Say something, say something, anything. Your silence is deafening.

If you need help, ask for it.

Seriously. It's incredible how many colleagues I've seen struggle and dredge through an experimental goal that requires the implementation of new or different techniques. Sure, they've probably read some scientific articles on the topic, but seldom do I witness fellow researchers reaching out to their colleagues for help when they're struggling.

In my postdoctoral fellowship, my research focus went from preclinical traumatic brain injury with rats (in a Psychology program) to functional adult hippocampal neurogenesis (in a Neurobiology department). It was a huge leap into much harder bench work with which I wasn't familiar - which meant that I had to reach out to the undergraduate technician in the lab to learn these techniques. The other postdoc didn't need this type of tutoring, so I quickly felt like an idiot, and I think that still kind of sticks with me even today.

Not many scientists will tell you this - but working in science is essentially a commitment to frequently feeling like a moron. For example:

I have done something so profoundly dumb in an experiment that I am briefly yet frequently certain I have multiple personalities that hate one another.

One time I returned an animal cage following behavioral testing, but did not notice that an animal was missing from its cage. Turned out that the animal was in my private testing room for the entire weekend, and I didn't realize it until I found shredded paper towels in the middle of the floor, Monday morning. CT-15 was fine, but freaked out, and honestly, so was I. What kind of bonehead does that, I thought.

I have struggled with lab techniques and let it go on longer than I should have because PRIDE.

I didn't learn PCR and gel electrophoresis until my postdoc, and I was able to hide my troubles with genotyping until the laboratory technician left his position a year later. And then it still took four months for me to go from "recipe-following automaton" to "sufficiently proficient scientist." The undergraduate assistants understood more about the process than this postdoc did, so I avoided that shit like a shameful plague.

More often than not, experimental results are the opposite of what I would have predicted, despite all the science things I thought I knew on the topic.

The first study I did in graduate school demonstrated that a vitamin effective in young animals as a treatment following TBI (traumatic brain injury) was completely ineffective in middle aged animals. The finding was so surprising that my master's thesis wound up being a study of the effect of age on that drug's efficacy. This is a normal progression of experimental investigation in science, but it's not difficult to interpret it as being incorrect or even moronic in your scientific predictions.

It can be really painful to admit that something is difficult for you, even more so when the people around you, your peers, don't seem to have the same troubles. We're all competing for the same grant money, recognition, and success. So you don't say anything about your struggles, you don't ask for help, and something that is a frequent and necessary task in your scientific endeavors turns into a monster of an undertaking. At least it did (and still can) for me.

The too frequently unspoken truth in science is that as a group, we all rise and fall together (in a lab, in a research group, in a department, in a university, in a field, etc). If one of us makes a major breakthrough in methodology or technique, all of us might benefit from it. If one of us secures funding, there's more support for the rest of the team, or another piece of equipment. If one of us expands their professional network to include rich or powerful people, all of us might now have a powerful friend-of-a-friend.

Putting together a great team of a lab is important for each member's benefit. This is true for both social and professional climate, but I'm talking specifically about professional development. For the sake of the team, each member should seek to be open, considerate, thoughtful, and dedicated. It needs to be a safe place to ask for help or advice without fearing judgement and persecution. It allows its members to play to their strengths, and others to support them with their own, symbiotically.

In science, as in life, it's best to forgive yourself for your failings, and move the fuck on, preferably with your friends.

Big Brother is this Behavioral Neuroscientist's crack cocaine

I am addicted to Big Brother.

For those that don't know - Big Brother is a reality TV competition that runs in the summer, airing three days a week. Approximately 13 people get locked in a camera-filled house without entertainment, outside contact, and limited access to resources. Over the course of the show, contestants compete for power, luxuries, and survival. Housemates vote each other out of the house until only two individuals remain. The winner is selected by a group of the most recently 'evicted houseguests,' making Big Brother a complex social, physical, and mental game.

I realize that many people think that reality TV is trash, but I would argue that Big Brother is psychologically fascinating. Because of a lack of outside stimulation, contestants quickly become immersed in the environment, frequently citing that they forget that the house is brimming with more than 60 cameras. There's some alcohol available, but things rarely devolve into a Bad Girls Club-level meltdown and the drama doesn't feel as exploitative as therapy shows for vulnerable people and doesn't make people sick. What makes Big Brother amazing is that you can watch as people become increasingly entrenched in the mind-warpingly intense game.

The game is so different in every incarnation that here is a brief description/commentary of the previous season's winners (that I've watched):

2012: Ian - awkward young dude who managed to outwit (and piss off fewer people) his Big Brother mentor, the infamous previous winner Dan.

2011: Rachel - Vegas resident with an obnoxious laugh and in-your-face attitude that used both brains and brawn to win despite being in an unpopular 'show-mance.'

2010: Hayden - Strong, handsome fraternity-type dude who forged a strong alliance and used it to easily navigate into the final three.

2009: Jordan - perhaps the most clueless contestant to win, the adorable houseguest bumbled to half a million dollars by the end of the summer by staying likable.


To become the winner, it takes a combination of physical, mental, and social gaming. As briefly touched upon above, winners come to that end using a myriad of strategies. I find it positively fascinating. So might the 6 million people that tune in for every episode of the people that pay more than $15/month to watch the uncensored, 24-hour live feeds. There's an after-hours cable show featuring action from within the Big Brother house.

There is at least one blogger that is making money by soliciting donations for covering the live feeds, and their coverage is good enough that I'm considering supporting them financially.


If you're into psychology or behavioral neuroscience, Big Brother is worth a watch as a fish bowl of human behavior. You can easily discount it as cheap reality TV, but that sort of closed mindedness might be a bit shortsighted. After all, as researchers we have ethical and logistical constraints from ever doing anything with the experimental realism that is evident in that house. Zimbardo (omg! not dead!) would get a kick out of it.

Time goes by SO SLOWLY

I have a confession:

At every lab meeting, I track how much time one of my colleagues speaks.

Yes, I am a jerk.

No, I don't care.

In graduate school, lab meetings were held sporadically - but not at all for most of my graduate school career. This is a probably a large reason as to why I find anything but the "Reader's Digest" version of the whole affair absolutely excruciating.

And why I time my colleague in our lab meetings.

Content-wise: This person struggles with saying anything clearly, effectively or efficiently. They use lab meeting to think out loud to themselves. They don't think through their presentation's narrative and then I end up watching them sort through old presentations and graphs looking for the "one".

We hold data meetings every other week - and  this person speaks for about a half hour at each gathering.

It is the water torture of lab meetings.

So... I bemusedly count. Because the alternative would be to dread the whole thing and bitterly stare at the otherwise nice individual while they talk about their work.

...

Did I mention that they gave a more formal project update using a Word document? It was ridiculous. I could hardly hold back the humored and amazed smirk as they slowly and awkwardly scrolled through their graphs in Word.

Do your labmates and/or co-workers a solid and make that presentation quick, obvious and to the point. We'll thank you for it.

Baby you can do it, take your time, do it right

So I've had this behavioral soap box just sitting here and I don't feel like I've abused it at all, and that's a crime.

Something that scientists hardly ever is do is slow the eff down. That exact issue is what lead to severe burnout for myself this spring, possibly culminating in writing a blog about neuroscience because I needed some catharsis from a stressful and sometimes abusive science career.

For the last year, I've managed a large mouse colony, learned to assemble, troubleshoot, and use operant touchscreen-equipped chambers, coordinated a crew of more than a dozen undergraduates, and completed *8* behavioral experimental projects (each requiring 4 months to run) in that time. Do the math - my crew has completed 32 months of projects in about 18. That doesn't even include the 50-ish pilot animals we ran during that time - each for at least six months.

This would be ridiculously productive if being productive in science was purely who finished the most studies - but it's not. The work that you publish and present is the true measure by which your productivity is measured in science. The quality of this work is a big factor in that judgement, and the rush to finish work before someone else publishes that technique or finding can frequently results in slap-dash work of questionable standards.

Why do you think the hashtag #overlyhonestmethods exists?

So I have a ridiculous and soul-crushing amount of data and it wasn't until I turned off the damn chambers and killed all of the trained animals that I was able to make myself stop. Now my PI and I are finding way more cool stuff (where cool stuff = possibly publishable data) than we've noticed in two years. It could lead to several meaningful publications of the behavioral correlates of adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Isn't that the point of all this?

Lifehacker has an incredible wealth of insight into the idea of productivity. For example, it helped me find this article describing how working more than 40 hours a week is probably making me less productive on the whole, Nicholas Tesla was just one of many wildly successful and respectful people to take walks to boost creativity and thinking, keeping a journal can help assess productivity habits, eating lunch at your desk can make me less productive, and so on.

To boost productivity in science - and not just perceived productivity - may actually mean spending more time idly or even at other pursuits.

It's shocking how infrequently this topic is broached in the workplace. Things that seem like they would improve productivity (i.e., working more) probably hurt output. Like one of my graduate school mentors, Greg Rose, impressed upon me - too little time in science is spent thinking. If we spent more time thinking critically about all aspects of our work, and ensuring that the endeavors we undertake are done so with a rigorous dedication to high quality technique, a lot less time, effort, and money would be wasted.

If you liked it then you shoulda put your name on it

Dear everyone who's applied to or for anything ever:

Label the files that you email to someone in a way that would make the file names in someone else's possession make ONE MODICUM of sense.

For example, if you send me an email, and attach a resume(or CV), these file names make me want to reject you without further thought:

resume.doc
myresume.doc


This annoying little thing makes my frustrated mind over-value the resumes of people that actually put their name in the file. It's such a dumb little thing, but when there's a stack of applicants for a position, you might be surprised what people use as their selective criterion.



Like that one time, when someone forgot to spell check their email to me, and called me Dr. Swam.










... And then I stupidly and mockingly posted the above on Facebook, and now some of my roller derby family (lovingly?) call me Dr. Swam or Swammy.


So... yeah. Label those files.

I'm such a fool for you

Because of my need of organization, I have now accepted that I will forever be in charge of cleaning and putting things away - both at home and in the lab.

FML.

Now, I'm not saying that my lab mates are filthy pigs - in fact, I have a great lab family and I really like them. It's just... that there's a pervasive culture of not putting things away. In my experience, the outlook is poor for getting people to put their lab equipment away after it's been cleaned and dried. That minuscule area by the sink is constantly brimming with tools to be autoclaved or put away. It's literally limbo for lab tools.

Once a week, I've now resigned myself to putting things away. Sometimes I need to, because it's the only way I can place my used tools there to dry. Sometimes I'd prefer to postpone whatever science I have slated for the day in favor of the mindless indulgence that is organizing. Sometimes I do it because I have undergraduate assistants around me almost all of the time, and they need to be taught how to be good lab citizens.

There's absolutely nothing harder than trying to get a lab member to change a bad lab citizen habit. It's easiest to pretend it never happens, and hope that you can eventually have more good than bad lab mates. Maybe you can approach a poor citizen individually, and appeal for considerate behavior. ...And sometimes you let it roll, suck it up, and clean up after them silently. Not all lab mates are perfect or permanent, and sometimes it's easier to simply wait for the ticking time bomb to explode (or graduate, because that happens sometimes).

So today, I raise my glass to my lab mates. I put away your shit like a bitch.

Lies and Recomendations

I wish I could have an honest conversation with a professor who's written at least 20 recommendation letters. Maybe 50? ....100?

Wait, how many letters will a professor write in their time? That got scary fast.

Whilst attempting entrance to graduate school, I had a letter writer fail to send promised letters. I apparently wasted time completing tedious applications and a boatload of money during my college-induced poverty because some dickhead lied to my face. The part that made it so excruciating was that he was not the only asshole liar to exploit my work in academia. I'd spent my junior year of college managing research assistants and collecting human-subjects data for that asshole's graduate student. His student absconded with the data to a post-doctoral position in Texas somewhere and never again responded to correspondence. Upon hearing the issue, his advisor agreed to write letters in his stead. Note: agreed to. NEVER ACTUALLY DID.

Now, in full disclosure, I am *JAZZED* that things turned out the way they did. Apparently so glad that I have completely forgotten the name of the graduate student who was the ultimate culprit in the above debacle. During my senior year I worked in a lab with amazing researchers (Gerald Wasserman, Mandy Bolbecker-Hosking). I later joined Mike Hoane's lab at Southern Illinois Unviersity as a graduate student and fell in love with traumatic brain injury work in the following application cycle. Met my future husband, fell in love roller derby culture with some people in Southern Illinois, blah, blah, blah. Birds singing, sun shining, everything is perfect and wonderful.

...Yet there's still a little salt in my soul about that damned letter.

I needed a crew of assistants to help with operant chamber testing, and that's now ballooned out to more than a dozen assistants. Most people balk at the number assistants, but these rad miniscientists substantially increase the quality and throughput of my research. There's a time trade-off for me - management, recruitment, retention, and enrichment requires substantial effort, but it's VERY worth it, in my opinion. 

My recommendation letter guidelines:

1. I honestly assess their letters' potential content to the apprentice (while working together or when asked for a letter, but preferably the former).

2. Apprentices provide as much notice as possible, with a plan in place, ao I can easily complete the letter and send it.

3. I supply a copy of the letter to the apprentice following its submission.

It's my belief that if you're going to train or be trained someone, there is ideally a commitment to doing so well. It would be easier for one to know how they could excel if the rubric on which they will be graded is clearly described. Mandated for courses, unheard of with research assistantships.

As the discipline of Neuroscience matures and becomes a recognized and established independent academic entity, I'm excited to see how the recommendation letter evolves. Research involvement whilst and undergraduate is an increasingly necessary component to admittance to Neuroscience graduate programs (as well as many others). Maybe the recommendation letter culture can sustain a similar evolution.

At least it's digital now. Letterhead is a bitch.

I believe in a thing called love

As a behavioral neuroscientist, the bulk of my scientific data comes directly from the actions of animals. My experience thus far is predominantly from my graduate training in preclinical traumatic brain injury with rats. The tasks I perform with the animals can be as hands-off as activity monitoring (a motor and anxiety measure where the subject is simply placed into a box) or as intimate as forelimb placing (significantly restraining the animal and moving them about a plexiglass plate to stimulate their whiskers to examine reflexes). Despite the 'intimacy' of the task, handling and becoming familiar with the animals is a standard practice before using animals in a study, although its implementation differs wildly across researchers and is seldom mentioned in Methods sections.

The primary goal of handling is to make the animals familiar enough with the handler/researcher that they can satisfactorily perform the behavioral tasks that will be asked of them. At first, this means acquainting the animal with simply being touched, as many animals sit in tiny boxes without social stimulation of any kind as they await use in a study. Later, handling can mean manipulating the hands and feet of the animal, or even getting them used to being held in one's arms. 

But when I first started working with rodents, I was told not to get too emotionally close to the animals. "Don't get attached," was uttered on dozens of occasions by lab members at every level of training. Indeed, the practice of endearingly naming one's subjects is usually the sign that one isn't long for the scientist career.

Sure enough, I named one of my first subjects, a female retired breeder, because of her insatiably sweet yet voraciously intelligent behavior. Sure, "Number Seven" sung in a baby voice isn't a name by the strictest definition since its true label was AS-7, but I loved this animal. Just as everyone had told me not to do. When the day came to sacrifice the animal, my first on my own, I tried to hide how difficult it was for me. I shut the door after I was finally able to administer the euthanasia agent. I shut the door and I cried as I watched the animal die.

It would be almost three more years before I would bestow nicknames on animals again. But this time, I'm much more conscious of what that endearment means. Since then, I have been passionate - nay, outspoken - about how important it is to treat these precious animals with care, rather than data-producing meat sacks. When given the opportunity with my postdoctoral position, I was quick to insist that basic animal care include more enrichment items (for example, we now use nestlets and paper mouse houses). I insist that animals are never singly housed, unless necessitated by health concerns.

I fear that the dire need to produce research littered with p-values below .05, we forget that science should be the pursuit of truth. If our animals are truly modeling the human phenomena, we need to commit to that by treating them as preciously. Anything less is a conscious disassociation with sufficiently rigorous research. Why do some researchers forgo enrichment items for their animal subjects? Because the improvement of the reprehensibly impoverished environment is sufficient to endanger hopeful significant differences among experimental groups.

Scientists shouldn't be so afraid to not find significant differences that they allow subpar care of their animal subjects. I dream about a science that embraces and supports good, rigorous, and creative work. I also dream about manuscripts that write themselves. Sigh... another day, another day.

Like a Boss

About two years ago I had sushi with a mentor, shortly after I finished my PhD and was preparing to set up operant chambers for mice in a fledgling lab. She told me to get undergraduate assistants IMMEDIATELY.

"But I don't even know what I'm doing, yet. I've never run or programmed systems like those" I balked.

She wove me off, dismissively. "Trust me."

Spoiler Alert: She was absolutely right. I now have 16 assistants.

Here are some things that I have learned in the five semesters during which I have accepted undergraduate assistants:

First and foremost:
Be pro-choice. Be the master of your own destiny and select your own assistant(s). Sure, entertain others' opinions, especially if your boss wants to contribute to this decision, but be clear that your thoughts matter. This is someone in whom you're probably going to invest a lot of time and effort. This person might someday be a representative of your lab, training, or institution. You want to do your best to ensure that that goes over well.

Applications and Interviews

1. Planned graduation date matters. I view a one-year commitment as the minimum any assistant should expect to invest in a worthwhile research endeavor. Better yet, anyone who spends even more time with one lab is more likely to develop independent skills, run an independent project, or just become familiar with scientific culture.

2. Motivation influences effort and even type of lab involvement. Whether a student plans on making application to medical/dental/pharmacy school or graduate school can be a major indicator of what approach they will take to their research assistantship. More of my graduate-school aspiring students are interested in running their own study than my m/d/p-school aspiring students. 

3. Informal interview. Would this person get along with the other personalities in the lab? Did this person do any 'homework' before coming in to talk about also working on our science? What kind of person or team member would they be like?

Training

1. Train once, check twice, and repeat until their efforts are satisfactory. Poor performance by a student can be attributable to poor training and guidance, too. Don't forget that.

2. Paperwork sucks but creating an easy guide/tracking/system to knocking it all out is key.

Involvement

1. Say please and thank you. A lot. 

2. Be reasonable. Things happen, people get sick, life falls apart, people mess up. I'd rather that none of that stuff affects any of my work, but when it inevitably and reliably does, I roll with the punches. Healthy, happy, relatively-relaxed and secure assistants make better learners and team members. Only get uptight about these things if a worrisome pattern emerges, and then deal with it head-on.

3.Establish regular, clear, and frequent communication with each of them individually.

4. Make time to sit down with each assistant individually, about once a semester, to examine goals, situation, plans, and whatnot. It goes a REALLY long way.

5. Keep your PI in the loop. Better yet, try and make them part of it, if time permits*.

I invest a substantial amount of time ensuring that this working relationship is meaningful and functional for both parties. I think that's made very competent, happy, dedicated assistants that I can count on for semesters to come. This semester, I graduate the first of my amazing assistants, and I have to admit that I do feel a little bit proud for them. The last year felt a bit like watching grow up, at least in science.

And like them, I try to be constantly learning about what I can do to become a better scientist, mentor, and supervisor. You know, like a boss.

*realistically, LOL

A rush and a push and the land that we stand on is ours...

It's been five weeks since I defended my dissertation, and successfully became a Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience, studying aging in traumatic brain injury.

Alright, that's probably not entirely accurate. The official paperwork only went through two weeks ago, after moderately laborious revisions and an ever-changing moving schedule. I've finally arrived in Texas, after more than a month of 'unemployment' to find that more time will be required before I can get started in my new lab. So I'm unemployed and broke but at least I'm a doctor in neuroscience.