molecular changes in the brain with learning. imaging studies of white and grey matter can be just as indicative of plasticity in the brain as examinations of changes and patterns of BOLD activation.

speaking of BOLD signals, what are they really, aside from pretty blobs in research papers? practically, they are the measure of inconsistency (or inhomogeneity if you wanna talk all fancy) of the magnetic field within an fMRI scanner due to changes in blood oxygen level. these changes are brought on by neural activity, which just like any muscle in your body, need oxygen and nutrient rich blood to fuel their electrical activity. that's why more activity (as a result of a given cognitive process) requires more blood, and will show a higher BOLD response in a functional scan. a great summary in the form of lecture slides are available via kerstin preuschoff at the university of zurich.

gaby also presented a paper on differences in cortical activation between expert high jumpers and novice high jumpers (6 weeks of training), when asked to visualize themselves performing this complex sequence of movements. similar to the great work done by our lab on examining cortical activity in expert ballet dancers and non-experts, it appears as though individuals with a high level of physical training can literally change the way their brains' process visualization of behaviour. consequently, this is mediated by the same processes and brain regions that allow us to consciously perceive our own bodies, and embody visually learned behaviour.

this relationship between physical training and expertise is one that i am also interested in... if only i could figure out a doctoral research question that hasn't already been answered... maybe i need to boogie to get some inspiration...

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Research update

i'm still alive and it's time to get back to business.

this week's joeLab Journal Club was a brief meeting about what our grad students are up to. although i have yet to decide on a specific research question (which is frustrating but exciting at the same time, since possibilities seem endless), i have become increasingly interested in questions relating to consciousness, embodiment, and how these cortical representations differ among individuals. so i presented an article by Arzy, Thut, Mohr, Michel, and Blanke (2006) on the neural basis of embodiment. they showed differential activations of the extrastriate body area (EBA - which responds selectively to images of bodies and body movement) and tempoparietal junction (TPJ - which is involved in self processing and multimodal integration of body related info). depending on whether subjects were mentalizing about a stimulus from their own body-centered perspective (activating the EBA) or an external, disembodied (TPJ) self location, differences in cortical activation were found. additionally, these activations were modulated based on the subjects' body position; in an upright seated position, stronger bilateral activation of the EBA was demonstrated, which has important implications for interpreting the results of studies that have experimental subjects sitting upright (as is common in MEG and EEG studies) or laying supine (as commonly seen in fMRI studies).

it was also great to hear from samantha, who is a graduate student in the biology department, whose research focuses on attentional mechanisms in relation to desynchronization of circadian rhythms. this has always been an interesting field of research to me, as circadian rhythms are well known to have pervasive effects on mental and physiological processes. she shared a great review paper on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of circadian rhythms, which is a worthwhile summary for any interested readers to check out!  

more updates to come!
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