Cross Country Collaboration

Yes, those wires are electrified...

This past Saturday, I completed the 11 mile/22 obstacle course of the Chicago Tough Mudder.

We  survived!

The very next day, I left the country for Lübeck, Germany.

Situated along the Baltic Sea, Lübeck was once a powerhouse of the Hanseatic League. 

My head is still spinning from the quick turn around! It's surreal to be sitting at a new desk at the Universität zu Lübeck, and yet be working on a project that I've had on my to-do list for months. Sometime earlier this year, my advisor broached the topic of collaborating with Dr. Heldmann & Dr. Münte on a sleep fMRI project. Of course, I immediately volunteered myself and started working on the study design, along with another graduate student from my lab. However, I'm the first of the two of us to make it to Lübeck. My lab mate wont join me in Germany for another 2 weeks, by which time I hope to have finished piloting and be ready to move into data collection.

Most of my time so far has been dedicated to finding the appropriate stimuli for German participants. We piloted the behavioral aspects of the study in Chicago but it seems famous locations to us aren't nearly as well known here. That being said, most of the preparation I did at Northwestern has ended up being very helpful.

My new ride for the next month, she's old but strong!

Our next step will be to set up everything in the fMRI scanner and make sure we have our timing down. While piloting a few different sequences, I'll finally get to be the participant in the scanner! After all these years (5 years!) of being involved with imaging research, I'll finally get to take a peek at my brain! I can't tell you how exciting that is to me! And after we sort out how we will be collecting the brain images, we'll get right to the piloting phase!

But that's looking pretty far ahead. I haven't even been in Lübeck for a full week yet. So far, I've managed to figure out the grocery store and purchased an old bicycle so I can bike to work rather than taking the bus. So for my immediate future, my current plan is to finally explore the city this weekend and enjoy the fact that I'm living abroad!