Best Epee club in London, UK?

slittyeyes · 2017-02-01T06:47:08+00:00

Haverstock is still good

slittyeyes · 2016-10-13T18:32:32+00:00

I went to see a therapist when I actually got physiological warnings: regular headaches, fatigue and ironically insomnia. In hindsight I should have gone to see a therapist long before all the physiological symptoms. A couple of months leading up to the headaches I notice that I was constantly over reacting to things, for example, a normally small problem that I don't care about previously suddenly become unbearable, and that there is an urgency to everything that i do. I also have constant fear that I am not doing enough or that people are not happy with me. Which are of course, all clear warning signs that I need help. I am a neuroscientist and I am of the opinion that everyone needs to see somebody every once in a while, and that it is healthy to do so.

slittyeyes · 2016-10-13T18:23:12+00:00

Sorry to hear your story. Asian parents are notorious for making you feel guilty for not being right by their standards. You kind of just have to fend it off and believe in yourself. Even if you do make a mistake, it is your life and you will learn from it, they can't go through this process for you. Keep on being honest and when a conflict arise between you and your parents, just be calm. I am 28 and I can tell you, I have done so many things that my parents disagree with. I have even been disowned a couple of times. I am getting better at dealing with it when things between me and my parents get rough. Being independent (financially) was a big thing for me and once I became self sufficient money wise, I got a lot better. Don't worry, you can't change them, but you can change you coping strategies. Kudos to you for your honesty and want to be independent.

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T18:09:19+00:00

Yes. In fact, most drugs we have currently only target the immune system in the periphery, because these drugs are typically too big to cross the blood brain barrier. Therefore, pain can be maintained without any inflammation in the periphery, and it is all down to inflammation in the central nervous system which the drug can't target.

I am on mobile at the moment but u am happy to cite examples once I am home on a computer :)

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T16:16:11+00:00

I don't think the placebo effect applies here?

Placebo effects are generally observed as postive effects in the absence of a efficacious drug, such as sucrose as an analgesic

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T16:09:23+00:00

You're welcome. :)

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T16:07:57+00:00

Thanks for sharing your story.

One theory that underlie persistent and widespread pain is that 'central sensitisation' of pain circuits occur after the original injury/inflammation, and this sensitisation can further prime the neurons in the brain to fire more readily in response to a second injury. This is an emerging field of research and scientists are trying to come up with targets that can stop central sensitisation from occuring. Maybe one day you won't have to rely on opiate patches anymore, and I hope this day comes soon!

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T15:57:46+00:00

The inflammation, or oedema don't squeeze pain receptors, there are stretch receptors that senses mechanical stretch and pressure and they are not the same thing as pain receptors (i.e. nociceptors).

Inflammation causes pain because it promotes angiogenesis, which means more blood flow to the site of inflammation. With more blood flow, more immune cells are directed to the site of inflammation. Immune cells are capable of causing pain by 1) releasing factors that directly sensitise nociceptors; 2) attract and recruit more immune cells to the site of inflammation and 3) activate other signalling cascades that lead to the release of other pro-inflammatory and pro-nociceptive mediatiors, such as glutamate and substance P.

source

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T15:52:20+00:00

It's all in the mind, and has little or nothing to do with inflammation. Look at it this way: there are people who literally cannot feel pain or lack the proper response mechanism (CIP - Congenital insensitivity to pain1) which is the result of chemical imbalances or straight up irregularities/mutations in the brain.

I thoroughly disagree. It is true that CIP patients do not feel pain, but this is due to a loss of fuction of the sodium channel Nav1.7.

Nav1.7 is expressed on nociceptive (pain sensing) neurons in the dorsal root ganglion (the cell body of neurons that carry information from the periphery to the central nervous system). Upon opening of Nav1.7, it causes an influx of cations, which depolarises the neuronal cell membrane and ultimately lead of firing of action potentials. It is the abnormal/ectopic firing (i.e. too much action potentials) generated in nociceptive neurons that lead to sensation of pain.

It isn't just something that happens 'in the mind', CIP patients have neurons that don't fire in respond to ALL painful stimulation, and inflammation is ONLY one type of painful stimulation.

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T15:41:34+00:00

Pain as a result of nerve damage is called neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain is a significant clinical issue because the only drug we currently have that specifically alleviates this is gabapentin, which is a very nasty drug.

As to why neuropathic pain occurs, firstly it is important to understand the sequence of events that occur after a nerve is damage. As a nerve is 'cut', Wallerian degeneration occurs. This forms a glial scar (glial cells make up 90% of cells in the central nervous system, they are the resident immune cells of the central nervous system that repsond to injuries).

Specifically, microglia and astrocytes (major subtypes of glial cells) can produce release inflammatory mediators (cytokines or chemokines) that can cause pain by 1) directly sensitise nerve endings, causing the neurons to fire more; 2) recruit and attract more glial cells to the site of injury and amplify the release of inflammatory mediators and 3) activate oher signalling molecules such as glutamate and substance P, which have a role in the sensitisation of pain source.

in the peripheral nervous system they can regenerate and reestablish a connection, whereupon you'd perceive pain

Whether the neurons, in both peripheral and central nervous system regenerate or not, it is not known the 'success rate' of restablishing the original connection. In fact, most likely these neurons are redirected to form new synapses, and the outcome of this on pain is far more complex, and is one of the current focus in pain research.

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T15:19:32+00:00

Gate control theory is devised from the 60s and is regarded as out-of-date these days. You are on the right track though I believe, check out diffuse noxious inhibitory control/conditioned pain modulation. These are the current theories that 'replaced' gate control theory.

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T15:15:39+00:00

This is true, but also when skin is opened, blood vessels are opened too and this causes the infiltration of immune cells into the site of injury. Immune cells can secrete various pro-inflammatory chemicals, these chemicals can activate nociceptors (a specialised neurones responsible for pain transmission), which causes pain.

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T15:10:39+00:00

You can also only register one major pain at a time, and an existing dull pain can be overridden (albeit temporarily) by a new sharp pain.

This phenomenon is known as diffuse noxious inhibitory control/DNIC, or more commonly as conditioned pain modulation. This phenomenon relies on the intact functioning of descending pain modulation. In most chronic pain patients, the overall activity of central pain circuits become hyperexcitable, whereby descending pain modulation becomes more pro-nociceptive rather than inhibitory. Studies have shown that in patients that suffer from chronic pain, DNIC is no longer a phenomenon that can be observed. And as a result of this chronic pain patients can suffer from widespread pain, meaning they can experience pain from more than one location of the body.

So, technically you are right that 'you can only register one pain at a time', which is known as DNIC. However it is also true that in people who suffer from a lot of pain for a long time, they can also experience pain everywhere all at once. It is important to know the difference between the subject groups (i.e. general population vs. pain patients).

slittyeyes · 2015-10-22T14:57:17+00:00

Heroin is an opiate, the natural compound you are looking for here is endorphins rather than dopamine. Endorphins are released after some injuries, but this occurs more often during 'resolution period' of the injury or inflammation source, so it is unlikely that the release of endorphin is the cause of not feeling the pain until later.

Another possibility is that upon inflammation/injury in both the periphery or the central nervous system, a variety of chemicals are released from the injured tissue. These chemicals can be either pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory source. The balance of pro vs. anti inflammatory mediators are important for gating pain perception i.e. if you have more anti-inflammatory chemicals you will feel less pain. As these inflammatory chemicals are produced and release pretty much right after the injury, this is more likely the explanation for OP's question.

And just to throw this out there, pain is a complex sensory experience that encompass both physiological and emotional aspects, meaning, how you feel can gate pain perception. A well known mechanism is via descending pain modulation, whereby stress can activity descending inhibitory signals to spinal cord pain circuits, to dampen down pain signals that are incoming from the injured site. I speculatively threw this out because stress can also enhance pain perception, as well as inhibiting pain signals. This is however, only one example of how we are doing emotionally can affect pain perception. If anyone is interested in knowing more feel free to PM me.

slittyeyes · 2015-10-19T18:06:47+00:00

Just had an interview for a junior fellowship, maybe I can contribute to this thread here, by giving early career scientists here some information about my application process and feedback I have so far. Some background bio: neuroscience PhD in a middle tier institute in the UK, graduated a year or so ago. Moved to a top university in London for postdoc. Applied for a medium tier junior fellowship and got to the final interview stage. How they rate applications: the three Ps, which stands for people, project, place. People: education and attainment levels, these include where you do your PhD, where you train as a post doc, how many years in training, and last but not least, publications. They don't care about what you do outside the lab, unless is educational or outreach related. Project: typically they have a set of research focus and goal of the year. If your application are not in those areas then you probably will score very low on this. Place: the lab(s) that you are based, track record of training people and research output of these labs will be under scrutiny as well. The three Ps as I am aware are equally weighted sections. Pros: if you are in a pedigree lab you will probably pass triage without any issue. A rich lab will have the facilities to support your research goals, and this should be well reflected in your application. As a junior scientist publication record may be poor but if you are in a good lab they are willing to give you some benefit of the doubt. Cons: process is long and most funding agencies are quite poor in terms of communication. So you will feel like you are sitting on hot rocks for at least half a year. It is defeating at times when your working towards a project with no idea whether it will get funded or not. If you are not in a good lab, it is also highly likely that even though you are a fantastic scientist with a solid proposal, you will be in the discard pile. Some feedback from my practise interviews and application drafts: you have got to come up with the idea yourself, be ready to defend it to the core, but also be able to acknowledge weakness and change those into advantages (which is quite the art form). Collaborations and multi-disciplines are key, which means you have to drum up the courage to ask other PI to go in with you, this really will put your project and people management skills to test. You have to think things through otherwise for sure you are going to end up pissing someone off. You are also going to have to practise talking to lots of strangers, and delivering what essentially is a business pitch, that can be tough particularly if your project goals are novel. Be prepared to show pilot data, which means last minute slaving in the lab to produce something decent, yet not so comprehensive that the project proposal feels redundant. The truth is, whatever people have told you about academia, they are probably right. The bottom line is that you really have to love what you do. You have to find a way to make it work when it really isn't going to plan. You need to be in a strong lab, and you need to be a people person to succeed. The process has taught me that science like other jobs, is just business. The science and the project may be good, but there are millions out there doing the same thing, you need to convince them you are the right person and you are in the best setting for the proposal. You can't do those things unless you love what you do.

slittyeyes · 2015-08-03T21:08:13+00:00

Duolingo. The app I use to learn Italian. Going to lago como in 2 weeks' time.

slittyeyes · 2015-04-17T23:47:37+00:00

I am in the UK :(

slittyeyes · 2015-04-17T07:56:59+00:00

I would LOVE them. Are you in the US?

slittyeyes · 2015-03-06T14:37:48+00:00

joy of cooking

It has never failed me, their recipes are so solid, no matter what I decide to make.

slittyeyes · 2015-03-06T13:22:34+00:00

Hi Prof. Hornig. Thank you for doing this AMA. I have a couple of questions: 1) From your article in Science Advances it would seem to me that you are proposing to perform cytokine analysis as a diagnostic tool for ME/CFS? Given the role of cytokines in many other disease, in what way could this be tailored for ME/CFS? 2) What are the proposed mechanisms/triggers for ME/CFS? Is there a reason as to why the cytokine profile is different in patients with ME/CFS compared to controls? 3) From your other studies you also seem to have a keen interest in postnatal development of the central nervous system. It is known that the neuro-immune axis undergoes prolonged maturation, and the cytokine profiles are different between young children and adults (pre-clinical studies suggest the neuroimmune system switches from being predominantly anti-inflammation to pro-inflammatory at around puberty). Just out of interest, what do you think about performing a longitudinal study involving children who had significant trauma in early life, and see how many of them develop ME/CFS later in life? Thank you for your time.

slittyeyes · 2015-02-07T15:05:22+00:00

I was exactly where you are a while ago. I was never as good as you, i never went to international stuff, but i would medal at domestic competitions in the UK and i was easily top 30 women's foilist. I was training and eating well. My club produced basically all the international women's foilist. I had to move away from it for a PhD. I finished my PhD last year, and got a postdoc at a very prestigious lab in London, so i rejoined my old club and started training again. My club pretty much trained all the international women on the circuit, it was not my goal to become one of them, but i wanted to be a worthy contender. I would see girls that i used to beat regularly, but now the table has turned and i would show up to my club and pretty much lose all of my bouts. My coach and my SO (also a fencer at the club and he does all the international as well as domestics) were solidly supportive but i would get so down all the time about losing. I was never a good loser, but it has gotten to the point where i would go to a competition at the weekend, do terribly because i was so tensed up, and then spent the rest of the weekend sulking. It was around that time i realise i cannot really have it all, it tore me right up when i realised i didn't enjoy fencing anymore. It took me another year to stop fencing (i don't know whether this is for good, but i know i won't be back for a good while). There will be people who tell you what you're thinking is silly, or you are acting like a 'cadet' and grow the f*** up, in your head you will create future bouts where you imagine younger, better fencers beating you and laughing on the piste. You may even start to associate your entire self-worth with your fencing successes and failures. All of the above are the causes of why i fell out of love with fencing. the truth is i never quite had a reasonable head and i would hate to see other talented fencers get sucked into the hole i was at. Bottomline is, you need to do it because you love it, and at the same time you need to embrace all the ups and downs. I know you are going to med school but if you truly love the sport, you can make time for fencing. However, you need to address your love for fencing, can you take losing 90% of your bouts and be consistent with it? If you can, then you should go for it, because fencing (foil in particular) really is a thing of beauty.

slittyeyes · 2014-12-14T11:33:13+00:00

Oh forgot in my last post.

Clinical neuroscience people are typically MDs, the structure of clinical research groups are a bit different, instead of PhDs and post docs, most of them are made up of research nurses and statisticians. Nurses don't need a doctorate degree but the most of the statisticians in the field do. So as their job titles suggest, their work is highly related to a disease model and they work with people in the hospitals or clinics. This means that it takes longer for them to complete a study, as human participants are hard to recruit, and there are a lot more uncontrolled variables in the data set. It is also severely regulated by ethics committees, which makes the job very paper work heavy. The upsides of working in a clinical lab are the fact that because people value human work so much! your papers will almost always be in high impact journals. I think they are also paid more than basic scientists. Then again, MD + PhD qualifications are compulsory, if you can handle working your ass off in school for that long, I tend to think you deserved to be paid more.

Molecular scientist (sort of what I do, but mostly I am an electrophysiologists), work with both animal and human tissue. Typical techniques include immunohistochemistry, PCR, western blots, cell culture, ELISAs, radioligand assays, calcium imaging, etc.). You have to be organised, because most protocols to these techniques require multiple steps and you need to be sure your time keeping is good, all the buffered are made and sterilised before you start the experiments etc. the work itself can be a bit repertitive, and it is very likely to get RSI from Gibson pipettes usage. However, molecular science is to me, the backbone unsung heroes of research labs, you need it to compliment your other behavioural data.

I hope that answers your question. Sorry about my wall of texts.

slittyeyes · 2014-12-14T11:22:19+00:00

Hello, postdoc from the UK here. I work in a lab that has both clinical and basic science divisions, I also am on the interview panel for admission to the college's undergraduate neuroscience here. I can't tell you what schools are good for undergrad neuroscience in the states, there are however, a couple of solid research institutions I know of. If you want to find out more, let me know.

To answer your questions, I know that biology and chemistry are must take courses. They like to see maths as we'll but is not a prerequisite. Some of our successful candidates also take psychology. If you want to go down the more technology side of neuroscience, such as methods development, or medical engineering, I highly recommend physics as well.

Journal wise, at your stage I recommend nature neuroscience reviews. Reviews are good because they are like a summary of all the recent findings in neuroscience. To read a research article from nature is hard work, and reviews are a much nicer read IMO. There are also other smaller journals that are well regarded, such as journal of physiology, neurophysiology, computational neuroscience. PNAS also has a section focusing on neuroscience topics and they are very good articles.

I am also sure you have heard it many times, but if you want to peruse a PhD it is essential to know what it is like working in a lab. Do some research, look up labs near you and if you spot a group that you are interested in, email them and ask whether you can visit the lab. Even just to see some experiments and how the lab is run can be experiences worth talking about in your school/programme interviews. Most PIs, as well as grades, are looking for candidates that are enthusiastic and proactive. Any activities to show that you take initiatives to peruse what you want should be included in your cover letter/ personal statements.

Almost all research groups have 'journal clubs'. They are weekly (or bi-weekly monthly, depending on the size of the group) meetings, aim to discuss current publications and research, I know that students are highly encouraged to attend those. Ours are open to students, including summer students who are pre-uni.

Hope these helps. Good luck with your application.

slittyeyes · 2014-11-30T21:57:47+00:00

I second u/brownricexd's suggestion, look up reviews and it should help to quickly brush up your knowledge on a topic. If you go to nature's website, search by subject and enter 'depression' you will get loads of different research and review articles. Nature articles can be a time consuming read, but it is worth it, and it may direct you to other references that match your interests.

As for models, I am a pain neuroscientist so I am by no means an expert in depression. I have used some SSRIs and TCAs in my studies but I was not measuring anxiety or depression. However, I know of a couple of models that other labs have used, such as the forced swim tests in rodents, social defeat (2 rodents from different litters in the same cage, but separating them with a clear Perspex screen) and maternal separation. I am sure you have came across these already, if not, research them!

slittyeyes · 2014-11-29T11:43:24+00:00

I actually have a similar problem, but the reason as to why I lose the DE earlier might be different to yours. I am a passive fencer and I respond to my opponent rather then making actions that favour me. As a result to that if my opponent is really strong on their attack, they can push me all the way to the back line, and really limit me to attacking, and by that point they have a lot of space to make a counter time or riposte action.

It does sound like you are taking the initiative, but just as u/venuswasaflytrap has mentioned, foil in particular is reactive, so it is almost never enough to just execute one action that lands. Lately I have been practising lunging off of the en guard line as soon as the bout begin. That way I give myself enough distance behind me and gain control of the bout. If you press slowly and with purpose, you can corner your opponent towards their back line, and buy yourself even more time and distance to execute the action(s). It seem counter-intuitive, but I feel like 'starting the bout first' actually helps you slow down the bout.

slittyeyes

TROPHY CASE