I have noticed a worrying trend in my academic career - they always leave things on a downer.

My last lecture on the MSc was on the subject of depression.

When I did my undergraduate degree, our final module was on the psychology of ageing, which was structured in a chronological way so that we ended up covering the cheery topic "bereavement, loneliness and dying".

My final essay topic for the MSc? "Has research into the biological basis of depression had any impact on its treatment?"

Hmm, am I subtly being set-up for a lifetime of professional disappointment?

Oscillations

I am currently attempting to steer myself through the penultimate essay on my MSc course, which unfortunately is proving to be without a doubt the hardest essay I have ever had to write.

It's about 'the functional role of brain oscillations', and is quite interesting at the same time as being obscenely dull. Essentially, I am writing about how there has always been a bias toward examining where in the brain things are processed, but now there is loads of evidence to suggest that observing when the brain works it's magic are just as essential.

It turns out that brain cells oscillate - the electrical activity they display is not random, it has a rhythm. Nothing particularly remarkable about that, but huge numbers of brain cells actually oscillate together - they become synchronised in their activity, and are extremely accurate (to under a millisecond).

To complicate matters, the frequency at which they oscillate, the speed of the rhythm, varies across different parts of the brain, and also varies for different activities. So we have clusters of cells all 'wobbling' together, at a certain frequency, and other clusters all doing the same at a different frequency.

These oscillations are the brain waves you may have seen on TV, when people are made to do experiments wearing funny electrodes on their head, which produces squiggly lines on a monitor.

So, as I said - the timing of brain activity is equally as valid a field of study as the physical layout of the brain. Neuroscientists are easily seduced by fancy looking brain images, and this may go some way to explain the bias towards the where, but this has meant out knowledge of the when is now lagging behind.

Anyway, its horrifically complicated in places, and the afore mentioned bias in the research means its patchy and inconsistent, and this essay is proving to be a real challenge. But then, I knowingly chose what I thought was the hardest question, as it is potentially the one that may be of must use to me in my future research, so I think I made the right decision in picking this essay.

Still, another 1,500 words to write by Friday, and I stupidly signed up for a two day course starting on thursday...

Better get oscillating!

Nearly there....

Coursework deadlines:

MODULE	EXAMINATION	DEADLINE/DATE
Introduction to cognitive neuroscience	2,000-3,000 word written essay	12 February 2010
Structure and measurement of the human brain	2-hour unseen written exam	15 January 2010
Experimental design and statistics	Coursework	Announced in class
Methods I: lesion approaches	Two 1,000-1,500 word written reports	Report 1: 18 December 2009 Report 2: 12 February 2010
Methods II: neuroimaging	Two 1,000-1,500 word written reports	Report 1: 26 March 2010 Report 2: 9 April 2010
Current issues I: fundamental processes	2,000-3,000 word written essay	9 April 2010
Current issues II: elaborative and adaptive processes	2,000-3,000 word written essay	23 April 2010
Current issues III: translational research	2,000-3,000 word written essay	7 May 2010
Research project	10,000-12,000 word written dissertation	20 August 2010