acceptable type of research?

[Cognition]

I am extremely interested in neuroscience and want to do a MSTP in neurology. I am currently working in an fMRI lab doing experiements that involve ERP/EEG, TMS, as well as fMRI (all of which are basically different methods of discovering brain functions). However, I have no "wet lab" /"fly lab" research expereience, which is what I heard is reccomended. They type of research that I am doing right now is what I want to be doing in the future, not wet lab research. By the end of my undergraduate work, I will have worked in this lab for close to 3 years and will have my name on at least 2 papers.

Is this type of research ok? Do you or other people you know do research like this and get accepted to MSTPs? Comments? Suggestions?

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[Neuronix]

Yes. This kind of thing is acceptable. Tell them you want to do a neuroscience PhD for functional imaging studies and that you're looking at a career in neurology. I don't know anyone personally, but you see plenty of graduates from MD/PhD programs who did fMRI work for their thesis.

 

[Sonya]

It is acceptable.

A big question is whether it is basic science or clinical research. Obviously, it is either clinical or on the border of basic science and clinical. (you haven't told me enough to decide). For most research oriented schools, portray it as basic science with strong clinical applications.
basic science is what is preffered. traditionally, wet lab is basic science stuff. (if you're not sure what i mean by basic science vs. clinical, tell us more about you do, specifically, what is your project goal).

sonya

 

[Cognition]

Well basically, what we are looking at is how the prefrontal cortex (namely the ventral lateral and dorsal lateral PFC) have inhibitory (or excitatory) control of different parts of the brain. We are running subjects in an fMRI scanner to get the spatial localization and recording the brain's electrical activity using ERP to get the temporal activity. We will eventually use TMS to create virtual lesions to determine the necessity of PFC involvement. We are also expanding the experiment to run on stroke and alzheimer's patients and age matched controls. A lot of what we do ends up being data analysis, but I do get to have a lot of patient contact.

If it helps, the PI for the lab is an MD and the post-doc that I work with just finished his residency after going through an MSTP.

 

[Sonya]

ok... so I'd say it can obviously be called basic science research (aka your goal is still a scientific question, which will have clinical application), and you're getting scientific experience from it. While yes, you do screen patients, you (hopefully) apply your science knowledge and/or thinking abilities to process data, etc.

Two things about your research description (granted i'm s ure your wrote this off the spur, not with thought): when writing formally, write it top down. ie, application, then methods, and then your contribution. Secondly, I've worked (briefly) in an fMRI lab, and significantlyl in neuroscience, and still don't completely udnerstand what you're talking about. aka, remove technicality and please replace the acronyms with (except maybe fMRI, EEG, PFC), with something else.

good luck, your absolutely fine with the research your doing.

 

[noy]

There is no need for wet lab research , as far as I can tell - plenty of folks do modeling...

fMRI is about as clinically relevant as one can get with 'basic' research - one of the researchers at St. Jude showed up at Brain tumor clinic, played a video of an fMRI of a 5 year old for the docs, who then made a clinical decision based on what they saw. Spectroscopy is the same way...

VERY VERY relevant, and good research to boot.

But you do need to meet the prereqs, so they know you can handle acids/bases safely