Current Events > By the end of the day, I'll be sending my dissertation off to my committee

(+) Yeah! (+)

Marking the beginning of the end! I started writing it about 7 months ago, or at least thinking about writing it, based on my document timestamps.

Just gotta proof read and do minor edits here and there.
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I'm assuming you have backups, but what if you just lost everything?
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LordRazziel posted...

I'm assuming you have backups, but what if you just lost everything?

Yes, several back ups haha.

That would be pretty fucked, my timeline is super tight right now (my defense is on the 17th). Something like that happened to me before in my 1st year, where a final project in my advisor's class was due the next day, and that night the file got corrupted somehow. Stayed up all night and re-wrote the entire thing. Was pretty awful.
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Post on here after sending so we can read
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Congrats!
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PIITB415 posted...

Post on here after sending so we can read

My guess is that will just waste a bunch of people's time =P.

Here's the table of contents atm doe:


It's on spatial working memory, the first actual chapter (chapter 2) is on modeling stochastic drift and creating constraints on the organization of the system using behavioral tasks with distraction. The second is on developing methods to model topological arrangements in function between brain regions, as there are certain assumptions in the computational models about the organization of incoming sensory information to the prefrontal cortex. Third is about using certain topological relationships between regions to directly align human and macaque data to discover human homologs of particularly important regions in spatial working memory function. And the fourth is about testing relationship between topological relationship between the human homologs in responses during spatial working memory tasks.

King_Hellebuyck posted...

Congrats!

Thanks!
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almost there brah. im working on my IRB approval to start my dissertation study in September. Hoping to be where you are now in about a year and a half

Best of luck!
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At 120 pages and 41 figures, this document is done.

Fam_Fam posted...

almost there brah. im working on my IRB approval to start my dissertation study in September. Hoping to be where you are now in about a year and a half

Good luck! Hopefully they aren't too unreasonable, as IRBs can be.

teepan95 posted...

Best of luck!

Thanks!
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please post chapter 2
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Is your PhD in neuroscience?

Yeah.
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Welp, haven't gotten back any "how dare you send us this peice of crap?", so that's a good sign.

I've decided that I'm just gonna keep this bumped until I defend. It'll be fun to keep track of things as they develop.
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so like, you're like, a really smart person, huh?
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What does this all mean in gamefaqs human words
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He is studying different areas of the brain and the changes in the data from a scan, seemingly comparing them to scans from primates to find similar patterns of activation.

Most likely for continued testing on the monkey to get a 3D readout as different tasks are completed to map function.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

so like, you're like, a really smart person, huh?

Naw, most academics are just normal people who spend a lot of time trying to understand very specific things. Lots of domain specific knowledge.

PatrickMahomes posted...

What does this all mean in gamefaqs human words

Well, so, the neuron is the basic functional unit in the brain, right? But action potentials, the 'firing' of a neuron, happen on the scale of milliseconds. But we know behavior and memory does not. If it did, we wouldn't be able to hold a conversation, because by the time I ended the speech output of a single word, I would have forgotten that I started speaking it. So, for long term memory this is something that's easy to reconcile, structural changes occur that modify the strength of certain connections between neurons, creating a 'memory' composed of the synchronous activation of a set of neurons. However, for short term memory/working memory, it's unclear how this happens, because it's not operating on a timescale that would allow for structural modifications.

So, basically, a large class of working memory models connect together a bunch of neurons together with balanced inhibition that allows for a reverberating signal, allowing for the maintenance of information across longer timescales. My dissertation is an exploration of these models, examining what assumptions they hold, what predictions they make, and how to generate data to constrain parameter selection for these models.
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COVxy posted...

Well, so, the neuron is the basic functional unit in the brain, right? But action potentials, the 'firing' of a neuron, happen on the scale of milliseconds. But we know behavior and memory does not. If it did, we wouldn't be able to hold a conversation, because by the time I ended the speech output of a single word, I would have forgotten that I started speaking it. So, for long term memory this is something that's easy to reconcile, structural changes occur that modify the strength of certain connections between neurons, creating a 'memory' composed of the synchronous activation of a set of neurons. However, for short term memory/working memory, it's unclear how this happens, because it's not operating on a timescale that would allow for structural modifications.

So, basically, a large class of working memory models connect together a bunch of neurons together with balanced inhibition that allows for a reverberating signal, allowing for the maintenance of information across longer timescales. My dissertation is an exploration of these models, examining what assumptions they hold, what predictions they make, and how to generate data to constrain parameter selection for these models.

PatrickMahomes posted...

What does this all mean in gamefaqs human words

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What part of it was unclear? If you ask some questions I'd be able to talk you through it more.
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Are you using ACT-R to test your hypothesis?
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COVxy posted...

What part of it was unclear? If you ask some questions I'd be able to talk you through it more.

nothing, the second time helped. i'm just dicking around
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Good luck, good luck. You e put a lot of hard work into this, and I hope it goes well.
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Conflict posted...

Grad school sounds like a very intimidating commitment

A PhD program is really only something you'll pull through with a soul intact if you really are quite interested in the work. Otherwise, it's too much for too long. And that's not even about the dissertation itself, which composes maybe a 10th of the work I've done over the years.
s0nicfan posted...

Are you using ACT-R to test your hypothesis?

Naw, I just learned that was a thing not too long ago though. I don't know if anyone actually uses it, but that could just be my ignorance because the focus is on a different field.

Drpooplol posted...

Good luck, good luck. You e put a lot of hard work into this, and I hope it goes well.

Thanks, hopefully. They say it's extremely unlikely to not go well, for anyone whose advisor lets them set a date to with their committee.
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COVxy posted...

Naw, I just learned that was a thing not too long ago though. I don't know if anyone actually uses it, but that could just be my ignorance because the focus is on a different field.

It gets pretty heavily used, but mostly by people who know how to use it, lol.

Probably worth reading up on, though. It has a LOT of experimentally derived data under the hood which lets you compare theory driven models against actual human data to validate your models.

For example, I know it is used to study models of reaction time because the milliseconds delay between readying an action and performing it via motor functions is based on actual millisecond delays determined experimentally in humans.

Edit: IIRC it's actually been used to validate theories about how pairwise associations are transferred from short to long term memory for example, and the models correlated strongly with actual memory experiments.
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Ah, so most working theories are that it's like RAM in a computer, in that there must be constant cycling of the individual bits of memory to keep the information intact or else the information is lost.

Where the fuck is chapter 2
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What are you gonna do after you defend your dissertation like a boss?
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s0nicfan posted...

Probably worth reading up on, though. It has a LOT of experimentally derived data under the hood which lets you compare theory driven models against actual human data to validate your models.

The focus is mainly on cognitive modeling, which (surprisingly enough) is far enough away from neural modeling that it's not the type of modeling I work on.

You would hope that eventually they will come to meet in the center at some point, but it seems like that point is very far into the future haha.

treewojima posted...

Ah, so most working theories are that it's like RAM in a computer, in that there must be constant cycling of the individual bits of memory to keep the information intact or else the information is lost.

Yeah, pretty much.
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So exciting! Im looking forward to when that day comes for me, down the road.

Academia is awesome
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Wow, what are you doing posting in this rubbish site?
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_Matchabuu_ posted...

So exciting! Im looking forward to when that day comes for me, down the road.

Academia is awesome

Are you in grad school or looking to apply?

Vita_Aeterna posted...

Wow, what are you doing posting in this rubbish site?

It wasn't always terrible here, but has been getting more and more terrible over time. Used to be a lot of very interesting conversations here.
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Well, now I'm spelunking Wikipedia on the functions of neurons in the brain, how they communicate (utilizing chemical reactions to create voltages to emit various neurotransmitters through what appears to be organic chemistry magic), and how they network together to perform bodily functions.

I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY

Congrats brother!

Soon we get to be Dr. Bros!
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treewojima posted...

Well, now I'm spelunking Wikipedia on the functions of neurons in the brain, how they communicate (utilizing chemical reactions to create voltages to emit various neurotransmitters through what appears to be organic chemistry magic), and how they network together to perform bodily functions.

I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY

Extremely! lmao

Zanzenburger posted...

Congrats brother!

Soon we get to be Dr. Bros!

Thanks! I remember we proposed about at the same time haha.
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What do you see yourself doing post doctorate?

I'm already set up for a postdoc position working in mice, doing optogentics and calcium imaging (two techniques, one to stimulate the brain with light, the other to record the brain with light), to study visual representation and computation.

A postdoc position, in case you are unfamiliar, is another "training" position, typically you work more independently under a mentor and start to develop your own line of work to transition to your own lab in a principal investigator position.
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Off into research then. Best wishes to you!

treewojima posted...

Off into research then. Best wishes to you!

He's living my dream tbh

Maybe not in choice of subject :p but definitely in terms of career path
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COVxy posted...

_Matchabuu_ posted...

So exciting! Im looking forward to when that day comes for me, down the road.

Academia is awesome

Are you in grad school or looking to apply?

Vita_Aeterna posted...

Wow, what are you doing posting in this rubbish site?

It wasn't always terrible here, but has been getting more and more terrible over time. Used to be a lot of very interesting conversations here.

In grad school for my masters. Going for doctorate and PhD next.

Also I highly agree with the second point
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treewojima posted...

Off into research then. Best wishes to you!

Thanks!

_Matchabuu_ posted...

In grad school for my masters. Going for doctorate and PhD next.

Ah, cool. In what?
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Nursing education right now.

Going to focus on either neurosurgery or critical care for my DNP and PhD. Really interested in finding ways to improve healthcare as a whole, though
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_Matchabuu_ posted...

DNP

Qu?
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Doctorate of nursing practice
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_Matchabuu_ posted...

Nursing education right now.

Going to focus on either neurosurgery or critical care for my DNP and PhD. Really interested in finding ways to improve healthcare as a whole, though

Ah, cool. What does a PhD in that look like?

Like what would be a research topic you would want to work on? Like, prediction of outcomes type of stuff?
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I have to take this document that I've spent 7 months writing and compress it into a 45 minute talk. Hm. I'm now regretting the number of figures.
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COVxy posted...

It's on spatial working memory, the first actual chapter (chapter 2) is on modeling stochastic drift and creating constraints on the organization of the system using behavioral tasks with distraction. The second is on developing methods to model topological arrangements in function between brain regions, as there are certain assumptions in the computational models about the organization of incoming sensory information to the prefrontal cortex. Third is about using certain topological relationships between regions to directly align human and macaque data to discover human homologs of particularly important regions in spatial working memory function. And the fourth is about testing relationship between topological relationship between the human homologs in responses during spatial working memory tasks.

I know some of those words!
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