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After looking at your user page, your area of study is basically training dogs with drugs?

"Shut up, Brx."19:36, 4 December 2012

My thesis work was computational modeling of the several neural systems involved in reward based learning and decision making. And then applying the predictions of those algorithms to animal models of OCD and several human behavioral experiments looking at people's performance correlated with several measures of dopamine levels.

My current work is looking at schizophrenics, bi-polor and mild traumatic brain injury patients. I am taking fMRI measurements and pulling certain parameters of the signal we get that correspond to certain properties of blood flow and microvasculature structure and comparing them to healthy controls.

Tmtoulouse (talk)19:47, 4 December 2012

It's a lot less funny when you put it like that.






Can you do a brain scan for schizophrenia other disorders? That would sure make things easier. That's what you're looking into, right?

"Shut up, Brx."19:49, 4 December 2012

People with schizophrenia have some fairly consistent and obvious difference in their fMRI data from healthy controls. It is not a great diagnostic tool though.

In our particular case we are looking at some fairly technical and fairly specific aspects of the fMRI signal. With schizophrenics they appear to not show several classic properties of the ideal fMRI signal. This aspect of the signal relates to metabolic rate and something called "vasocompliance" which is the ability of the microvasculature to expand and contract with changes in blood flow.

Again its more a research tool than a diagnostic tool.

Tmtoulouse (talk)20:00, 4 December 2012