After listening to all of my peers’ chalk talks, I have to admit that I’m a bit overwhelmed. We have fellows doing research on diverse topics such as the eye, nanoparticles, mantis shrimp and how we learn music. It was certainly a lot to take in and a lot of interesting ideas too, but one chalk talk did stick out me.
Matt’s talk regarding Spinal Chord Stimulation (SCS) really stuck out to me because as he was speaking and I made predictions in my head about where he was going, he threw a curve ball. Whereas one visits the doctor’s office when in pain and rates it on a 1-10 scale, he spoke about how this is very subjective and instead uses pain maps as a reference to whether or not SCS is working as efficiently as possible. In other words, rather than asking “how much does it hurt?” the question is concerned with “how much of you hurts?”
He analyzes these so-called “pain maps” using MatLab and uses statistical analysis to determine what frequency is most effective when using SCS on human patients to treat back pain. The fact that his research is affecting humans directly (I’m self-centered and find info about humans more appealing than info about dogs,cats,etc.) and approaches an archaic issue in a novel way (at least to my understanding) is something that really intrigues me.
