Online participants needed for Dr Jarred Younger study (serious biomed research)

[Sasha]

Cort published today an account of the very impressive research that Dr Jarred Younger is doing at the University of Alabama (which aims to be a major player in ME/CFS). It looks at the role of neuroinflammation and the microglia in ME/CFS.

Dr Younger needs help in choosing videos to use in an upcoming study and we can help do that. Please take part!

Research study: Reactions to videos

What is involved?

The Neuroinflammation, Pain & Fatigue Lab at the University of Alabama in Birmingham invites you to participate in a 40-minute study that involves watching videos and rating how they make you feel.

The study is completed on-line. After watching the 6 short videos, you will be asked a series of questions about how you felt while watching the video.

Your responses will be anonymous; the only information we will ask you to provide is your gender and approximate age (please participate only if you are at least 19 years old).

There will be no compensation provided for your participation. Your answers will be completely anonymous. We ask that you try to watch all the videos, but you are free to stop participating at any time.

If you agree to watch the videos and complete the questions, please press the ‘yes’ box at the bottom of the page. Pressing ‘no’ will exit you from this study.

Why are we doing this?

Your responses will help us determine the best videos to use in our future projects.

Questions?

1. If you have questions about the study, you can contact our lab directly at youngerlab@uab.edu.

2. This study is approved by the University of Alabama at Birmingham Institutional Review Board. If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, or concerns or complaints about the research, you may contact the UAB Office of the IRB (OIRB) at (205) 934-3789 or toll free at 1-855-860-3789.

Regular hours for the OIRB are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT, Monday through Friday. You may also call this number in the event the research staff cannot be reached or you wish to talk to someone else.

A rare opportunity to help in a major biomedical research programme from the comfort of our own sofas! Let's get stuck in.

 

[Sasha]

Just done it - fun and interesting - I recommend it!

 

[Effi]

@Sasha I participated a while ago as suggested by @SDSue in this thread: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...-online-study-watch-videos.38495/#post-614564

We were wondering what they were going to use our input for, so it's good to hear it's serious biomedical research!

 

[Sasha]

Argh! I didn't notice that thread. I think it's important to have 'biomedical research' in the title and to set the research context (which I realise wasn't available when that thread was started) or people are going to think it's just some psychology thing and not a brain/microglia thing.

 

[Hanna]

Just done it too.

 

[Valentijn]

Me three. One of the videos involved my alma mater! I added a note that it might have biased my reaction to it

 

[Bob]

Me four.

 

[Sushi]

Me five.

 

[Sushi]

Just done it - fun and interesting - I recommend it!

Of course, as I watched the videos I was trying to figure what they were trying to learn from our responses. My best guess is something like whether we could still be optimistic about life while seriously ill. Or, shudder , are we depressed with blunted emotional responses?

Any one else?

 

[Bob]

Of course, as I watched the videos I was trying to figure what they were trying to learn from our responses. My best guess is something like whether we could still be optimistic about life while seriously ill. Or, shudder , are we depressed with blunted emotional responses?

Any one else?

I didn't think this was an actual research project, but I thought that it may be preparation for a research project. They don't ask if we are patients or not, so I guessed they were just seeking a general response to a selection of videos that they have. That was my interpretation anyway. Beyond that, I couldn't work out what it's purpose was.

 

[Sasha]

They're trying to choose suitable videos for research into the brain so I assumed they want to identify, for example, which video most people find uplifting or whatever so that they can compare the effect of particular emotions (or perhaps strong emotion vs no emotion) on the brain. In order to do that, they'd need a stimulus that they were confident would evoke that emotion in most people.

 

[SOC]

I'm still trying to figure out what they think our emotions have to do with ME.

 

[Sasha]

I'm still trying to figure out what they think our emotions have to do with ME.

Seeing emotional material will affect the brain - they're looking for effects in the brain.

I don't see anything sinster in this (though I understand people's caution after the nonsense we've been subjected to. If you read about the research he's doing, it all looks like serious biomed stuff. I don't see any sign that he thinks our emotions cause our disease, or any of that kind of nonsense.

 

[SOC]

I don't see anything sinster in this

I don't, either. Younger is doing excellent biomedical research, so I see no reason to suspect him of going over to the other camp. I'm simply curious how looking at emotions is a better measure of something more clearly related to ME symptoms like memory or processing speed. He obviously has something in mind and my curiosity is getting the better of me.