Week Three: Speeding Up

Hi everyone, This is my third week working on my Senior Project. This week went back to normal. I continued to attend the Engineering classes. There were no actual lectures, but I learned a lot from observing other students working on their final group projects. I learned about the process of designing a product by looking for a user, prototyping a MVP (Minimum Viable Product), talking with a user to improve the product, and redesigning a product based on feedback. In addition, my independent work on designing a cane with a sensor has continued. I have decided to reconduct these experiments by speeding up the code, so I can gain new data values for users in a more timely manner. This has enabled me to obtain 24,000 data points in five minutes for my experiments. With this data, I can better determine the angle and height that should be used to detect the ground. I hope to continue to share my progress on this project in the next few weeks. My opportunity to shadow a graduate student has also started this week. She had given me a quick breakdown of her project and taught me some of the machinery that will be used to analyze neuron activity. Next week, I will be learning some basic laboratory skills.
For my research project, I have started to dig deeper into my sources by learning more about the molecules that impact emotions. Some theories that I learned more about are the Basic Emotion theory and the Limbic System theory of emotions. These theories focus on the idea that the brain has particular loci that are located at subcortical regions and amygdala (Wang et al, 2020). In addition, there are neuromodulators, specific types of molecules, that are able to control different aspects of emotions; for example, dopamine controls joy, serotonin controls punishment and disgust, and norepinephrine controls fear and anger (Wang et al, 2020). However, neurotransmitters are not the only way to control emotions. Other hormones provide secondary pathways to control these neurotransmitters. For example, corticotropin-releasing hormone controls norepinephrine by altering physiological processes and the release of ACTH, a neurotransmitter (Wang et al, 2020). Therefore, this behavior causes increased stress (Wang et al, 2020). I also read about other hormones, like Ketamine and Oxytocin. Next week, I plan to continue to read more about these neurotransmitters, before pivoting to major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders.

Wang, F., Yang, J., Pan, F., Ho, R. C., & Huang, J. H. (2020). Editorial: Neurotransmitters And Emotions. Frontiers In Psychology, 11, 21. Https://Doi.Org/10.3389/Fpsyg.2020.00021