Hi all and welcome to week three although or rather a recap of my week three here at the Frazier Rehab center. Last week I told you that I had begun going through data after forming my hypothesis about muscle activation with both hands on/ support and hands off/ no support perturbations. My boss had actually given me two and a half weeks to complete my data sets however I finished in a week. This would have been excellent news had he not later come to me and said that in an effort to not overwhelm me he left out a few details about the data at the start of my analysis.
When we think about the size of anything we will often think of it in terms of its relevance to other objects even if it’s just a ruler. If you place a two pennies on a table and place one under and magnify glass the one under the magnify glass will of course look bigger but we know that its a false representation. With my data its all visualized as wave lengths. On a larger scale the points in the data with higher amplitudes will show to be larger and the ones with lower amplitudes will show to be smaller with less amplitude and complexity but this is only due to the presence of the more complex portion of the data. Once you zoom in the smallest of amplitude can seem to have the most complex of reactions even if they are meant to be categorized as nothing more than noise. Why is this important? Enrico, (my boss) did not list amplitude in his list of things to focus however he was very aware of this and knew I would have to do it over but also as previously mentioned he didn’t anticipate that I would work twice as fast. there were many data point which had been rated a 5 or a 6 which is the most complex rating even though they only had an amplitude of 20 or 30 whereas some had amplitudes of 200-2000 which is clearly a much stronger signal however without the scale the two look exactly the same when zoomed in.
For instance the one seen at the top which is et to be zoomed in is what you would want to see for maximum complexity however these types of visuals are also typically paired with low amplitude and therefore low significance and meaning for anything. I originally thought I had a patient that I was convince just wasn’t paralyzed at all but alas I was very much incorrect. However it was noticed that specific muscles do exhibit patterns no matter what direction the patients is pulled in. For some this may make perdent sense but if you think about out pulling machine like multiple different types of workout equipment they each are meant to engage different muscles of someone pushes you forward a different signal transduction pathway is completed in an attempt to keep you standing than if someone were to push you backwards. That being said in these patients a similar recitation seems to take place despite the change in direction
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Separate from work, this week I went to an Irish catholic carnival. By that I mean there was nothing religious about it other than the name of the school they were raising money for. They do a lot of gambling but the most popular booth is the cake booth in which people gamble for cake and large ones at that. While the family I’m stay with my not be Irish I am and I certain brought my luck with me. I won two cakes two plants and some popcorn because i got a little hungry between rounds. There was a birthday party that needed to be attended so we gave one of the cakes to the aunt and uncle of my host family for their grandsons birthday.
Apparently I’ve found my self living with some expert divers, so during my stay I finally learned how to dive properly which has not become one of my favorite activities!!!
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