Aside from the collection of data (which consists of survey and brain imaging techniques and shipping off to California companies for genotyping) much of the work in my lab is centered around the decisions of what questions would be interesting to ask of these data, and the consequent background research and interpretations of the data. Thus, most of my days are spent in front of a computer, usually working on my research project and occasionally entering the collected data into a database that will make the data accessible to anyone in the lab. Additionally, I meet regularly with Johnna in order to stay on track with my project and so she can help me better understand the technical skills needed in my analyses. The nature of my project calls for extensive literature searches in order to understand what work has already been done on linking this particular gene to a behavior and therefore being able to determine what is novel about the approach we are using and how we will add to literature in a meaningful manner. Additionally, the lab uses software to manipulate and determine significant relationships between the data collected (whether it is between genes and brain imaging or between brain imaging and behavioral measures). One particular software is used to average out the brain scans of all the individuals included in our study, and then areas which differ significantly from others in terms of activation are highlighted after the software runs thousands of t-tests on each pair of voxels that the brains are composed of. Witnessing the applications of statistics to research and learning how do them myself has been one of the most rewarding aspects of doing this type of research.
In the coming weeks, I anticipate that the final poster will take a lot of time and planning to organize the knowledge that I have accumulated over the course of the my project. I am also excited to see in the following weeks if the data collected by our lab will answer any of the questions proposed in my project and if these results will lead to any new conclusions regarding the clinical applications of linking our particular gene to behavior, or perhaps even new questions being asked as a consequence.
