My First Day at Work

My first day was this past Tuesday, and it was interesting, to say the least! In the morning, I met Dr. Patrik Vuilleumier, the supervisor of my lab, and my direct supervisor, Dr. Arnaud Saj. Arnaud is a neuropsychologist doing his PostDoc on issues of Unispatial Neglect, and we'll also be working together on the nicotine study. It turns out that Arnaud is even less comfortable speaking English than I am speaking French, so we mostly speak French at work. It takes me longer to understand everything because I wasn't necessarily prepared for scientific vocabulary, but it's definitely forcing me to learn and communicate in French on a very regular basis. I have a slight advantage given that I have a bit of background in English on some (but not all) of the topics that we're discussing. For example, Arnaud was explaining the short cognitive evaluation that precedes the fMRI study of brain-injured (usually from a stroke) neglect patients, and he showed me the form that he uses to score everything. He said that it was the MMSE, or the Mini Mental State Examination, and when I looked closely, I realized it was the same exact exam that I had seen Dr. Mark Mapstone administer at the University of Rochester many times - except the whole thing was in French! It was cool for me to see a tool like that one used elsewhere because it really demonstrates the universal nature of some aspects of scientific study.

Another universal aspect is the fact that English is becoming the "language of science," so regardless of who published them, all of the articles that I have been given to read have been in English. That has helped me to better understand what I'm learning in French conversations with Arnaud. Also, research presentations are usually (but not always) in English, like the one I went to on my first day. A presenter from the University of Barcelona described an fMRI study investigating the "Influences of Emotional Context on the Processing of Novelty Auditory Stimuli." The general conclusion of the study was that showing participants emotionally significant faces (angry, fearful, happy, etc.) versus neutral faces or objects also intensifies the processing of "novelty" sounds (like a phone ringing or glass breaking, as opposed to "neutral" sounds like a monotonous noise).

On my first day, I was also trained how to safely use the MRI machine. The session closed with a demonstration of how strong the magnetic field is, in which everyone in attendance was each given the opportunity to hold car keys up to the MRI magnets. It's a good thing that they were attached to a rope because otherwise, they would have gotten stuck to the magnets! We were shown some real photos of MRI mishaps (not from my lab!) like the one on the right. The magnets are strong enough to move a chair or even a stretcher, if they contain magnetic metal.

Throughout the day, I met a lot of people (neurologists, technicians, researchers, students, psychologists, etc.) and toured the Brain and Behavior Lab (BBL) at the University. I'm working at the University and the attached hospital, so I go back and forth rather often. I also toured the stroke unit of the hospital with Arnaud. It's been very surprising to me to see how much less security there is here than other places I've been in the States. I don't need to check in anywhere, and I can access almost any part of the building that I need to (except for the MRI lab) without a badge. When I worked at the University of Pittsburgh last summer, I needed to sign in to new buildings, and I needed a badge to access practically every building. This system is certainly more convenient for me, but I'm unsure about how secure it is. I guess I'll get back to that later.


That's all for my first day - I'll have to update this soon because I got my brain scanned yesterday (Thursday), and that was quite an experience!