What is IRB?
The IRB is the "Institutional Review Board" and they review experimental protocols to make sure everything we're doing is documented and approved. We have protocols through Hopkins Medical Institute (JHMI) for our MRI scanning experiments and through Homewood for our behavioral experiments. These are very similar but bureaucratically distinct and they require slightly different training and certification.
Everyone who does research in the lab must be on some form of IRB. If they're only looking at behavioral data (such as data collected through Qualtrics) they may only need to be on a Homewood protocol. Anyone who has access to the server must be on both labs' JHMI protocols. Grad students and post-docs will be added to all of the main protocols, it's only some undergrad RAs that may not need to be added to all of them.
IRB training certifications are valid for 3 years for JHMI protocols and 5 years for Homewood protocols. For information and instructions to complete the IRB trainings, see the link below:
How do I get the IRB certificate?
What do we need to do with IRB?
- Add new people to protocols:
- Everyone who does research in the lab must be on some form of IRB. If they're only looking at behavioral data (such as data collected through Qualtrics) they may only need to be on a Homewood protocol. Anyone who has access to the server must be on both labs' JHMI protocols. Grad students and post-docs will be added to all of the main protocols, it's only some undergrad RAs that may not need to be added to all of them.
- Use consent forms and other materials approved by IRB:
- Since we have multiple protocols, it's really important that you make sure you're using the appropriate consent form. If advertising for the study, it's also important to make sure that we're using the approved materials. If we want to add additional surveys, those also have to be approved before being given to participants.
- Submit regular progress reports:
- Once a year we have to send a progress report for each protocol declaring how many participants we've recruited under that protocol, how many withdrew, and if there were any problems. When doing your experiments it's important that you're keeping track of this information.
- Make amendments to the protocol:
- If we want to do things differently, add new conditions, add additional surveys, etc. then it needs to be recorded and added in an amendment to the protocol. The IRB will then review the changes to make sure it's ethical and necessary, request changes as necessary, and (hopefully) approve them.
What protocols do we have?
JHMI protocols
- Chen protocol:
- IRB00145641 Timescales of Perception and Memory in the Brain
- Honey protocol:
- IRB00201118 Integrating and Separating Information Over Time in the Human Brain
- There are very few differences between these two protocols, which will be explained in the Scanning wiki pages.
Homewood protocols:
- Chen protocol:
- HIRB 00011491 Perception and memory in naturalistic contexts
- Main Chen lab protocol. Funded with Department of Defense/Office of Naval Research. Has allowance for an online consent form.
- Honey protocols:
- HIRB 00005015 Perception and memory of naturalistic information sequences
- This is the main Honey lab protocol and covers most of the behavioral experiments. Has allowance for online consent forms.
- HIRB 00010820 Integrating and separating information sequences
- Also a main Honey lab protocol, but funded with the NIMH R01. Also has ADHD screening questionnaires.
- HIRB 00005082 Neural processes supporting the perception and memory of naturalistic information sequences
- For the analysis of data collected at University of Toronto (not used much anymore)
- HIRB 00007272 Contributions of the hippocampus and perirhinal cortex to memory and perception
- For the analysis of the data collected by Dr. Morgan Barense at the University of Toronto (not used much anymore)