Dan Goodwin: Junior Research Associate

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Before applying for the JRA award I knew that becoming a researcher in Psychology was what I wanted to do, but deciding what I wanted to study seemed almost impossible given the sheer number of options available. When I saw that Sussex was offering JRA awards focusing on the causes and cures for Alzheimer’s I jumped at the opportunity, as I felt this would give me a good opportunity to explore a more neuroscience-based research project which greatly interested me. Professor Jenny Rusted was advertising JRAs in the newly established Alzheimer’s Society Doctoral Training Centre and it was with her I worked closely on my application; Prof Rusted was incredibly approachable and supportive throughout the application process, assisting me right from the start.

During the summer I got involved in an ongoing research project aimed at investigating the neural and behavioural consequences of a gene, APOE-E4, widely accepted to be the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. I assisted Dr Simon Evans, a postdoctoral fellow in Prof Rusted’s lab, in analysing data and writing a literature review on the use of the subsequent memory paradigm in research examining the neural consequences of ageing and APOE-E4. The subsequent memory paradigm involves participants being incidentally (unintentionally) exposed to words whilst completing an ongoing task in an MRI scanner, followed by a surprise recognition test in which participants indicate whether they had seen the words previously or not. This task is designed to induce episodic memory and activation in the hippocampus, an area implicated in the premature neural ageing seen in carriers of APOE-E4.

The analysis of the data itself proved to be a rewarding experience as it allowed me to gain extremely valuable knowledge with MRI data analysis software such as MATLAB and SPM. Immersing myself in the data for several weeks increased my personal investment in the project and the data itself, this gave me a hunger and excitement that was certainly lacking in my first and second years at university, as I felt I was genuinely contributing to something that would make a difference. Happily, the results of the analysis also proved very interesting; results from the MRI analysis indicated that APOE-E4 carriers were consistently underactivating several regions in the brain, relative to non-carriers, throughout the task. APOE-E4 carriers demonstrated significantly less activation in frontal, temporal, and parietal regions in the brain; these areas have been reported many times before in the literature to exhibit genotype differences with APOE-E4 in a number of cognitive domains. Surprisingly, we were unable to extract any genotype differences in hippocampal activation; this is not unusual – the hippocampus is such a small area in the brain, and so it can be difficult to pull out reliable data. Taken as a whole, the results suggest that APOE-E4 carriers may be more efficiently processing memories and information, as they retained equal memory performance to non-carriers in the face of lesser neural activation.

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Diary of a Sussex University Junior Research Associate: Research using PARO – a robotic seal – with people with dementia

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26/06/2015

My first day. Visited the Dementia unit in Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to see PARO for the first time. Really exciting – I was instantly drawn to it’s eye movements and the way it reacted to me when I stroked it. I believe it had a therapeutic effect on me because I felt relaxed and watching it put a smile on my face! It was also nice seeing how the other members of staff acted around it. It was like having a pet in the room everyone was smiling and saying how cute it is.

Observed a ward round where different members of the multidisciplinary team (psychiatrist, specialist pharmacist, nurse, occupational therapist and assistant manager) worked together as a team. They decide the best plan for different patients starting from their medication to whether it’s okay to discharge them. This ward round was different to ones I had seen before because it didn’t involve going around the ward to talk to patients. In addition, as we went through the list of individual patients in all of them it was either the family member, nurse or social worker that was there to represent the patient and not the patient themselves. This to me was an invaluable insight into how things work in a dementia care setting.

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29/06/2015

Attended a meeting with the Care Home in Reach team. The team’s role is to provide advice, information and training for care homes that provide care to older people.

Shadowed a specialist pharmacist. Patients with severe dementia often are given drugs to manage their behaviour like agitation and aggression. Therapeutic measures that involve activities like music and colouring would be better because these drugs come with side effects leading to more drugs being prescribed in order to treat these side effects. I thought – this is where PARO could come in: a non-pharmacological intervention, no unpleasant side effects to it, some people may not be into colouring or music so PARO could be a good alternative to that.

Visited a nursing home and I had the chance to listen to some training that was going on about how to communicate to people with dementia.

Observed the pharmacist do a medication review of the patients in the home. I was amazed by the vast amount of medication all the patients were on.

Day 2(26/06/2015) at Dementia unit.

Met with the research team (Dr Dodds, a clinical psychologist, two occupational therapists (OTs) and a Masters student). We discussed who I would interview and how.

Observed one of the OT interact with a resident using PARO. I could see an immediate positive reaction as the resident stroked PARO and talked to him. This lady was once a health visitor and was gentle with PARO. She sometimes had a doll to care for. Another lady was quite restless but happy to have PARO on her lap. Another lady was asleep but woke up and was happy to receive PARO with her arm outstretched. She talked about her cat being “cat with colours” but found PARO heavy so she gave him back.

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29/06/2014Monday

Met with my supervisor Prof Rusted and my mentor Molly discussed how I would achieve my thematic analysis. Later that day, attended JRA launch where I had the opportunity to meet and talk other JRA students and learn about the projects they were doing.

03/07/2015

Went to a second Dementia Unit with OT to have a PARO session with the residents there. Interviewed OT for my PARO project. Observed PARO session. The first patient was visually impaired but could hear the sounds that PARO made. She talked about pets and joked that with Paro there was no mess to clear up. Another patient seem very relaxed when holding PARO and she talked to PARO and the other members of the group.

Interviewed 3 more people: the nursing assistant, another OT and a psychology graduate interning at the unit.

10/07/2015.

Met the OT at Dementia unit for a group session with PARO. We had two patients one male and another female that both showed interest in PARO but none of them were willing to interact with him. Another Patient that was male responded very well to PARO he stroked him and kissed him. It was very touching watching the gentleman interact with PARO you could see the emotion when he was engaging with PARO. He treated him as though PARO was real and he kept say “he’s beautiful”. I was moved to see how happy he was with PARO. It just shows the impact that PARO has on the emotional states of people. Had a one to one session with a patient who had hearing loss. This lady is usually alone in her room and doesn’t go out that much. We communicated to her through writing and signs. She responded very positively stroking PARO and we had conversation about pets. She was very happy that we came to see her. The next patient used to be a and was more interested in the technology side of PARO. He kept asking questions about how and where it’s made. Even though he passed on holding PARO he still found him intriguing. This shows you don’t need to interact directly with PARO in order for it to have its effect on increasing social interactions. I noticed that when PARO was brought to the lounge it became a common topic of conversation between both staff and residents. The lounge became a bit livelier with more people talking to each other; it was nice to see that.

17/07/2015

Went to Dementia unit and spent the day with masters student and we worked on thematic analysis of the interviews that I had transcribed and the reflection forms written by the nurse and OTs from each PARO session they did. I initially didn’t have any experience of doing a thematic analysis so working with her make made it easy because I was learning from practising it with her. We worked on coding the transcripts and using the codes to develop themes.

20/07/2015.

Met with Dr.Penny Dodds at Brighton University and I told what I have been doing that week and some interesting themes that were coming out of the thematic analysis. We started the process of creating a mind map and a spread sheet from the codes I had extracted from the interviews and the reflections form done by the OT.

24/7/2015

Went to Dementia Unit for another PARO session with patients. Most of the patients who interacted with PARO stroked him. PARO got staff members to talk about him. SO again, the seal helped communication for both patents and care staff in different ways.

30/07/2015

We had a JRA get together which involved a speed date, barbecue and quiz. The speed dating isn’t actually dating but more about finding out about what other people’s projects are about. There was lots of drinks and my team lost on the quiz but it was great fun. It was a good opportunity to meet new people and I learnt quite a bit from the quiz.

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31/07/2015

More thematic analysis work and another group PARO session to observe. Our last patient was deaf so we went to her room and did a one to one session. We wrote down everything for her. She seemed happy to see PARO but didn’t want to hold him saying she doesn’t like to cuddle. We did a lot of laughing and she talked about her love for art and crafts.

04/08/2015.

Workshop day: It was an early start. Helped Dr Dodds (Penny) to arrange the place for the workshop. Went to Dementia unit to do my last interview on the OT. The workshop was for a group of practitioners involved in dementia care – people from Derbyshire and Coventry NHS care who were interested in learning more about PARO’s use and wanted to introduce PARO into their care homes. The people from Derbyshire were interested on how they could use PARO to decrease their falls rate at their care home. There was discussions about one of the biggest challenges at the moment of introducing PARO in NHS setting which is Infection Control. And one of the ladies from Derbyshire mentioned how they have lambs and farm animals come in their ward in Derbyshire because the residents there were farmers. At the end of the day the group came up with ideas on how they can move forward and gave their thoughts on what they have learnt and suggestions on how to improve.

7/08/2015

Went to Dementia unit but it was busy that day and the OT had to sort out fencing around the facility. I talked with the administrator for a short while. The OT came back and we began the PARO session. At the end of the session I talked to the OT while she filled in a PARO reflection form. She told me what her day is like and what her job involves.

13/08/2015.

Attend an Alzheimer Society Doctoral Training Centre tea party at Sussex University. I had the chance to meet other students researching on dementia and learn about their projects, and also people who were caring for family members with dementia. Penny brought PARO over and everyone was excited to see it. I got asked lots of questions about it which was good because I knew quite a lot about PARO because I had spent the past weeks living and breathing PARO.

17/08/2015

I did a presentation at my supervisor Jenny’s lab meeting. I was so nervous but it went well. I spoke about what PARO is, the research behind it and the process of thematic analysis, how I came up with the codes and the themes that emerged from it. I was given ideas on how I should go about making my poster. This is my last challenge after a summer research experience that gave me a taste of what a career in research is like.

 

 

 

 

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Reflections of a research assistant: Getting to Grips with Prospective Memory

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I am a third-year medical student, currently visiting the Rusted lab group from Brazil to complete a summer research assistantship. As my goals are to become a clinical physician, working in the field of behavioural research is an area I never expected to participate in. For the past 3 years I have been busy studying the physiology of the human body, disease pathology and how best to treat the sick.. This summer, I have adopted a completely different psychological perspective through which to study the ageing brain and dementia.

 

During my summer internship I have been involved with an ongoing research project investigating how a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease alters cognition earlier on in the lifespan. I have been working with Claire Lancaster, a PhD student in the Rusted lab, from who I have learnt a lot. In particular, I have had a opportunity to dip into a behavioural genetics study and explore how our genetic make-up can influence cognition, in particular focusing on the APOE gene, a risk factor for dementia.

 

As part of my assistantship, I have analysed a subset of data collected from 31 healthy volunteers, aged 45-55 years old. Performance on a measure of prospective memory, meaning the ability to remember to act on an earlier formed intention, was compared across participants divided according to their genetic status. Specifically, this task asked individuals to remember to perform a certain action when presented with a specific card, while they were busily engaged in a response time card-sort challenge.

 

It was a challenge for me to extract the accuracy and response time data onto a spreadsheet and analyze it using SPSS, a software package I had never opened before nor had expected to use before my fifth year graduation. Performing the analysis was exciting as I sought to uncover how storing an intention in mind altered task performance, and whether carrying the risk variant of the APOE gene altered performance. As expected, holding the prospective intention in mind reduced response times across the board in the card sort task, suggesting the experimental manipulation worked. Disappointingly, however, no difference in accuracy or response times was found across the three groups of genotypes. My work was a pre-analysis with a smaller sample than the 80 volunteers expected to take part, and so perhaps more exciting results will emerge by the end of the summer. By looking at the data, it appears volunteers carrying the genetic risk variant trended towards being quicker but less accurate in their responses, which would certainly be a point for discussion!

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Recruitment day at the Jubilee library , Brighton

I cannot describe all the knowledge that I, as an undergraduate student, can absorb from this opportunity. Weekly lab meetings with Jenny Rusted and post graduate students keep me interested and open-minded to new avenues for learning. I have also been busy recruiting volunteers, running experimental sessions and reading classical and up to date papers in the field of behavioural genetics. And all that after having moved from a completely different culture, away from my friends and family, into a very distinct teaching method… and all in a non-native language for me! I still have one month of the assistantship before I return to Brazil, my home country. I mean, I only have 4 weeks of learning with these extraordinary people, and I really want to make the most of this opportunity.

 

By Juliana Burgardt

 

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Reflections of a Research Assistant

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Screen shot 2015-07-01 at 14.19.21It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. For six years the University of Sussex has been my home, but now I must leave and start a new chapter in my life. This bittersweet new beginning would not be possible without my time as a research assistant in Jenny Rusted’s lab.

I first met Jenny as a third year undergraduate; a student in her Psychobiology of Ageing and Dementia course. She was instantly approachable and friendly. Throughout this year and my masters degree she was very supportive and encouraging with my aspirations for a career in research. When I finished my masters and I failed to get accepted onto a PhD, Jenny offered me a position as an RA within her lab to help boost my CV and give me experience I desperately needed.

The year and a half I spent in the lab was the best work experience of my life. Not only did it develop my skills as a researcher, but helped me grow as a person. I remember my first lab meeting, being introduced to everyone who would one day become my friends. Their names and area of research were forgotten the moment I heard them. I thought I had no place there. I thought a mere RA has no valuable input in a room of PhD students and postdocs. As the weeks went by however, I learned I did in fact have something worthwhile to add. My courage grew and I would occasionally contribute an astute point.

My time in this lab prepared me for PhD life in ways I didn’t know I needed preparation. From talking to and overserving my colleagues I got a better idea of what PhD life was like. I had my dissertations and some previous research experience under my belt, but the average undergraduate experience does prepare anyone for everything else that comes with the academic lifestyle. One of the most exciting aspects of the RA position was the weekly meetings. It prevented my wits from dulling. Listening to the scintillating discussion of a variety of topics kept my critical analysing skills in use during my time out of education.

Unfortunately now my time in the lab and at the university has come to an end. It is time to say “Goodbye Sussex” and “Hello Southampton” as I start my own PhD studentship in a couple of months. Everyone in the lab (and a lot of people at Sussex in general) has either directly or indirectly played a small or large part in getting me into my position today. The experience and skills I acquired as a RA has been instrumental in getting onto my own studentship. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their involvement.

As Aeneas left his beloved Ilium after it was sacked by the Achaeans only to go on and be the catalyst for the foundations of Rome, I too am leaving my beloved Sussex for greater and better things.

 

By Carl Buckfield

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Post-PhD Reflection – Part I

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So your PhD is done and dusted. Congratulations! So what have you gotten out of your PhD besides a new title, a piece of paper to put on your wall, and a book to go on your bookshelf (which are all very good things by the way)?

Here, I draw from my experiences as a Psychology – Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience PhD graduate at the University of Sussex visiting from the States. Although, all of our experiences are unique perhaps there are some similarities you can relate to and resonate, with but also perhaps differences. Feel free to add your own present / past experiences in the comments.

For me, the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of my PhD is confidence. Confidence reveals itself in many areas of my academic / professional life. For example, I am not afraid to go out and pick up a new skill that is needed to do my work. I know now that with some (ok sometimes a lot of) effort, I can learn a body of information, a new methodology, or a new perspective. Although not easy and sometimes frustrating, I know that it is possible; it is now more a matter of deciding whether it is worth the time and energy to acquire. Also now I am not afraid to ask questions instead of wallowing in self-doubt and floundering when I don’t understand something. After making some effort on my own, I will ask someone more knowledgeable for help in the form of an explanation or pointing me in the right direction. I am always grateful for it, and hope in future to assist others in the same way.

I also now have the confidence and ability to give presentations to different types of audiences (for example academic or the general public) for varying lengths of time. In addition, I can proficiently teach a class of undergraduates as well as train and supervise them on an individual basis.

What I’ve also gotten out of my PhD is the ability to think critically. I can read something quickly, and pull out the most important information whilst being critical of the methods and findings. Similarly for presentations I can see shortcomings and suggest alternative explanations and analyses. This helps in giving good feedback to others and in improving my own presentations / writing.

These skills and abilities I’ve picked up are valuable wherever I take my next step (I hope). How about you? What is/was your experience like?

Next time I’ll write about other transferable skills applicable inside and outside of academia and career opportunities post-PhD.

 

Author: Dr Jeremy Young

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Undergrads sign up for Summer research experience

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We are really pleased that this year, three Psychology undergraduates have secured special bursaries to fund summer placements in the Rusted Lab. Lisa Robogo was awarded a Junior Research Associate Bursary from the University of Sussex to work with our Sussex Partnership Trust colleagues on a study of interventions to help behavior management in people with dementia. Dan Goodwin was awarded another of these competitive University Junior Research Associate bursaries to work on a behavioural genetics project, part of the new Alzheimers Society Doctoral Training Centre research programme we are beginning this year. And finally, Juliana Burgardt, a visiting student from Brazil, supported by a Science Without Frontiers bursary, will be learning about cognitive profiling and age-related changes. It is a special pleasure to be able to introduce enthusiastic young scientists to our ongoing research activities, to let them see how things work in practice, how we work as a group, and how exciting it is to see results emerging as you follow a project through from inception to completion. Welcome to all!

 

To view the Rusted lab website, please click here. 

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International collaboration- members of the Rusted Lab group make friends with Sao Paulo

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Two members of the Rusted lab group, Simon Evans and Claire Lancaster, visited Brazil for a week this April. Sounds like a holiday, but this trip was part of a specially formed scheme to encourage international research collaborations, funded by Santander Mobility Grants scheme.

The trip centred around a visit to Sao Paulo, hosted by Sabine Pompeia, an associate Professor of Psychobiology at the Federal University of Sao Paulo. We were welcomed by her lab group on the Monday and the first thing that struck us was their enthusiasm for research. Many excellent talks were delivered during our visit, but the work of three researchers stood out in terms of the exciting opportunities present for future international collaboration.

 

Fifteen years previously, Sabine had spent time working in the Rusted lab in Sussex. Her current research is concerned with developing tasks that explore executive functioning – our capacity to multi-task. Although much of her research has applied this battery to specific populations, she has also been involved in large Brazilian epidemiological studies. As part of future joint work between the Rusted and Pompeia groups, we hope to explore the role of the APOE gene, a genetic risk factor for dementia, on executive function at different stages of development.

We were also introduced to Andre Negrao, a clinical academic from the Genetic and Molecular Cardiology lab. Andre is currently researching the genetic, biological and cognitive profile of the population of Baependi, a town of 18,000 in south-east Brazil. This town is of interest due to the mix of urban and rural people living there, and the diverse range of educational and SES backgrounds. In the future, we hope to work with Andre and his team combining our joint interests in genetic differences in brain structure and function , and cognition.

Future collaborations with Monica Yassuda are also in the pipeline. Monica is a practicing neuropsychiatrist and academic at the University of Sao Paulo, typically working with more elderly populations, especially those with MCI.

One of the most important things we took away from our time in Sao Paulo was the problem administering tasks cross-culturally. Measures well-established in one country may not necessarily be suitable for administration in others. For example, using the word ‘snow’ as a stimuli in a language-based task is not so simple as it sounds. In some countries snow is a very common word, in others it is rarely used. Brazil is a country with a diverse profile of socio-economic and educational backgrounds, and as such cognitive tests need to be designed to suit varying rates of literacy. A major focus within the lab group we visited was modifying cognitive tasks for use in Brazil, thinking of clever adaptations to make them free of reading and writing requirements and accessible for all. These are important considerations for us to bear in mind when designing future collaborations.

But the trip was a wonderful insight into the culture of another country and we would like to thank our wonderful host Sabine for taking us round the city, and her team for welcoming us to the University. We would also like to thank Santander for the opportunity their funds provided, and Dr Paul Roberts at the Doctoral School for supporting the application.

Sabine Pompeia’s homepage 

Rusted Lab website

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HCV Treatment in HIV HCV co infection population

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Research in the Rusted Lab includes a study of the potential adverse side effects of hepatitis C treatment in HIV-positive individuals with a concurrent Hepatitis C infection – this is a condition that affects 40% of HIV patients. In these patients, the treatment of the Hepatitis C infection has been associated with depressive symptoms and cognitive impairments both of which negatively impact the quality of life of the patients.

 

The current standard of care for hepatitis C involves a combination of drugs (interferon and ribavirin) however; the treatment options have changed with the development of new therapies using interferon, ribavirin plus a new drug that have improved HCV cure rates. It is well known that depression is the most prevalent side effect of interferon and ribavirin treatment but little is known about the adverse events in the new treatment.

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Renata Fialho a second year PhD student and member of the Rusted Lab is looking at the adverse effects during hepatitis C treatment with classic and new treatment in HIV/HCV patients. According with preliminary results fifty participants were included in the study. We looked at differences on depression between hepatitis C treatments and there was a significant increase in depression in both types of treatments. These results suggest that the prevalence of depression is high still and more research is needed in order to clarify what type of depression and cognitive symptoms are associated with hepatitis C treatment.

For more information about current research by the Rusted lab group, see our lab website 

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Understanding risk factors for dementia across the lifespan

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It is inevitable that we all show a slight decline in our cognitive abilities with increasing age, but what causes some of us to ‘drop-off’ to a greater degree than others? This question is a key focus of the Rusted lab group, with much of our research targeting the APOE gene, strongly associated with both cognitive decline and risk of dementia. The APOE gene has attracted considerable research attention due to its apparent contradictory effect across the lifespan. Studies have suggested a cognitive advantage in younger years for carriers of the APOE e4 variant, in contrast to its detrimental effect in later life. As such, understanding the trajectory of this gene across the lifespan is important for advancing what we know about the pathway into dementia.

Claire Lancaster, a first year PhD student in the Rusted lab, is currently examining this important question. Healthy adults aged 45-55 years are being invited to participate in an exploration of how attention and executive functioning differs in mid-adulthood according to APOE genotype. Using a battery of different cognitive measures, subtle differences in these processes can be identified. It is likely that some cognitive processes are more important determinants of cognitive ageing than others – for example, changes in speed of processing can affect performance across a number of tasks, whereas changes in visuospatial skills would only affect specific tasks. By identifying the specific nature of the APOE e4 effect on cognition, we can predict its broader impact on performance. In addition to a strong behavioural focus, our work will consider individual differences in biological factors (weight, blood pressure, grip strength, alcohol intake and exercise) and lifestyle factors (occupation, education and leisure activities). The research includes these measures in the study to explore how multiple vulnerability factors for cognitive decline interact with APOE status in healthy adults.

Volunteers are still being recruited for the research. If you are interested in participating, please contact Claire for more details (claire.lancaster@sussex.ac.uk, 01273 678916).

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Encouraging Children to Act Out!

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In addition to aging and dementia, the Rusted Lab is curious about the development of children and how it compares to the aging process later on in life. Molly Berenhaus, a second year PhD student and devoted member of the Rusted lab, is currently looking at the benefits of action (e.g., hand movements) and externalisation (e.g., creating a storyboard) on children’s understanding and appreciation of short stories.

storyboard

 

Storyboard illustration-work of illustrator Natalie Hobbons

Over the course of this academic year, Molly has been working with children in year 5 at a local primary school to investigate the benefits of two strategies on reading comprehension processes. Specifically she’s comparing the benefits of encouraging children to construct a visual representation of a short story (“Storyboard Construction”) using plastic cut-outs to the benefits of encouraging children to act out a short story (“Active Experiencing”) using different voices and hand movements. Both strategies have been found to help children understand what they’re reading (and enjoy doing it!) but now we have to find out what specific aspects of a story they help children understand (The layout of the scene? Information about the protagonist?). Molly’s research is interested in just that!

To find out more, please contact Molly at m.berenhaus@sussex.ac.uk

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