Warning. This post may content very geeky stuff. Words “prefrontal cortex” and “robot-rat” have been censored.
What do we know about the world of research? Not much, even if you have read David Lodge books. We guess they study very precise and obscure stuff. Scientists as Manu have more credit that historian or philosophers (that’s our mistake because we assume they are physicians working on a cure). Anyway, this is not clear. Manu was kind enough to listen to me talking about my job for years (I’m sure he could have gone to my office instead of me, he knew exactly what I was doing and with whom). I owe him and that’s why I have to talk about his daily life as a researcher.
Post-doc = student ?
When I was in PhD, is was no longer studies anymore. I didn’t go to any class, I was in fact teaching to undergraduates for one year, and I’m learning my job: research. As a real job, I paid taxes. But in the same time, I had the usual student discounts. Research is not such very considered in France, neither by politics… or even your family.
Being post-doc is just about a level in the research, I have my PhD, I’m still independent (I mean, I’m not the one in charge in the lab). (NB: since Manu is working at BY, his schedule looks more like a regular worker than a student, and he doesn’t live at night anymore).
You “search” but do you find something?
There’s a physician at the MGH in Boston who treats epileptics. But the conventional cure don’t work on that type of epilespy. Syd therefore uses a more extreme solution: destroy some small piece of brain, as small as possible, to prevent damages (such as memory loss, or motor skills loss… it’s pretty serious). Dr. Cash registers the brain activity to see where it doesn’t work, where the activity is not normal. The data recorded on humans are very valuable, because as they are allowed only for therapeutic purposes, they are quite rare. My team (mathematicians, basically) gets this information, after the treatment of the patients. We use them to understand the mechanisms of epilepsy. And more generally, to study the dynamics of brain electrical activity.
What do you do on your daily job?
1st step. Reading. I have to check if somebody else already did the same job, the same study. And I also have to read a lot about my subject. It’s time-consuming. At the end of this step, ideas or hypothesis are shaping.
2d step. Try if my hypothesis with analysis. (this is the moment I will use the recorded brain data).
3d step. When I’m convinced myself by the analysis, that’s the moment to convince others too. I’ll write an article to sum up my work. And I’ll try to publish it in a scientific review (not the type you’ll find easily).
