Home again

In the words of Jon Toogood I am home again. Back in Te Wai O Pounamu, in a barn of a flat in Christchurch, with a bunch of lovely barn animals.

The rest of my trip was great, I had a some really special time in Toronto and the conference in San Diego was incredible (food was alright too, only alright though). Some great feedback was received on the work that I presented and some of the talks convinced me that this is a field I would love to keep working in. I *HEART* THE BRAIN! but not in a zombie way.

Highlights in Toronto:

From cricket 2007

Meeting some really interesting researchers who look at the epi-genetics of psychiatric illnesses. Epi-genetics is the field of investigation of influences of gene regulation that are not encoded in the A's-C's-G's and T's of the DNA. Changes in epigenetic regulation can be caused by environmental exposures and more importantly can be inherited. Basically epigenetics research is at the bleeding edge of what is going on.

Being taken along to a Major League Soccer match by John and Emma. A young, fun couple who happen to be post-doc's who were really kind to me. I had the pleasure of attending TFCs first EVER win and the packed 20,000 seat stadium was bright red and rocking.

Running in a 10K race down Yonge Street, the longest street in Canada.

Witnessing the power of Niagara falls.

And the wonderful hospitality and company of Sarah, Trevor and Rose.

San Diego as a town I had less fun in. No I didn't go to the zoo and I regret it. The museums at Balboa Park were rather cool if not a bit run down and at the Museum of Man there was a exhibit of a North American mummified body, the lack of dignity that it was presented with actually made me feel ill.

Prior to the conference I went down to Tijuana for a few hours with a bunch of people from the hostel, it was a rather unfun experience as we stuck pretty much to Revolution the main area that hawkers target tourists. The boarder itself is a sight to behold. Mass movement of humanity across boarders. Some unwillingly, a DHS bus dropped a busload off as we arrived. Amazing Tacos.

The conference itself, well it was great. That about sums it up :)

Lately I haven't quite gotten back into the swing of things at work and there have been a few hiccoughs in my project. But hopefully will be all under control. I have consumed one or two free lunches since I have been back.

An interesting contrast between two of them. The first was a discussion of the challenges of treating mental health issues in WWII veterans, the interactions between post-traumatic syndromes and emergent dementia were particularly concerning. You can't help but wonder how this pans out in civilian population. The the was looking at the other end of the age spectrum. The average age of onset of schizophrenia is 22.4 (90% between 16 and 28) so digging for and identifying early "psychosis-like" disturbances can lead to the potential for early intervention and subsequent improved outcome. Non-specific signs given as examples given were: depression, compulsive behaviours, anger in young men, drug abuse and social withdrawal (in particular many, many hours a day on online roll playing games). The lunches have been ok too, maybe a bit too much cream cheese in the chicken club sandwiches.