QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT #2!!!

Hey everybody! Hopefully this will be the last change I'll be announcing. Unfortunately, this is going be a pretty major one. I know a lot of you were attracted to my blog because I was going to look at gender-based differences. Alas, the study that I was hoping to focus on (that had to do with gender differences) is incomplete and has only just begun the early stages of enrollment. This means I have to switch over to a more developed study that could be just as exciting but regrettably does not have to do with gender differences. The plan now is to compare the structural brain changes in patients with post-traumatic headache (PTH) and those who are healthy. I know this may be a bit disappointing, but I promise I will make this just as exciting as my original question. I'm also very aware that this is a huge change to make when I'm in my last couple weeks of my internship. But, I'm crossing my fingers that everything will work out. I'll need to revise my proposal and change my title (if any of you have some good titles in store, feel free to comment below).

Here's some good news? I think I have my idea for my Final Product, but I'll wait until I'm more sure before I share. A massive thank you to you all for your continued support and understanding! These last few weeks will be an exciting time to see my research finally come together (optimistically speaking)!! :)



Keep Calm, It's "Only" Week 8

Hey, everyone! Back for Week 8, I see. As you know, my project was just casually minding its own business, when suddenly! We were no longer in Kansas anymore!! Yes, and there's my attempted humor, I hope that didn't make you cringe too much. Again, I am sorry to be making this change so late in the project, but I know (well I'm hoping) this is just as interesting. To put it simply, my topic has changed from gender-based differences in concussions to comparing structural brain changes between PTH patients and healthy controls. I'm trying out the new title that I came up with (a bit unoriginal maybe, but I tried my best).

So, PTH, or post-traumatic headache, is a primary headache disorder that develops within a week after a concussion. It is the only headache disorder to be caused by a physical injury to the head. The others I've actually discussed in previous posts are tension-type headache, migraine, trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias (or cluster headache). The hypothesis for this study if that there would be structural brain changes in PTH patients when compared to healthy controls. Patients would come in, fill out questionnaires, then head over to radiology for an MRI scan. Radiologists will then take the MRI scans of both groups, and use cortical thickness, a tool for measuring the thickness of the cerebral cortex, to analyze for brain changes. A thicker cortex is the sign of a healthy brain. Below is a picture of how they use cortical thickness.

During this week, I mainly worked on revising my proposal and beginning to make a plan for my final product. I haven't quite finished editing my proposal, so maybe don't check that out just yet. I'll have it finished by next week if you would like to check it out then. What I've got going right now for my final product is a scientific post of this study. Dr. Chong showed me some examples of the posters in Mayo, and I thought it would be cool if I could do the same thing. I think of it as a more formal version of those bio labs we would do with the intro, methodology, results, etc. Here are some pictures of the posters at Mayo to give you a better idea (I don't think I could make mine as professional as those, but I'll do my best). 

Anyways, that was my week! I hope I didn't overwhelm you with too much info. As always, comment below with your lovely questions, and I'll be seeing you all soon for Week 9!! :)