The mouse experiment has finished and went exceptionally well, with the mice all being very well behaved and doing what we hoped! I have now finished my first ever report, being from a maths background, and I think it is pretty good! We had to do a quick presentation on our results and me being very loud lent itself to me doing most of the talking which also went well. Good chance to flex my R muscles as well. In other aspects I have been continuing my taught material, and trying to hit the ground running with my research question in February. I have looked at some matlab code and I am still wrestling with it but it is still coming along and I have some ideas! Christmas round the corner means that I am even BUSIER than normal, with house renovations, uni work and christmas stuff, it’s amazing I get time to sleep!

My workload has started to increase and while I feel the pressure I like to believe I am positively thriving off it! I have never enjoyed university as much as I am now. Over the last 2 weeks I have attended many lectures, mostly on visual systems, which I have found helpful and interesting. The way we as a species have developed trichromacy and the complex way we reach the visual cortex and what happens IN the visual cortex is all very fascinating. I have also attended a lecture on mitochondrial diseases, and a couple of optional lectures Jenny herself ran on physiology (fortunately it was the eye, again, so more area covered). I have begun work on a behviour experiment with mice involving object recognition, which I am finding quite exhilarating and working quite hard on. And Jenny and myself have had a good chat about the research question I will be looking at in semester 2 and 3. Rather than looking at compensation mechanisms with 3D viewing alone we are going to look at the compensation mechanism involved when motion is also induced on the object and see if this affects the level of compensation (we hope it will!). personally over the fortnight I have got the keys to my house and started all the repairs needed on it, beginning with the physical jobs of tearing out carpet and ripping down walls, all very macho! Still very much enjoying the MRes and long may that continue!

‘Straight into the deep end’ is how I think I’ll remember my first few weeks at postgrad level! Lots of new things to learn and research quickly, none of the namby-pamby spoonfeeding you got at undergrad here! Spent last week learning about the olfactory and gustation systems in Sensory systems, very interesting. I also read up on some journal articles regarding 3D and I’m pleased to report I’ve started to ‘get’ it a lot easier! I’m beginning to ask questions myself, which in the long run is what all the research stuff is about isn’t it? So very good. In neurological disorders we continued a detailed lecture and talk on the structure of neurons and how synapses can be passed chemically or electrically. Similar to A level biology but a bit more now, which is good! Finally in animal behaviour I constructed a model for the singing time of a generic species of bird, based on very basic assumptions, and then used a bit of differentiation to find the optimal singing time. Other than that (!) it’s been a steady week. Lots of writing up and individual reading, which was unheard of for me at undergrad level. On a personal footnote I had a busy week! Went to see Taken 2 at the cinemas (would certainly recommend) and played 3 games of 5-a-side (2 wins one defeat) and we lost yet another rugby game, due to people not turning up on the day, bit of a bummer, and somebody decided to stamp on my face (I had a small stud shaped bruise on my forehead all day Sunday and Monday!) but a good weekend nonetheless. Next week I am going to continue with my lectures (Stroke in neurological disorders, more modelling in behaviour and another double sensory systems lecture) and I am going to start thinking more seriously about my research question.

It was my first week as an MRes student last week. Quite a wakeup call! I’m used to very complex maths, that basically needs solving for homework but no reading up on! Culture shock having to actually do some out of lecture research. My modules have been Sensory systems, which touched on the brain and its areas and associated ‘tasks’. and the neurons themselves, with myelinated sheaths. Most of this was hard A-level Biology material that I just about remember (My mathsy brain seems to like memorising things) from four years ago. I also started my neurological disorder work, which was a lot more complex. I’m not sure whether it was maybe just the start but I spent a lot of time re-reading, rewriting and researching the words. Found out a lot about Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s however (Alzheimer’s seems particularly interesting, with amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles affecting the brain. However it looks (from the research I read up on) that the fibres are in fact a response for pressure from elsewhere. The other module is the biological study of behaviour. Evolution of animals, with Lisa was very interesting and a small class so more of a discussion! The statistics module started, and not to blow my own trumpet but it was just a tad below the standard I’m used to! I’m going to stick at it because it IS a compulsory module. Just means it’s (touch wood!) marks in the bag! I also attended a few PDP sessions about research ethics, managing your e-portfolio and public speaking, the last of which was more of a two hour drama workshop, very fun! On the friday morning I dissected a brain (well looked at a pre-dissected brain) which was both satisfying gut-churning and very interesting! On a personal note I played rugby on the saturday (first team!) but we got beat 🙁 and I went to see Nickelback, who were beyond awesome! Looking forward to next week!