Need Help in Finding a Research Question

[ddoo]

I am currently a sophomore and am interested towards neuroscience, specifically in researching alzheimers disease or aging problems.
If there are any suggestions for a question on this topic, please let me know.
Thank You.

[SGelman]

Hi!

Are you intending to completely conduct an experiment on Alzheimer's or aging problems? If you are only looking for a research question to answer, you could use this site: http://www.juliantrubin.com/fairproject ... sease.html , however the topics are fairly advanced but they will give you an idea of what kind of topics you might want to look into.

Doing an experiment on your own about these topics could be hard to set up, but if you have a college near you, try looking at their library to see what research has been done and documented. You could also do a more basic question of how age affects the brain, and base your experiment on how large groups of people [of different ages] respond to certain things, or look into the differences between male and female brains. Hope this helps!



Susan

[ddoo]

Yes, I intend to completely conduct an experiment based on something related to Alzheimers or aging problems. I am still looking for a question in which I can experiment upon, but so far I only have a broad idea on what I am going to do. So if you have any suggestions on a question, please let me know.
Thank You
p.s. thank you for the website

[meredithhodgkinson]

Your topic idea is very ambitious. I think getting subjects to participate in your experimental study would be very challenging. And, these folks are considered a "special population," so it's particularly difficult to get approved to study them, much less experiment on them.
What about "simulating" something regarding aging in your peers?
As the other person suggested, doing a review of literature on aging research will give you an idea of what has been done and what is of concern to aging researchers. Maybe that will lead you to 1-3 characteristics or limitations that aging and/or alzheimer's presents.

[ddoo]

I do not really want to do an experiment in which I have to interview/surveying subjects of different ages, but instead I want to experiment and research on a simple project based on recovering damaged parts of the brain using stem cells, etc, etc.

[MelissaB]

If you are set on this, you will probably need to team up with a professor or a doctor who is studying Alzheimer's. I suggest you contact nearby universities, colleges, or medical centers, explain who you are and what you are interested in doing, and ask if they know anyone doing research in the field who might be willing to mentor you. Otherwise, I think any sort of experimental research in this field is far outside the bounds of a high-school science fair project.

Keep in mind that if you find a mentor and a project, you will probably need special permission or need to fill out special forms to present any research on humans.

[ddoo]

So far, I have a somewhat broad question, but need help narrowing it down. The question is based on using specific stem cells in order to reduce memory loss in the brain.

[MichaelD]

This is a really interesting question and the topic of research of many top labs in the country. The use of stem cells is still quite controversial in many areas and you need to think about how this research would be carried out. I agree with the previous comments on finding a professor or doctor to team up with as I don't think you would be able to do it otherwise.

One way to go about this is to peruse the faculty research at university and colleges in your area to find labs working in this field and then approach them with your ideas.