My Day As A Research Subject

This morning we went to the center for human development, my mentors other office that is on campus. This is where she holds some of her graduate classes, and we waited here to start our day as participants in PING.


This is the building where the center of human development is located on campus. They share a floor with the math department. Today we were the first three participants out of more than 1500, to participate in PING. We were open to things messing up, taking longer than expected and all of the other little problems that always come up.

The research testing was done in little rooms, like the sign for this one. The tests were all kinds of different things from identifying patterns, memory games, re creating pictures, phonics, and other things like that.

Another thing that is being collected for PING is a spit sample, so they can map out our genome and see if it has anything to do with behavioral and mental development. This is the cup that is used to collect the sample.

This is Christian and one of the research assistants doing some of the testing. This particular game had to do with sound, your reaction time and memory of a pattern. Everything ended up taking a little longer then planned, and I had to leave early to go do another part of the research, an MRI.

Parking on campus is near to impossible, which is one of the reasons we intern at Dr. Jernigans other lab off campus. I was lucky enough to get a special faculty club parking pass! My mentor got me the pass and also told us about how strict the UCSD parking enforcement is.


This isnt the exact building I did my MRI in was behind here, but this one had a sign! We have to share the MRI machine with the Hillcrest UCSD hospital, I have learned that research takes a lot of collaboration and sharing.

This is the MRI machine that I got to sit in for about an hour! I had to make sure that I was metal free, then I was put on the table, given headphones with a microphone, a squeeze ball panic button, and a blanket. Once I was pushed in, I got to watch James Bond Casino Royale while the scanner beeped and made noises around me.