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Scientists are taking one step closer to reading your mind using brain imaging techniques:
Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one’s own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and computer simulation, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach.
Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing people’s dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching Hollywood movie trailers.
As yet, the technology can only reconstruct movie clips people have already viewed. However, the breakthrough paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers.
“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study published online today (Sept. 22) in the journal Current Biology. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.”
Link | Hit play or go to YouTube to watch the video clip
How do you diagnose a 150 pound turtle with seizures when she’s too big for a standard MRI machine? Find an MRI that’s big enough to fit her inside and then send her on the 300 mile long journey to the medical center where the machine is located. Fortunately, while the cause of the problem is still uncertain, Snorkel seems to be doing ok and tests have confirmed that she doesn’t have any cancer or brain tumors.
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Literature is filled with examples of the pain of heartbreak, but leave it to science to prove that to our brain, the pain of getting dumped and getting burned is actually one and the same:
In a new study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have found that the same brain networks that are activated when you’re burned by hot coffee also light up when you think about a lover who has spurned you.
In other words, the brain doesn’t appear to firmly distinguish between physical pain and intense emotional pain. Heartache and painful breakups are "more than just metaphors," says Ethan Kross, Ph.D., the lead researcher and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor.
Andy Ellison posts animated images of food on his site Inside Insides. What you see here is an MRI of an onion. The bright spot that appears is actually a bruise! You can also see MRI scans of bell peppers, green beans, persimmons, and much more. Link -via Everlasting Blort
Thanks to modern medical science, we now can see the process of a Burmese Python ingesting a rat in all its gory details:
Using a combination of computer tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), scientists Kasper Hansen and Henrik Lauridsen of Aarhus University in Denmark were able to visualize the entire internal organ structures and vascular systems (aka "guts") of a Burmese Python digesting a rat.
By choosing the right settings for contrast and light intensity during the scanning process, the scientists were able to highlight specific organs and make them appear in different colors. The non-invasive CT and MRI scans could let scientists look at animal anatomy without the need for other invasive methods such as dissections.
Link – via Rue The Day!
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(L) Watermelon (M) Orange (R) Artichoke
The blog Inside insides is rather sparse on the details, but I suppose you don’t really need anything more than the terse tagline of "Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Foods". Take a look and marvel: Link – via metafilter
Not only is the placebo effect becoming stronger, but it’s now been imaged for the first time by researchers with fMRI machines. Falk Eippert at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany led the study:
Later, with an fMRI scanner on, the researchers rubbed “control” and “painkiller” creams onto two different spots on each volunteer’s left forearm and applied the same level of heat to each spot, 15 times.
The fake “painkiller” cream worked: volunteers said they experienced 26 per cent less pain on the “painkiller”-treated patch of their arm, compared with the “control”-treated area.
Meanwhile, the fMRI scanner witnessed the placebo effect. When skin treated with the “control” cream was heated, an area of the dorsal horn located on the left side of volunteers’ lower necks lit up, suggesting increased neural activity there in response to pain. However, this signal disappeared in the “painkiller” trials.
Link via Popular Science | Image: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Scans of the human brain show how neurons fire in different patterns when we are asleep, drugged, experiencing seizures or headaches, and when the brain is damaged. The image on the left is the brain of someone who is asleep. The right shows the brain of a person in a drug-induced sleep. Link -via the Presurfer
Brandon Keim writes in Wired that scientists are getting closer to reconstructing images that duplicate what the brain actually sees through visual input. Though it’s not actually brain-reading, it’s a small step in that direction:
To construct their model, the researchers used an fMRI machine, which measures blood flow through the brain, to track neural activity in three people as they looked at pictures of everyday settings and objects.
As in the earlier study, they looked at parts of the brain linked to the shape of objects. Unlike before, they looked at regions whose activity correlates with general classifications, such as “buildings” or “small groups of people.”
Once the model was calibrated, the test subjects looked at another set of pictures. After interpreting the resulting neural patterns, the researchers’ program plucked corresponding pictures from a database of 6 million images.
Image: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Neuroscientist Craig Bennett bought a salmon to test an fMRI machine and work out some protocols.
So, as the fish sat in the scanner, they showed it “a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations.” To maintain the rigor of the protocol (and perhaps because it was hilarious), the salmon, just like a human test subject, “was asked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing.”
The salmon, as Bennett’s poster on the test dryly notes, “was not alive at the time of scanning.”
Those involved got a laugh out of the situation, until the scans came back and showed that activity was detected in different areas of the brain when the fish was “shown” the pictures. Remember, the fish was dead.
The result is completely nuts — but that’s actually exactly the point. Bennett, who is now a post-doc at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his adviser, George Wolford, wrote up the work as a warning about the dangers of false positives in fMRI data. They wanted to call attention to ways the field could improve its statistical methods.
Which is not to say that scans aren’t a useful research tool, but that they must be carefully monitored to avoid false positive results. Link -via reddit
Research shows that playing the video game Tetris can improve your brain’s efficiency and will thicken some areas of the cortex. Neuroscientist Richard Haier had adolescent girls play Tetris for three months and looked for changes in their brain scans.
Three months of Tetris playing had two distinct effects on the brains of research subjects: Some areas in the brain showed greater efficiency (the blue areas in the diagram above), and different areas showed thicker cortexes, which is a sign of more grey matter (red). This, says the doctors who undertook the study, shows that focusing on a “challenging visuospatial task” like a videogame can actually alter the structure of the brain, not just increase brain activity [Wired.com]. But surprisingly, there was no overlap between the regions that became more efficient and those that thickened. Haier says more research must be done to determine how different areas of the brain interact during game playing
After experiencing a stroke, a Swiss woman at Geneva University Hospital began experiencing phantom limb for an arm that didn’t exist — and never had. Doctors subjected her to a MRI:
Researchers instructed the woman to move her right hand. As expected, the motor cortex and visual processing areas in the left side of her brain became mobilized.
The same effects were observed to a lesser extent when the woman simply imagined moving her right hand. Imaginary movements of the woman’s paralyzed left hand prompted the same activity in the brain, but on the right side.
But when doctors asked her to move her phantom arm, her brain reacted as though the arm really existed and could be moved. In addition, the patient’s visual cortex was also activated, indicating the she actually saw the imaginary limb.
And when she was instructed to scratch her cheek, regions of the brain relating to touch were activated.
Link via Instapundit
This is one of the strangest craft projects I’ve ever seen. Becky Stern says she plans to continue working on different segments of the MRI to see how her project will turn out.
