September has been a pretty awesome month...

I think September 2008 has been one of the best months of my life! Why, you may ask?

The northeast is wonderful in Fall.





I travel the world like a true nomad. Ok, by world, I mean the east coast. And by nomad, I mean a poor graduate student with little money, but an intense desire to explore.

My favorites of the most recent trip to the Met in New York...



I feel so comfortable in Boston. It is an amazing city! I am beginning to feel like I belong.

Here is a picture of an absolutely breath-taking sky a couple of weeks ago:

And some others of the skyline at lunchtime right from the pier right outside of my school:

My roommates rock! Unfortunately I only have a couple of pictures of Nicole on this post...


I have had such stimulating intellectual experiences in school and in personal endeavors. I have also had some amazing questions answered in my spiritual endeavors. I am loving the opportunities for learning in my life right now!

I have some of the best friends in the world! My birthday was so much fun!


The ward out here is absolutely amazing! So many talented and ridiculously successful and intelligent people!

Example 1--Super smart people, like the charming Luke Hutchinson
Example 2--Incredible entertainers, such as Chelsea Ashton


Life is GREAT!

Central Pattern Generators

In Neuroscience yesterday, we learned about one of the coolest experiments ever done. The experiment was performed in 2007 (http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/15/3976) to test a hypothesis that movement of the lower limbs is still possible in cats that have been paralyzed, do to a nerve root damage in the cervical spinal cord. The experiment was set up according to this picture:

The body core of the cat is stabilized, the front limbs are placed in a fixed position, and the hind legs are able to move on a treadmill. The experimenters had to start the hind legs moving in a normal walking movement according to the speed of the treadmill, but after this, the legs continued moving on their own in the rhythm of the treadmill. If the treadmill was sped up or slowed down, the hind legs adjusted their cadence accordingly! This shows that the movement is possible because of a stimulus that is occurring somewhere closer to the legs than the injury location at the spinal cord! After a lot more research, neuroscientists have discovered the existence of central pattern generators and have found more evidence that golgi tendon organs are also involved in regulating neurological stimulation instead of the BRAIN! I don't know if I can possibly explain the significance or coolness of this adequately!!!

Basically, a paralyzed cat can still run on a treadmill!
The mechanism of movement, therefore, does not require a stimulus from the brain (the higher center of control). Up until this point, it was not understood that complex neuronal circuits existed at the spinal cord that did not need to be continuously stimulated by signals from the brain. The brain does function to provide spatial awareness and alter movement patterns according to obstacles in the path. Without the brain, the subject of the experiment (the paralyzed cat) trips over simple obstacles like a change in level or a pencil.

As always, wikipedia does a great job covering central pattern generators. Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_pattern_generator#cite_note-10

Humans have too much control of movement by the brain in order to be able to design an experiment to get the same results. The human brain controls a lot more variables that are necessary for movement in walking bipedally (such as balance and coordination) than a cat who is quadrapedal. However, you do see evidence of central pattern generators in individuals who have partial paralysis of the extremities. See this link for more fascinating explanation:

http://www.harkema.ucla.edu/BRway1.html


**Pictures in this post are borrowed from a presentation by Marianne Beninato, DPT, PhD

Proposition 8

Prop 8 is the proposition that will be voted on in California deciding whether or not homosexuals should be able to marry in California. In case you haven't heard, just recently, the state jury overturned the last proposition dealing with this matter (Proposition 22 in 2000) ruling it unconstitutional and same-sex marriage legal.

Matters are getting a lot worse. According to an email by Merrilee Boyack:

"The California Supreme Court has ruled that doctors in a private clinic, based on their religious beliefs, cannot withhold unnecessary medical care to homosexuals and lesbians. A San Diego area lesbian claimed that a private fertility clinic refused to inseminate her because of her sexual orientation. The Court's decision means that California's civil rights law barring sexual orientation discrimination trumps religious freedom laws."

Let's hope that the people of California have not become too liberal in the last 8 years and that the proposition passes (everyone vote YES), defining marriage as only existing legally between a man and a woman.

For your continued reading, read the commentaries on the newsroom website for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' on the proposition, and please, please, please get involved however you can!

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-divine-institution-of-marriage

It's been a month...

...since my last post. Sorry about that!

I finished up my first semester of school and came back to San Diego for a few weeks. This last week has been quite eventful at home for our family!

1. I have a beautiful new nephew! Congratulations to Evan and Hannah and new baby Oliver! He is the cutest, most amazing new boy.

2. I have to get ACL/meniscus surgery again... I just found out this morning when I went in to the doctor's office to see what the MRI said. My meniscus is torn in the same place it was before December, and my ACL looks like a noodle it is stretched so badly. According to the doctor, it won't actually tear in such a state because there is not enough tension, but nonetheless is nonfunctional. I will probably put off the surgery until December, thus prolonging my bum knee condition for at least another year.

3. My parent's 27th anniversary

4. Evan's birthday

I love California and I love being with my family! I am heading out to Utah today and will be there for a week to see some old friends and play. Then back to San Diego August 25-31 before I go back to Boston for school!

Went on a run tonight... Took a couple of pictures! Very cool lighting on the Charles River, just in front of the downtown buildings.




It's been amazing weather lately, very humid, but no rain and beautiful skies. Here are a couple of other cool pictures from my phone.

Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown


Check out the clouds over the quad at Harvard Medical!

Growing up in a Modern World

I got 17 emails today...

They were all fairly important!

I wish I weren't an adult.

Sometimes I am tempted to throw my iPhone into the river to be disconnected. But then I remember I should check the bus schedule online. On my iPhone.

Modern technology runs my life.

I have caught myself thinking about things and conversing with others by using anatomical names instead of common names of body parts. I told a friend my IT band/fascia lata was sore up close by its origin from the ilium, sacrum and a ligament of the pelvis (sacrotuberous ligament that closes off the lesser sciatic foramen), and they kind of looked at me funny.

I have been enjoying some of the ironic names of muscles, ligaments, and body parts way too much. For example, the pes anserinus on the medial knee means "goose's foot" because "they" thought it looked like that. There are many nerves and muscles that make no sense if you are trying to make a connection between what their names are and their origins or destinations, but then you are helped out a little when you learn they (the infamous "they") decided to name a nerve the nerve to the obturator internus and superior gemellus or the nerve to subclavius. These nerves actually do exactly what you think they would... innervate the muscles that are part of their name.

Thank goodness for the infamous "they". They motivate us to make our lives as automated and electronic as possible, and they name things after geese.

First Grad School Tests

I bet you aren't shocked that graduate school tests are way more intense than anything I've ever experienced before. However, because you know they are going to be hard and you can't slack off, you come into the test feeling more prepared than usual in undergraduate testing situations. I actually have to study every day to be able to memorize the volume of material that we cover. I can remember at BYU studying an hour or so before a test and going in and doing just fine.

So, I feel really good about my first round of tests! I know I got a 95 on my first anatomy test and I just finished up my other anatomy test today. I think I did fairly well on this one also. I am so happy that I didn't fail like I was scared I would. I am starting to enjoy the challenges of this intensive anatomy course. Even if it is EXTREMELY INTENSIVE!!

So, I kind of have a 4 day weekend! The written test for Gross Anatomy took an hour and a half this morning, and so I have the rest of today off, then tomorrow (the Fourth of July), and Saturday and Sunday! I almost don't know what to do with myself with all this free time. Key word "almost". I'm sure I will figure it out... Here is a list of things I know will be priorities of the weekend:

1. SLEEP (I didn't get much this week)
2. Rascal Flatts/Boston Pops dress rehearsal concert tonight for FREE!
(I don't know what I am more excited for, rascal flatts for free or the 1812 overture performed by the Boston pops...)
3. BBQs and pie parties and fireworks galore tomorrow!
4. Taking advantage of the beautiful weather (it has been raining all week, and today is absolutely gorgeous)
5. Going on a really long run this afternoon
6. Going hiking in New Hampshire with some people from my ward on Saturday
7. Seeing Guin and Clark and Ben and Lady Carma, if possible!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I am super busy, super happy, and having lots of super fun in this new life of mine! Happy Fourth of July to everyone!

(Mom and Dad, I am really sad I am not at home for the Thomas July 4th extravaganza! Can we do a reenactment when I come home in August?)



Link to the Boston Pops July 4th Fireworks Spectacular