It’s only been Day 1 of Neuroscience 2013, I am already filling up with awesome findings to share (plus my feet are already mad at me). Since my themes are pretty disparate (C: Disorders of the Nervous System & H: History/Teaching/Public Awareness/Societal Impacts) I figured it would be helpful to post on each theme separately throughout the week. So here we go:

SfN Day 1/Theme C – Human Biomarkers of Autism
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The first poster I visited turned out to be very relevant to my work as well as pretty interesting. Annette Ye of the University of Toronto took the time to discuss her poster (49.01) on the highly explored topic of altered functional connectivity in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), only she looked at this idea using magnetoencephalography (MEG), as opposed to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). MEG data complements the information provided by fMRI, as it provides a picture of the synchrony of oscillations in neural activity. Using resting state MEG data, Ye and colleagues explored the synchrony between 90 brain regions using different frequency bands. When comparing individuals with ASD to those without ASD, they found several regions, most of which were in the frontal lobe, that exhibited increased inter-regional connectivity in the gamma frequency band. This frequency band is related to local as opposed to long range connections and may be predictive of cognition. Disruption in neural synchrony within this band has been associated with schizophrenia and depression.

When Ye used graph theoretical analysis, in which brain regions are treated as nodes in a connected functional network, the increased functional connectivity among the frontal lobe regions was confirmed by increased node strength and clustering coefficients, indicating stronger inter-regional connections and a greater likelihood of neighboring connections, respectively. These MEG findings replicate previous findings that functional connectivity may be higher in ASD in local areas of the brain, including those related to cognition. Whereas decreased long-range connectivity in ASD has been robustly demonstrated in current literature, the local hyper-connectivity argument has been less defined. However, the findings Ye presented show that this argument definitely warrants further consideration.

Ye’s next steps for this project include collecting more data so she can explore potential relationships between this increased frontal lobe connectivity and the severity of autism symptoms, such as impairments in social communication or restricted, repetitive behaviors. I would guess that this increased frontal lobe connectivity would be related to increased repetitive behaviors, such as resistance to change. I look forward to what Ye finds.

[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

I’m a hardcore list maker. I make to-do lists, reading lists, and, when it comes to a trip, you’ll never find me without a packing list. Let’s pretend this hyper-organization is an expression of the scientist in me, not the Type A, anal person, ok?  SfN’s Annual Meeting, or really any huge academic conference, is a unique animal, and thus it requires a unique packing list. I hope this list is at least somewhat useful for my fellow Neuroscience 2013 attendees, especially if it’s your first Annual Meeting:

(1) Your Annual Meeting name badge – Am I the only one who has nightmares in which I travel across the country for the SfN Annual Meeting only to realize my badge is on my desk in lab? Maybe. But, either way, don’t forget your badge, or you’ll pay a pretty penny (relative to grad student stipends) to get it reprinted onsite.

(2) Poster tube AND posters – As a perpetual over-packer, I invariably check my bag when I travel for conferences. Accordingly, I am often taxed with the burden of bearing the lab’s poster tube as my personal carry-on for flights.  For that week, our lab’s threatening-looking long black poster tube becomes like my own appendage. Again, am I the only one who has nightmares about leaving the poster tube at an airport Chilli’s? Also, remembering to actually put the posters in the poster tube is a plus.

(3) Advil (a whole bottle) – This item came as a recommendation from one of my labmates before my first experience of an SfN Annual Meeting. I was so glad I took his advice. Everyday, for some reason, (maybe it was all the amazing science hurting my brain?) 2:30 PM hit and my head was throbbing.

(4) Granola bars and a water bottle – Navigating the poster hall at an Annual Meeting is like a marathon (row A to FFF, people), only there’s 30,000 other people running around, and, oh, everyone’s looking at their program and not where they’re going, creating a really nerdy obstacle course. Needless to say, sustenance is a must.

(5) iPad (if you’re really snobby like me) + the Neuroscience 2013 App – Last year, I was really impressed with the Neuroscience 2012 app and the 2013 version seems to be equally as excellent. You can use the app to create itineraries, browse the program and even check an #SfN13 Twitter feed. Instead of toting around the literal books that are the programs for each day of the meeting, I find the app to be a user (and tree) friendly alternative.
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Alongside my typical travel accoutrements, the above items will definitely be joining me for Neuroscience 2013. What tops your Neuroscience 2013 packing list?

[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

My 5th grade Gifted & Talented project was all about the brain. I was fascinated by all of its functions and cerebral folds. I loved how it wasn’t so much the size of the brain that was important, but the complexity of its neural networks. My project included a form core board with light bulbs placed on a hand drawn man, representing the different body regions affected by the fight or flight response. I wonder if my parents could have foreseen that I would later be pursing a PhD in neuroscience and leading a project very much related to my fight or flight poster. What they probably could have guessed is that I would not be in graduate school today if I hadn’t been exposed to science in such a genuine way in elementary school.

You can find me over at the Columbia Daily Tribune today with an article as part of the weekly “Ask A Scientist” column. This project was developed out of the cooperation between Columbia Public Schools and the University of Missouri Office of Science Outreach. Local elementary, middle, and high school students submit questions about science, and MU graduate students work with the Office of Science Outreach to interview MU researchers and write articles to answer the students’ questions. Participating in this project has been not only fun but surprising in several ways. I’ve been extremely impressed by the nature of the questions asked by the students. Some questions probe advanced concepts in fields such as genetics (“If monkeys are our cousins, how much of our DNA do we share?”) and astronomy (“What are dark energy and dark matter, and how are they related?”). I’ve also been surprised by how willing the scientists and physicians at MU have been to sit down and discuss their research with us. These researchers are passionate about their work, and they are excited to share about it with the public, especially K-12 students.
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Why is a project like “Ask a Scientist” so important? It gives students a way to extend the knowledge they are getting in the classroom. They are given opportunities to reach out of their textbooks and engage with real scientists doing real science. They are getting a peak into fields like physics and chemistry, the way I got a glimpse of neuroscience in 5th grade. It’s important to realize that these aren’t just students with whom we are sharing about science, many are (hopefully) future scientists themselves, and they may not even know it yet.

​[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

Yesterday I attended an NSF Becoming the Messenger workshop here at MU. It was such a great experience. I really appreciated the advice the presenters provided for scientists about becoming more effective communicators, especially with the general public. It also revealed some unexpected (at least to me) perspectives on public communication and social media.

During a session on the advantages of Twitter, presenter and science writer Chris Mooney expressed that many scientists have a “dignity problem” with Twitter. Some feel that tweeting about their work somehow makes what they do less important because anyone can be on Twitter, anyone can send out a tweet. This viewpoint demonstrates what I think is a real problem in academia: scientists often think that communicating with the public involves an act of stooping down, reducing themselves, or discounting their credibility.

Having this outlook perpetuates an ivory tower mentality, a belief that the work scientists do is meant only for an academic elite to understand and that it’s beneath scientists to inform the public. What we need, however, is more Rapunzels. We need scientists who are willing to provide a connection from the ivory tower to the public and who find true value in doing so.

Here’s where Twitter can serve as a useful tool. As Mooney stated, anyone can be on Twitter. What is a better way to communicate about your research than by sharing it with anyone and everyone? By tweeting, scientists make their work accessible. They can even move beyond sharing about their research to starting conversations with the public through replies and retweets.

Twitter can also serve to gauge the quality of scientific research. Mooney shared about a studythat found a positive correlation between the number of citations an academic paper gets and the number of times that paper is tweeted about (aka “tweetations”). Citations, the currency of academia, can actually be predicted by a social media site used mostly by laypeople. How’s that for some dignity?

There is hope, however, in knowing that some brave Rapunzels are already out there. During a session on science blogging, Mooney talked about Dr. Rosie Redfield (@RosieRedfield), a scientist at the University of British Columbia who is a regular tweeter. Redfield also writes ablog where she shares about daily life in her research lab. Instead of closing the doors tight, she invites the public right into her lab for a peek at the real ways in which science happens.

Dr. Jon Brock (@DrBrocktagon) of Macquarie University comes to my mind. This autism researcher tweets daily and blogs about real issues in cognitive science and autism research on a regular basis. Another strong presence in the Twittersphere is Christie Wilcox (@NerdyChristie), a PhD student at the University Hawaii who writes for Discover Blogs.  I was excited to hear Mooney mention Wilcox at the NSF workshop as he highlighted her unique voice for science and sharing it with the public.
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These scientists represent many tweeters and bloggers that I follow and others I hope to discover soon. But we need more. Rapunzel shouldn’t be just a fairy tale. We need real life scientists to strive to communicate with the public, to let down their hair from the ivory tower, so the public can climb up and join them in understanding and enthusiasm.

​[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

A paper published last week in Environmental Health Perspectives had the autism community all atwitter last week, quite literally. It was clear something was up when my Twitter feed suddenly filled up with tweets about a national study, led by Andrea Roberts and colleagues at Harvard University, “confirming the link between autism and air pollution.”

Utilizing Environmental Protection Agency records of hazardous air pollutant concentrations, the researchers examined levels of air pollution in the year and location in which women lived when they gave birth to their children. These mothers were enrolled in the Nurses Health Study II, a large sample of female nurses that has been followed since 1989. To focus their investigation, the researchers studied air pollutants previously found to be associated with autism, such as metals and diesel particulate matter. Overall, they found positive associations between perinatal exposure to several air pollutants and autism, meaning the greater the concentration of these pollutants, the greater chance of a child having autism. They also showed that some of these associations were stronger for boys than for girls.

However, this highly publicized study on air pollution is not exactly a breath of fresh air. Several things reveal weaknesses in the design and interpretation of this study:

1. On Twitter, Forbes writer Emily Willingham, made an interesting point:





Air pollution may be related to autism, just as countless environmental factors are, but it clearly isn’t a major player in its etiology, or causation (as much as I hate to use that word). For more of Emily’s thoughts on the autism/air pollution relationship, see this insightful post about a previous study.

2. While the Nurses Health Study provided a large sample, there is a significant confound with only studying children born to nurses. In an Autism Research paper, Gayle Windham and colleagues demonstrate a relationship between maternal occupational exposure to chemicals, as well as other potential toxins, and autism. Particularly, maternal exposure to disinfectants, as can be seen in nurses and other medical professionals, seemed to be related to autism.  While this finding doesn’t negate the air pollution finding, it certainly complicates the picture.

3. The children in the autism group in this study were noted as having autism, Asperger’s and PDD-NOS, or, as was explained more vaguely, “may have been on the autism spectrum.” Including multiple subtypes of autism in a study sample is common, but, again, it provides another confound, especially considering the subtype-specific findings related to smoking during pregnancy, which I discuss in this post.

4. Regarding the researchers’ interpretation of these findings, there was much to be desired. Yes, an association between air pollutants and autism was demonstrated. But why or how? In other words, what potential genetic or developmental underlying mechanisms are set into motion by air pollution exposure? For now this is just a correlational, not causational, finding. Simply stating the supposed existence of an association doesn’t provide many answers.
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While an interesting concept, the autism and air pollution “link” needs further exploration, and, hopefully, a more reserved reception as future studies are published.

[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

It has been well demonstrated that prenatal (during gestation) and perinatal (after birth) risk factors are associated with autism spectrum disorders. But which risk factors have a significant relationship with the prevalence of autism remains up for debate. Several papers argue that maternal stress during pregnancy is an important risk factor for autism, but even this proposition is muddled, as several prenatal stressors do seem to be related to autism (e.g., the experience of a natural disaster, loss of a loved one), whereas others, albeit surprisingly, do not (e.g., physical abuse).

An answer to these discrepant findings may lie an argument supported by many autism researchers: that autism is a conglomeration of several distinct subtypes, each with their own genetic and behavioral profile. If there exist specific subtypes of autism, is it possible that one risk factor may contribute to one subtype while not influencing the occurrence of another?

A recent paper published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders asks this very question. Janne Visser and colleagues from Radboud Unversity in The Netherlands argue that defining autism broadly versus narrowly affects which risk factors seem to have a significant impact. In their study, research participants underwent an extensive diagnostic protocol, including the standard diagnostic measures for autism (ADI-R and ADOS) as well as several other diagnostic tools. Following the diagnostic protocol, participants were classified as either having autistic disorder (AD), a narrowly defined diagnosis, or pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), a more broad diagnosis. Parents of these children and those of matched controls completed a survey with questions pertaining to many pre- and perinatal risk factors.

The most robust finding in this study was an expected one. When the AD and PDD-NOS groups were combined into one autism spectrum disorder group, this group demonstrated an increased occurrence of several risk factors, including maternal infections, prenatal stress, and low birth weight, as compared to the control group. The occurrence of these risk factors was also related to the severity of core autism symptoms, such as repetitive behaviors and impairments in communication.

Interestingly, however, when the AD and PDD-NOS groups were compared to each other, one risk factor, smoking during pregnancy, stood out as being significantly related to PDD-NOS, but not AD. Smoking during pregnancy was also related to lower IQ, but only in the PDD-NOS group, a finding that remained even after controlling for birth weight, which is commonly affected by smoking. This distinction between two autism subtypes provides support for the argument that subtypes of autism (narrowly versus broadly defined) may have different environmental and genetic influences.

Smoking during pregnancy is also a risk factor associated with ADHD, suggesting that this disorder may have underlying mechanisms similar to those of PDD-NOS, but not of AD. These mechanisms may be more than environmental, as Visser and colleagues propose. Smoking during pregnancy may be associated with specific genetic traits that can be passed from mother to child. These traits may contribute to the development of disorders, such as PDD-NOS and ADHD.
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Why smoking during pregnancy wasn’t related to AD remains to be seen. It’s clear, however, that future studies should examine risk factors as they relate to not just autism in general but to specific subtypes of this disorder. Fortunately, the subtypes argument is being supported increasingly in the field of autism research. Although it begs more questions about each subtype and its associated characteristics, the subtypes argument provides a more focused and realistic approach to studying the true spectrum that is autism.

​[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

Last week, I started a course in college science teaching here at MU.  As part of an introductory assignment, we were asked to write a statement explaining the purpose and value of undergraduate science education.  While our stomachs growled (the class is 5-8 PM, aka feed me NOW time) we discussed our statements on the first day of class.  One point that many made, and that I hadn’t considered, was that undergraduate science education serves to provide basic science literacy to future adults who may not otherwise encounter science.  This literacy  informs both professional decisions, including policy making, and personal ones, such as whether or not to buy organic food.  This literacy would also dispel misconceptions about scientific concepts as these science-educated adults enter the general public and voice their opinions.

Suddenly my science teaching course was sounding like a science journalism course.  If undergraduates are not informed of science and given a chance to appreciate it, public knowledge and understanding will suffer.  But isn’t this also the function of science journalism?  This made me wonder: where should the burden of public communication of science lie? Should educational institutions (K-12 and higher education) have the task of explaining science to the general public?  Or is it science journalism that should fill this role?

Both, working in concert, with each one filling in where the other falls short, would be the best case scenario.  If currently proposed reforms for science education in the United States are successful, high school and college graduates will enter the professional world with informed views about several fields of science.  However, these views will be at a basic level, as gaining a deep understanding of many fields would be cost and time prohibitive.  Here’s where science journalism can step in, informing the public of scientific findings that go beyond surface level knowledge in an accessible manner.  Moreover, if the consumers of science journalism are equipped with a foundation of scientific knowledge, science writers could share increasingly complicated ideas with their audience.  With this shared burden, science communication could thrive.
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Granted, these ideas are, perhaps over-optimistically, under the assumption that we can have our cake and eat it too.  But when the public understanding of science is at stake, I think it’s worth a shot at even just one slice.

​[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

Continuing with some thoughts on writing, I thought I’d share this post from The Open Notebook. David Dobbs interviews leading science writer, David Quammen, about his process as he combines his notes from the field and recordings of interviews with scientists into a cohesive, finished piece.  I especially loved Quammen’s statements about beginning the writing process.

Quammen talks about piles and piles of field notebooks he has from his trips.  Somehow these get condensed into paragraphs, which are strung together to form chapters of his books.  He says, “I don’t make an inventory, and I don’t make an outline. I just pile this stuff up there and then eventually, after three years or four years or so, I start writing. I sit down with all these notebooks and sources and I drink coffee until I go into a trance and I start writing.”

He talks about using a green magic marker to put a slash by interesting tidbits of writing while going through his notebooks: “So I don’t know exactly what the structure is going to be . . . until I see what’s interesting and what’s not interesting. One of my organizing principles, always, is Throw out the boring stuff. If it’s important but boring, leave it out — it’s probably not necessary.”

For Quammen, writing begins with piles of notebooks and a green marker to pull out the interesting stories.  For me, it’s more of a half-outline, half-stream of consciousness filled with sentence fragments that eventually morphs into something coherent within the same Word document.  And, like Quammen, coffee is most likely involved as well.
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What does the beginning of the writing process look like for you?

​[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

In September 2011, my advisor gave me a previous grad student’s project to complete and then write up for publication.  As a one-month-old grad student I jumped at the opportunity to get a publication under my belt so soon. But now, over a year later, I have a real picture of the time that goes into not only data collection and analysis, but into drafts upon drafts of writing and (finally!) preparing a paper for submission to a journal.  So I have some reminders for myself later and in case for some reason these might benefit someone else, here are 5 things I’ve learned while writing my first journal article:

1. Find the right music to get into the mood.  For me, getting the writing vibe going is the result of a ritual. Emailed checked. Facebook/Twitter off limits. Ear buds in. And, most importantly, the right tunes in my ears to get my mind going.  The music I choose when writing varies by the hour. I’ll be jamming to Of Monsters and Men, then suddenly I’ll need to switch to Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 to stay focused. (I’m checking out Milo Greene while writing this post, by the way.) Needless to say, Spotify and I have become best friends this year.  And when I am having listening block, inevitably to be followed by the much dreaded writer’s block, I turn to this blogpost for inspiration.  Now I know that when I’m having trouble “summoning the [writing] muse,” as the post states, I need to make sure I have the right music accompanying me.

2. Get some space. Right before I took some time off for Christmas last year, I was so burned out with writing this paper that I was about to rip my keyboard out and bend it around a tree.  I could literally feel my computer-strained, twitching eyes glaze over while reading over (and hating) what I’d already written.  Much frustrated, I decided to completely forget about the paper for two whole weeks. Turns out, it was the best thing I could have done.  When I sat back down at my desk and opened “Publication draft 12_17_12,” I felt my work ethic flow back into my typing fingers.  Suddenly I cared about writing the paper again, and, even better, I was enjoying it.  Next time I feel the need to dismantle my computer or just plain quit, I’ll get some space from the paper, trusting that later on, it will become my friend again.

3. If you love it too much, get rid of it. To be honest, I learned this lesson in undergrad, but I’ve applied it countless times while writing this paper.  During my junior year at Baylor, I received my first ever C on a paper. After a near mental breakdown (grades used to matter WAY too much to me), I gathered my pride from my dorm room floor and headed to the so-thought evil, C-granting professor’s office hours.  He gave me a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, which I still have, and explained why he gave me a C. He said that too many of my sentences, while sophisticated and eloquent sounding, didn’t contribute any meat to my argument.  He suggested that when I spend a lot of time time crafting a lengthy, complicated sentence and come to love it so much that it becomes like a child of mine, I need to kill it.  Get rid of the sentence-baby and replace it with a concise statement that actually has meaning.  Nowadays, when I catch myself lovingly admiring one of my verbose sentences, I know that, instead, I need to be hitting the delete key.

4. When you need to write, read. At times when the words would just not come, I found myself reading through some of the papers from my reference list or browsing through the science posts on my Google Reader.  Just as Erin Podolak said in her blogpost at Science Decoded, “if you want to write well, you must read good writing.” When I come across a really great piece, in which the writing just flows together so perfectly and clearly, I find I’m re-inspired to get my nose back to the grindstone.
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5. Sell it!  One of the notes my advisor gave me on my first draft was that my emphasis in the discussion section was way too negative. He said that after reading a paper like mine, a publisher would think “Heck, why publish this at all? Everything was all wrong with this project!” Apparently, I went a little too far while writing about the limitations of the project.  Now I know that alongside a healthy discussion of what could have made a project better, I need to express why the findings contribute to existing literature and inform future research.  I need to sell it, or no one will buy what I have say.
Now onto draft #257.  Not really, but that feels about right.

​[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]

Can you see the figure on the left within the figure on the right? (hint: try looking at the lower left corner of the figure on the right).  In a journal articlepublished last month, Michael Spencer and colleagues from Cambridge explained that while people with autism perform normally on tasks like this one, they demonstrate deficits at the level of brain activation while performing such tasks.

The authors state that people with autism demonstrate a failure to deactivate certain brain regions that make up the default mode network when performing complex tasks like the one pictured. These regions, including the prefrontal cortex and the posterior cinguate cortex, may be collectively responsible for abstract mental activities like day dreaming. Why would deactivating the default mode network be important when performing complex tasks?  In a way, taking certain parts of the brain offline clears the air from distracting thoughts, allowing one to focus on the task at hand.

What’s interesting is that the authors not only found this failure to deactivate in people with autism but also in their siblings who don’t have autism.  In other words, when performing a task similar to the one above, the brain activity of brothers or sisters of people with autism looks more autistic-like than typical.  The authors present this finding as a potential endophenotype, or marker for familial risk, of autism.  Though this finding is only preliminary, it shows that siblings of people with autism (who share some genetic similarities with their siblings) may display certain traits that are indicative of autism, without actually having the disorder.  If this concept holds, it could provide a better picture of what goes on genetically in autism, or in the lack thereof.

​[This post was originally published at my previous blog, Neurolore.]