Outlook is good, we anticipate recruitment, analysis, and publication to occur swiftly and efficiently.

HupA, an alkaloid initially identified from the Chinese herbal medicine Huperia serrata, is a potent reversible acetyl cholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor with additional unique properties including NMDA-receptor antagonist properties, neuroprotective and antioxidant effects. In animal studies, HupA was shown to possess greater inhibitory, longer-lasting, and more selective effects on AChE activity than donepezil. In clinical studies HupA improved memory, mood, and activities of daily living in patients with Alzheimer’s dementia. Adverse effects have been reported at a very low rate in all the clinical trials, and are mainly cholinergic, such as dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal symptoms, headaches and depressed heart rate. Thus, HupA is an attractive option which may have beneficial effects not only on cognitive but also functional domains of schizophrenia.

Email & Share

I have noticed the lack of sites for research networking on the internet. This really puzzles me as Research is a strongly collaborative endeavor and, many times, hinges on your social alliances.

Most of my personal content will continue to be posted here and it will be either linked to or copy-pasted into my forum.

Please pass this information on to anyone interested you may know.

http://www.researchorders.com

Email & Share

Disclosure statement: I am not affiliated with Actigraph in any way and have received no compensation for this review.

Actigraph GT3X

MSRP $335

The Actigraph GT3X is a tri-axial accelerometer whose claim to fame lies in its very accurate movement filter whose primary purpose to differentiate actual steps and movement from any other background noise movement that may occur while wearing the device. It is capable of measuring very small amounts of movement such as those generated by the elderly and other home-bound subjects. This device’s data is widely accepted in research circles throughout the scientific community.

To get up and running with a basic kit will run you  $706 ($349 software + $7 USB cable+ $335 GT3X+ $15 Elastic Band).

Closeup of the Device

The following are my impressions of the device and its ActiLife software.

Pros:

1. Incredibly accurate
2. Very long battery life
3. Lightweight
4. Noiseless
   
5. Intuitive and easy to use software
6. Lexan case (though I would like to see aluminum or magnesium)
   
7. Graphical display of steps and movement along the various axes.
8. Direct import of raw movement data into excel tables
9. Quick shipping, friendly & prompt staff

Cons:

1. Not waterproof
2. Slow download speed (3-7 minutes)
3. Poorly designed belt mounting loops
4. Expensive proprietary accessories (elastic belts, USB cables, cases)
5. Software NOT included with purchase of device
6. USB cables not included with purchase of device

The Actigraph GT3X is a transparent red block of plastic (judging by density, hardness, and malleability the material feels very similar to Lexan) and electronics roughly the size of a Zippo lighter. It has a weather seal along its main joint and a USB port with a rubber plug that in general won’t immediately fit and create a snug seal. Looking at the workmanship I was immediately struck by the manufacturer’s choice of form over function. Sleek lines, rounded edges, and a carefully recessed rubber plug for the USB port do little for me whose main concern would be device’s robustness.

In assessing the device’s physical weaknesses the first thing to come to mind was the thinness of the mounting loops. With moderate finger pressure I can squeeze the plastic of the loops together until they bow inward. This does not bring much confidence that the device will stay firmly attached to an active subject. Likewise I would be wary of using it on heavier subjects as their increased circumference would be much more likely to snag the device on environmental objects and possibly rip the device from it’s mounting belt. Secondly I am struck by the fact that this device is NOT waterproof. I can see through the transparent plastic a black rubber gasket that assures water resistance for the two halves but the integrity of the USB port seal is questionable at best. My ideal device would be made of metal and have a  screw-in bezel type weather seal for the USB port that would make it waterproof. There is really no excuse that it doesn’t already have a more positive belt attachment as standard equipment. Actigraph does sell a belt clip for $4 that appears to just stick to the back of the device via adhesive.  A standard USB Type A to Type B mini connector would have been very useful in lew of the proprietary USB connector used. The device transfers its 4MB of internal data verrrrry slowly to the computer. The Actigraph GT3X is using a Silicon Labs Serial to USB chip (CP2102) meaning the chip itself is capable of USB 2.0 speeds just like your camera or whatever but the serial backbone slows it down to roughly 13-20 kb/sec. It will take a good 3-7 Minutes to download a single device’s data unto your computer.

Actigraph firmware engineer Judge Maygarden writes:

“…download speeds are indeed limited by the low-power processor and serial connection. However, GT3X firmware version 2.2.0 and ActiLife software version 4.2.0 contained optimizations that allow increased throughput. This combination should reduce your worst-case download time from 6 minutes to 1 minute for 4 MB.”

Finally the battery is not easily user changeable but could be done by anyone with some soldering skill.

The Battery

The internal battery is model number LP603026, lithium ion 3.7 volt, 420 mAh and made by a company called EEMB (Link to EEMB product page)

This appears to be a good battery choice for a long lifespan, but as with any lithium-ion battery the end-user should be concerned about exposing it to low temperatures during usage as this can drastically affect battery life. My suggestion is if this is to be used outdoors during weather less than 50 F to be sure the device is indeed as close to the body as possible and under protective clothing.

The Software

The software is intuitive and user friendly. A user that is moderately skilled with Windows can get the device off and running without reading the manual. I was impressed by the fact that the device automatically detected that I was not running the latest firmware for my GT3X and prompted me to automatically download and install the update. The firmware install went well but I was unimpressed with the lack of warnings that accompanied the firmware update. If one was to accidentally unplug the device while the update was progressing it would “brick” the device and essentially turn it into a $300… brick. The average user who is not very familiar with computers may not know this and may inadvertently ruin their device in an attempt to speed up the process.

Firmware installs can be a time consuming and risky procedure for any electronic device from calculator to cell-phone, my previous fears of a device corrupted by an incomplete firmware update were answered by Actigraph engineer Judge Maygarden,

“Disconnecting the USB cable during a firmware update will NOT brick your GT3X. Firmware field updates can be tricky, but we have put a lot of effort into avoiding such problems. The device is only susceptible to “bricking” for a very short duration after the firmware upload completes, and such an event would require a battery interruption to occur.”

The graphs the device gives are very user friendly. You can choose to analyze the data in Microsoft Excel which you must have installed on your system already. You must also manually set your Excel security settings to allow VB and Macro scripts to run. This may not be possible on certain institutionally owned devices so check with your IT department or else you may end up having to do all your data analysis on a personally owned computer.

Screenshots of the software

Click on picture to view more.

Conclusion

Truth be told there is not much that physically separates this device from a $40 accelerometer chip or something like this NewLifeStyles Accelerometer or even an Ipod Touch/Iphone with its built in accelerometer capabilities. At a hefty price of $335 without its needed software and accessories this device is certainly marketed to the upper echelon.

I can not immediately find a direct competitor to this product. The included firmware data filtering equations that the device uses to actually sort your body movements and steps from “noise” movement seem to be the most accurate of any accelerometer of this class. A lot of programming effort went into making the software that interprets the electrical signals from the accelerometer itself and I believe that that commands a certain proprietary sum. Certainly the “movement monitoring” field is not a very competitive one for Actigraph but for the time being it seems like they have the research “pedometer” field cornered.

Excellent accuracy coupled with: easy-to-use software, friendly and attentive staff, and a laundry list of research protocols make this device a winner. If actigraph would take care of the cons mentioned at the beginning of the article I think they could firmly cement their monopoly on the market.

Kudos on an excellent product, Actigraph.

Email & Share

It all started on October 1st, 2007 when I began my first day of work at the hospital. I was shown into my office, a corner office without a window roughly 15ft x 20ft. And nothing,… wait I shouldn’t go that far… it had a computer at least, a modern dell with a 19″ LCD screen. This was placed on a card table which was sitting in the corner of the room and next to that a stack of boxes which I was told contained some office supplies and binders for patients.

From there I was on my own. I was armed with the names of two people with jobs roughly similar to mine and some great advice from one of my future mentors (who also would happen to be my boss).

Upon calling my associates I was given a brief rundown of how difficult, random, tedious and time consuming this position was. I was given some sample binders and folders to show me the data collected. From that point on I was on my own.

At this point it began to sink in. I was going to be experimenting on human beings. The same type of things I was doing in the lab I would now be doing with actual people. You can’t exactly restart a human experiment if something goes wrong, you can’t take a coffee break and re-run your samples, and you must certainly write everything down!!!

Step 1. Review my sample documents.

Upon opening a sample binder I was greeted by a table of contents and a medication approval sheet which showed exactly what medication the subject was on, the storage requirements for said medication, and the list of approved prescribers.

Looking more closely at the table of contents I saw that each visit the subject was supposed to come back for was neatly outlined in a large table with what tests we had to preform on them during each visit. All acronyms, the only thing that I could recognize in the table were the headings listed 1-13 across the top of the table and then a bold black “X” denoting the row and corresponding acronym that this study coordinator was supposed to follow.

Ok.

Flipping through the pages I encountered huge multi-page psychological tests, dozen page memory batteries, and scribble over each and every page. The coordinator had taken the time to painstakingly hand number and initial each page of this entire document. Wow, what a waste of time. Surely there must be a better way than this.

Setting the sample binder aside I began to unpack my boxes to see what treasures lay inside. Binders. Ten boxes of binders. Sixty in total. Stapler, yes. Pencil sharpener, yes. Sticky notes, yes. Pens? Nope.

Step 2. Office Space?

So the first thing I needed was a place to put all my supplies, because a room with only a card table isn’t very suitable as an office. I began asking around if I could get a file cabinet or another cabinet or another table moved into my room so that I might put things some of my things away. My boss was kind enough to give me his desk organizer so that I might at least have some place to put my paperclips and small items for the time being instead of them rolling around my desk. Back to the matter at hand… furniture. So after numerous replies of “you have to buy it,” and “I don’t know.” I was confronted with another option,… “Go to the basement and check the hallways, people put furniture down there that they no longer need, you can just take it.” I didn’t really know if this was true or not, but I knew that if I was going to have anything at all in my office I was going to need to do something, and fast.

I took the elevator down to the basement and discovered….. a lot of junk. File cabinets from the 1950s, furniture from the 70′s, years of labeling stickers attached one over the other in an attempt to gain control over mind boggling government forms and regulations….

I guess this will have to do. I found a plywood cabinet two and a half feet high tall with two solid doors and a shelf inside. Its wood vernier looked dull and lifeless as if crying out for a rest after countless years of hard service. Satisfied with my new cabinet I looked around a bit more and was able to also find a 6ft tall brown filing cabinet that spoke out from amidst the other,… what luck, its original set of keys were taped neatly inside the top drawer.

Excellent. Without much hassle I found a janitor who was nice enough to help me on my quest for furniture and told me that he would get a flatbed hand cart and take them up to my office in an hour or so.

Houston, we have furniture!

Email & Share

When a person goes to the doctor they expect knowledge, leadership, passion. I am confident in myself, and I know the reason they come back is because they are confident in me also. Nevertheless, for that split second before I round the corner into the waiting room my stomach knots, my pulse quickens and the fear of failure looms overhead. As I come fully into the waiting room with the gentle roar of some right-wing talking-head on the tv and the sweet smell of coffee lingering, my eyes lock on to theirs and I can’t help but smile.

This is my passion.

Email & Share