September 2026

Annual Goals:

• Get a manuscript ready for submission
• RISE 1 application
• Identify additional funding sources
• Start recruiting a research team

Monthly Goals:

• Meet w/ Nina
• Think deeply about research directions and goals
• Literature review to refine research aims
• Figure out organizational system to be more productive with research time
• Start identifying mentors

9/22

• Talked to Hamilton (re: how do you know that a worm is anesthetized)?
  • Schedule another phone call on 10/2. He's interested in collaborating on a high-throughput screen in C. elegans.

• Met Coby
  • From UCLA, now a 2nd year PhD student in Christian's lab, focusing on SWARM (slow-wave analysis something modulation?)
  • They are getting frontal EEG data from SEEG explants and correlating LFPs and single neuron activity with SO/SW data from frontal EEG.
  • Implanted electrodes attract glia which adhere to the electrodes and make a local inflammatory response that increases impedance and reduces data quality.

• Eric Melonakos: suggested presenting at the Gordon Research Conference. Jan 17-22 in Oxnard, CA (near Santa Barbara). Abstracts due by 12/20.

• Met w/ Talmage
  • BIS study that he is starting with Christian in the next few months. I should get on board.
  • Respiration AI startup (as good as a PACU nurse at reminding post-op patients to breath). He wants me to be the clinical PI for the upcoming study.
  • 20 years ago he licensed some PK/PD software to GE but no one bought it. A Norwegian company tried the same thing, also without success. He is now trying to get it integrated into EPIC. Is it just a marketing problem that no one wants to buy it? They've shown that it changes how people deliver anesthesia (typically they use less, specifically opioid).
  • He thinks the big thing that is lacking from Christian's research is volunteer studies.
  • He did a bunch of PD studies looking at responses to different noxious stimuli at various effect site concentrations. Still has the equipment.

• Read through the RISE application.
  • Mentoring plan is the most important single component.
  • Met with Norm Taylor to discuss timing and considerations for project directions and mentors, identify successful applicants.

• Learned about FOOOF motivations. "Fitting oscillations and 1/f"
  • Aperiodic components of a signal will spread out their power in all frequencies, when doing FFT it can appear as if there is oscillatory (rhythmic) activity when in fact there is none.
  • Band analysis, including band power ratios, are rife with potential for misinterpretation unless you break out the aperiodic components
  • Changes in the aperiodic exponent or offset can mimic changes in band power.

• Feasibile and high-impact research ideas:
  • Depression
    • What is the disease burden of depression in the general surgical population? BJA article that finds 20% burden of depression in the surgical patients during the pre-op period. They also note that patients have a 2.5x higher risk of non-home discharge. 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis showing that about 1/4 of surgical cancer patients have depression. 2026 Journal of Clinical Neuroscience article showed a 4-fold increase in risk of re-operation in ACDF patients who were depressed.
    • What is the incidence of post-operative depression in general surgical patients without pre-existing depression? What if they have a family or personal history of depression?
    • Do ketamine, TIVA w/ propofol, TIVA w/ remimazolam, psychedelics, or burst suppression modulate the post-operative risk? RCT happening in China right now. Another RCT done in China with 142 cardiac surgery patients showed significantly decreased post-operative depression in patients who got a single dose of ketamine (0.3 mg/kg) at induction. After reviewing the first 51 results on Ovid Medline, I saved selected abstracts to Box.
  • CLAN
    • When combined with SEEG electrodes or data from Parkinson's patients with deep-brain stimulators, can we resolve temporal and spatial activity of deep subcortical structures with ICA from frontal or full EEG? steerable non-invasive DBS
    • What are the EEG effects of benzos, opioids, precedex, and their respective reversal agents?
    • What are the EEG effects of IV caffeine or methylphenidate? Do these cause emergence agitation?
    • What is known about the EEG signature of methohexital?
  • CO2
    • Does permissive hypercapnia improve hemodynamic stability, deepen anesthesia, and speed recovery?
    • Can we make a device or repurpose an existing ventilator to help accomplish that?

• High-impact, less feasible research ideas:
  • Does TIVA prevent cancer recurrence? Could be feasible if we are able to mine the data from someone else's data set.
  • Does general anesthesia lead to post-op ileus and constipation?
  • Mechanisms of anesthesia. Is it dogma that anesthesia works by disrupting neuronal circuitry? Can I disprove this by anesthetizing weird organisms? Light-emitting bacteria were anesthetized in 1974 (less light emission). There's 0 papers on anesthetizing amoeba.
  • Cancer vaccine. Can we make an mRNA vaccine that increases p53 copy number. Peto's paradox. Elephants.

• Low-impact, very feasible research ideas:
  • SCD-FR
  • Better late than never PONV