Introduction
My name is Javin Sandhu. I am currently a medical student
intercalating between years 4 and 5 of medical school to perform an MRes in
Medical Sciences. This MRes course provides you with an opportunity to take on
a research project that grabs your interest with a supportive supervisor who
guides you through the process.
I was fortunate to do my research project in the processing
of pain in the brain thereby combining my two core interests: neurology (study
of the nervous system) and anaesthetics (drugs that work on the nervous system
to put people to sleep). In addition, I have been fortunate to receive the John
Snow for Anaesthetic Research funded by the BJA/RCoA to help support me during
the master’s degree (please see http://www.niaa.org.uk/article.php?newsid=1454).
In Depth…
When we experience pain, certain regions of the brain are activated.
All these regions make up a “pain matrix”.
The pain matrix is divided into areas which process the location of pain
and the emotional effect of that pain. Chronic pain and acute pain activate the
same regions of the pain matrix but to different extents. These differences
suggest that we should be aiming to develop ways of imaging ongoing clinical pain.
Previous research from the Human Pain Research Group (see below for link), has
shown success for treatment approaches such as meditation and placebo. This
previous research has also shown an increase in a certain pattern of brain
activity (known as alpha activity). There are various methods on how to image
the brain’s functions. These approaches depend on how the brain uses oxygen
(showing brain activity) or the electrical activity of the brain (which shows
which brain cells are transferring information).
What do I
investigate?
My research is based upon trying to find a unique pattern of
brain activity for chronic pain by measuring the brain’s electrical activity in
patients with chronic pain caused by rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. I will be using EEG to pick up the brain’s
electrical activity and analysing this data to figure out which areas of the
brain are activated. We hope to find a unique pattern of brain activity which
can be used in the future to test patients with chronic pain. This would help figure
out how much pain these patients are in and to prevent patients which are
addicted to painkillers “faking their chronic pain”.
Going Further…
You can visit this website for more information about The
Human Pain Research Group -(http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/research/ccn/pain/)
For more information about the MRes Medical Sciences course,
please see -(http://www.mhs.manchester.ac.uk/study/masters/courses/medical-sciences-mres/)
Also if you want more information about pain, please see - (http://www.iasp-pain.org/)
Finally, for a brief introduction into brain imaging
techniques, please see -(http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/research/ccn/pain/Research/brainimaging/)
Introduction
Hello! My name is Sam Rowbotham I am PhD
student and Tutor in Psychology, spending half of my time on each of these. My
PhD research focused on the hand-gestures we use when speaking and how these
can help us to communicate about painful experiences (such as migraines, back
pain etc), in the hope that this will improve communication between doctors and
patients.
In Depth
How did I
get here?
After completing my A-Levels (Psychology, English Literature, and
History) in 2005, I came to the University of Manchester to study Psychology,
graduating in 2008. At the end of my degree I decided to stay at Manchester to
complete a one-year Masters in Research Methods (Psychology) so that I could
develop my research skills further. Following this I applied for a joint PhD
and Teaching post (also here at Manchester) which I began in September 2009.
Because my PhD is part-time it should
take me six years to complete (rather than the usual 3-4 years) but I am hoping
to finish it a year early! Along the way I have strengthened my research skills
by completing a number of temporary Research Assistant posts, including one in
which we looked at why doctors and nurses give people antibiotics for coughs
and colds (despite the fact that these medicines don’t work for these
illnesses!).
My research
During my undergraduate degree I became fascinated with the
movements we make with our hands and arms when speaking – our co-speech
gestures. These gestures do more than simply express how we feel – they carry
information about the things we are talking about, such as the shape and size
of objects. However, researchers hadn’t really considered how people use these
gestures when talking about sensations such as pain – something we often find
quite tricky to describe. This is where my PhD comes in – I look at how these
gestures are used to describe pain and whether seeing gestures can improve
people’s understanding of other people’s pain. To do this I video-record people
talking about pain and then analyse the video data in detail, looking at how
many gestures they use and what kind of information these gestures contain
(e.g. about where pain is located and how it feels). I have also created short
clips of these pain descriptions which I play to other people to see what
information they can pick up from these gestures. A similar video can be seen on
YouTube.
What impact will my PhD have?
So far my research has demonstrated that hand gestures
contain lots of information about pain, a lot of which is not contained in the
speech they occur with. If we can also show that ordinary people (i.e. not
trained gesture analysts) can pick up this information (something I am studying
now) then this is important for pain communication in medical settings.
Hopefully, it will encourage doctors to be more attentive to gestures when talking
to patients and therefore pick up more information about pain. This is
particularly important as people often find it difficult to explain their pain
to others: if we cannot explain pain, it can be difficult to get the right
treatment.
My
day-to-day routine
One of the things that I love most about
my work life is that everyday is different. Because I teach alongside my PhD,
some day I might be helping students to work through practical exercises in
their statistics classes, teaching study skills to groups of 10-15 students,
delivering nonverbal communication lectures to over 100 third year students, or
marking essays and exams. When I am working on my PhD, my days change depending
on whether I am collecting data (e.g. by interviewing participants or getting
them to watch pain descriptions and answer questions), analysing data (e.g.
looking in detail at video data on the computer), or writing up my findings for
psychology journals. This means that although I am often very busy trying to
juggle multiple things I am rarely bored – I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Going Further...
If you are thinking of studying
Psychology at the University of Manchester then take a look at our website for more info, including comments and
clips from present and past students. You can also check out our blog where you will find updates about what is going on in the department and
the activities that staff and students have been involved in.
The British
Psychological Society and the Brightside Trust also have lots of
useful information about careers in Psychology. The British Psychological
Society also has a great blog with regular posts about lots of aspects of Psychology.
If you are interested in finding out
more about nonverbal communication there is a nice article here from The Psychologist magazine
(published by the British Psychological Society). You can also find the slides
for a recent presentation on my research here.