The Jedi Masters of Research

I met with my subject librarian yesterday, in a medium-sized group. She gave a brief introduction about the different databases, and what each one was useful for. I already knew what database (pubmed, or PMC) to use for my topic, but I didn't know a whole lot about the differences for other databases, so that was mildly interesting. In all, I didn't learn all that much from her basic presentation, but I can see how it would have been very helpful for student who is new to this type of research and writing. However, this class is basically a repeat for me (same thing as Eng 2020 which I took at another school, but BYU doesn't accept it), so I've done all these assignments before.

On a more useful note, though I didn't have a lot to ask her about finding sources, she was VERY helpful in getting me started with EndNote, and showing me how to pull sources in and organize them. I had just downloaded EndNote on my research professor's recommendation, but didn't really know how to use it. Now I have my sources all cleanly put together in one place, and I love it.

Yesterday in about an hour I found nearly 20 sources. Now I just need to read them all and make sure they're as promising as their titles and abstracts made them out to be. I also need to sort my data based on good research, and most recent. I'm researching what we currently know about migraines, and what causes them. Most of my sources use MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to study brain activity during migraines. This is a non-invasive and useful technique, but I wonder if we won't really understand the neural mechanisms (etiology) behind migraines until we can study brains of migraine patients. This might be better done if we could somehow make a strain of mice or apes that have migraines. The hard part is that it would be difficult to tell whether or not they have migraines...but if we could, then the etiology could be better deduced, and we could more easily find a treatment or cure for migraines. So far, the MRI studies have shown that the thickness of the cortical (outermost) layer of the brain might affect prevalence of migraines, and that the connections between the cortex and the thalamus have abnormal activity during migraines. I've also found a bunch of information that basically explores people's experiences with migraines, so I can better understand what is actually happening, and the complexities of migraines. One interesting study is looking at differences between CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) between migraine and non-migraine patients, and they found some differences. In all, I need to read through my sources more, but I have a good nest from which to start my work.