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ADD Journal Club

Ernestrome

Ernestrome

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Would anyone be interested in participating in an ADD journal club discussion thread?

We would pick a paper, read it over the preceding week(s) and then discuss it for a week or two.
 
I love the idea. Maybe have a rotating topic or "chemical of the month" and have someone contribute an article or two with key stuff, new info, generally out there trippy ideas, etc...
 
Great idea. I'm in. It'll be like a book club, but geekier :)
 
I like both ideas, I'm no expert in either field, but I'm no complete mong either, sure would be some fun for a rainy day :)
 
Cool.

If anyone is interested in presenting a paper they should say so.

If anyone has comment on the format for discussion below please say so.

1. Please do not nominate papers you're not prepared to present.

2. Papers should be accessible to everybody by some easy means ie free access, available on erowid or maps bibliography or similar.

3. Presenting
A)Presenting will entail reading and trying to understand the paper, then writing a digest of it. Summarizing
i) Brief Background on the paper - why it's important
ii) Overall hypothesis, what they're trying to do
iii) Hypothesis for each experiment, brief comment on method employed, results (did they prove their hypothesis?), their discussion. Then your comments and criticism.
iv) Their overall conclusions
v) Any final comments or criticism you have on the paper.
Presenting should be as succinct as possible. I'd recommend covering i-iv in one post (succinct/brief, well formatted with bullet points etc) and a separate post with your comment and criticism.

B) Please note that the article or your interpretation of it may attract criticism and respond respectfully to this.

4. Responding
Further responses can then allow people to raise problems people they have understanding the material which we can then help each other to understand (this is one of the primary purposes of journal club). Also we can have further comment and criticism and of the paper or suggest alternative interpretations.

5. Timescale
I anticipate it taking a week to pick a paper, then allow a week to read it and presenter to prepare. Then discussion for two weeks (it can continue beyond that of course). I think one paper per month is a good rate.
Then we can call for fresh papers and allow renomination of previous ones that haven't been discussed.
 
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Perhaps I will frequent BL a little bit more if this proves to be rewarding.
 
The "rules of the game" sound reasonable so far... 2 questions left:

1. When do we start?
2. Who suggests the respective papers?

Murphy
 
In reference to the stipulation of publicly available papers would someone be willing to temporarily host the paper on their site? I know that at least in the US limiting this to publicly available journals will mean basically no journals, and dealing with differing institutional subscriptions is too complicated.
Could the paper just be attached to a post in the thread?
 
Nope, direct attachments (I mean: uploads) are not possible here at Bluelight. But the one who suggests a paper can upload it (...zipped!) at Rapidshare or any other free hosting service. They will remove it after some time, but for the intented month of discussion I see no problem.

Comments about this idea?!

Peace! Murphy
 
@Refluxer: Maybe not the "only viable" one but IMO the simplest. :) I would suggest, that the discussion opener uploads the respective article, zipped AND password-protected. Then he/she posts here in THIS thread, revealing the download-link and password and the discussion can start...

As it was Ernestromes idea, I vote for him to "throw the first stone", so to say...

Murphy
 
MurphyClox said:
The "rules of the game" sound reasonable so far... 2 questions left:

1. When do we start?
2. Who suggests the respective papers?

Murphy
Click to expand...

We'll take suggestions this week, anyone can suggest a paper - so long as they're willing to present it.

Then we'll have a vote on which one we go with.
 
Why password protect? I think thats against the easy and free sharing of information, should not information, once we get it out into the public domain somewhere, be made free and easy to access? I believe it should, in the spirit of cooperation and progress.

Please no rapidshare type hosting shitholes though, they fuck my download speed and I get bytes per second from my crappy mobile hookup :(

Just a request :)

This thread idea is SO autielicious, and I wouldn't want to find myself excluded from the fun and games because of my uber-shitty connection and disobedient, crappy computer (which is in need of a thermonuclear-scale overhaul and de-crappification) if crapidshare or similar download speed limiting hosts get used, I just won't be able to play :(

And that would make baby jesus cry
 
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You could always use ifile.it for uploads.

I have no connection with them but there is a FAQ here

I think it sounds like a great idea, but I would really love to see the articles we review go into a Bl library. I think the boys (and gals) from BL support are onto this one as we speak.
 
If i were to go first i might go for this, mainly because i saw a frustrating presentation on it neither the presenter nor the interrogators appeared to understand what had happened. I'm not sure if it is of particular interest to the group. It is essentially about an epigenetic mechanism for cocaine addiction.

Histone Deacetylase 5 Epigenetically Controls Behavioral Adaptations to Chronic Emotional Stimuli, Renthal et al (2008 ) Neuron

http://www.neuron.org/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0896627307007660

Previous work has identified alterations in histone acetylation in animal models of drug addiction and depression. However, the mechanisms which integrate drugs and stress with changes in chromatin structure remain unclear. Here, we identify the activity-dependent class II histone deacetylase, HDAC5, as a central integrator of these stimuli with changes in chromatin structure and gene expression. Chronic, but not acute, exposure to cocaine or stress decreases HDAC5 function in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a major brain reward region, which allows for increased histone acetylation and transcription of HDAC5 target genes. This regulation is behaviorally important, as loss of HDAC5 causes hypersensitive responses to chronic, not acute, cocaine or stress. These findings suggest that proper balance of histone acetylation is a crucial factor in the saliency of a given stimulus and that disruption of this balance is involved in the transition from an acute adaptive response to a chronic psychiatric illness.
 
I cannot present for a few weeks due to work. If anyone else would like to present in the interim i would be happy for the to do so!
 
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