Today I had my brain poked by big magnets
Since I’m planning to be a Neuroscientist in a few years I figured it would be a good idea to experience some of what I’d be asking volunteers (or requiring patients) to go through.
One of those things is being scanned in an MRI, which is what I experienced today as part of some research I volunteered to participate in. If you’ve ever watched House you’ll know an MRI isn’t all that bad (as long as you don’t have a bullet lodged in your skull), but what House doesn’t show is how long it can take. I was told it would be around an hour, but after a couple of technical problems it was a little more than that. Not a big deal, I’m not going to complain about being given a chance to lie back and not do much.
Mind you it could be pretty bad if you have claustrophobia, or any issues with having your head restrained. There’s barely enough room to get comfortable in there, and the scan requires that your head is as still as possible in order to get good images of your brain.
It’s also damn loud, even with headphones on. It made me think of old dot-matrix printers, and then of the progress made since they were common. Perhaps one day MRIs will be super-fast and much, much quieter. I’m sure that would help researchers and doctors a lot; I had to practically shout to answer the researcher’s questions, or give responses to what I saw on the screen.
I also got to bring along a DVD to watch or listen to. I decided to bring Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Appropriate, I thought.
And for you smartarses who will undoubtedly ask, yes, the scan did show that I do have a brain.
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August 2nd, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Hmmm, let’s hope progress is made with MRI technology before I need to use it. I have mega claustrophobia AND issues with having my head restrained.
Quelle horreur!
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:34 am
I’ve had a few MRI’s, and most of them did not last anywhere nearly that long (although one of them I was out of it enough that I’m not really sure how long I was there). I also seem to remember reading fairly recently that someone HAD made an advance that would allow much smaller MRI’s (or some equivalent brain activity mapping technology, pretty sure it was MRI, though). If I can find the article I’ll come back and put a link to it, but it’s been a few months, and it was a news article, so I’m not sure how much luck I’ll have in locating it.
Anyway, I second the motion about the noise… they are extremely loud, even with hearing protection.
August 3rd, 2007 at 9:31 am
Oh no Claire, that’d be awful! I hope you never have to have an MRI.
Jason, I didn’t read all of that page that I linked to until today, but it seems that there are some smaller scanners in use, and no doubt more being developed.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:34 am
After having a very loud, piercing noise pumped into my ear (I was working at a place that did telephone polls), I have suffered from serious balance problems and an inability to focus my attention very well (along with hearing loss in that ear). I had an MRI done, which was sheer misery, though it only lasted a half hour. Different sounds have a strong effect on my emotions and can also make me quite dizzy, since the inner ear injury. I literally couldn’t even sit up for fifteen minutes after the MRI. They didn’t want me to leave for almost an hour, until they were sure I could walk ok. Thankfully, I live in Portland, OR, home of very good public trans. Definitely not a good time.
What I thought was really interesting, was that they put me into what they called a very new, quiet and faster scanner. Makes me very glad to have avoided the older machines.
August 7th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Sorry to hear you had such a terrible experience DuWayne. I hope that was the last time you have to go through that!
August 7th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
It probably won’t be, unfortunately. Although, I am experimenting with various tones at various decibel levels, with nominal input from my neurologist. For the most part, I have been focused on tones that calm me down, but I have also been finding ones that are particularly problematic for me, in an attempt to acclimate myself to the worse of them. So hopefully it won’t be quite as hard next time, though I have yet to defeat the dizziness and may not be able to. Working as a professional songwriter, has made this process rather easy for me. I use the same MIDI program that I use for composition, which has over three hundred “voices” in it’s sample collection.
August 7th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
You could probably automate that process too. Get a program that will steps through different voices, different tones, different decibel levels, and, after hooking yourself up to something to monitor your reactions (EEG, GSR (or a full polygraph)), analyse the results to link spikes in response to specific combinations of tone, decibel level, etc.
Though frankly that would probably be torture for you, so it’s not such a good idea
Though if you showed similar responses while asleep (or unconscious) perhaps you could do it that way to spare yourself the suffering.