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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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Using a Scan to Gauge Responses
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Not knowing the end to a scary movie increases the suspense. Going along with this idea, uncertainty about the economy can also increase a person's anxiety level. Scientists recently studied the association between uncertainty and anxiety with the use of a brain scan. A study by the UW Madison School of Medicine and Public Health has utilized the MRI scan to track emotional responses by participants in response to negative stimuli. Participants were told the images they were to see would be positive, negative, or unknown. Those images which directly followed an "unknown" warning showed the largest reaction in the brain.
"These results have obvious relevance to our current economic times. Expectations have a dramatic impact on many aspects of our lives, including performance at work and school, interpersonal relationships and health. Expectations can alter perceptions of negative events as well as neural and emotional responses" reports the study leader to Science Daily.
The results showed that if a person was told the image they would see was going to be negative, their response to a disturbing image was less than if they had no idea what type of image they would see next. If a person is expecting a negative outcome, they are better able to cope with less anxiety. The brain is a complex organ that is continually studied by scientists. Using scanning technology allows scientists the ability to track activity in the brain and better understand physical and emotional responses.
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Monday, July 20, 2009
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MRI Shows Brain Adjustments
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A 10 year old girl in Germany was born missing the right side of her brain, however; doctors were baffled by her ability to still see perfectly out of both eyes. This right side of the brain controls the vision in the left eye. In most cases, patients whose right brain is removed no longer have clear vision in their left eyes. The girl underwent an MRI brain scan so doctors could understand this anomaly.
The MRI showed that the retinal nerve in the brain which normally provides vision information to the right eye simply altered itself to also accommodate the left eye as well. Doctors were amazed at the brain's ability to compensate for the missing portion of the brain while she was in the womb. Besides a slight weakness in her left side, the girl leads a perfectly normal life.
Doctors were quoted in BBC news as saying, "Despite lacking one hemisphere, the girl has normal psychological function and is perfectly capable of living a normal and fulfilling life. She is witty, charming and intelligent."
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
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Brain Scan to Detect Alzheimer's Disease
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A new study is being conducted to determine if Alzheimer's disease can be diagnosed early in those with mild cognitive impairment. To determine changes in the brain, researchers are using a brain scan called PET (Positron emission tomography).
CBC News reports, "It is critical to identify affected individuals while they are still relatively cognitively healthy so that future therapies can preserve healthy memory and thinking function. And, in order to develop those new therapies, we need to identify 'at risk' individuals now in order to steer them to clinical trials."
Researchers are looking for biological markers in the brain that may detect early stages of Alzheimer's. Once identified, the goal is to determine if giving a person a drug regiment will increase the efficiency of treatment prior to the appearance of more severe symptoms. If it works, the cases of severe dementia caused by Alzheimer's would dramatically decrease and scientists may be closer to finding a cure.
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Monday, November 10, 2008
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Brain Scans Found Link between Education and Alzheimer's
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A brain test that demonstrates brain changes causing Alzheimer's shows that education may delay dementia and Alzheimer's. The Alzheimer's Disease Research Institute has long been trying to find the link between education and the disease that plagues hundreds of thousands of people each year. This study may be validating and bolstering their years of education/Alzheimer's research.
Dr. Catherine Roe a Neurology research instructor said about the study, "The good news is that greater education may allow people to harbor amyloid plaques and other brain pathology linked to Alzheimer's disease without experiencing decline of their cognitive abilities."
Dr. Roe and her colleagues are also hoping to examine and study these same peoples cognitive memory, hobbies and other possible intellectual activities that may lead to further links.
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Wednesday, April 02, 2008
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MRI Study Shows Brain Lesions Common in Seniors
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You would probably be pretty terrified if you received news from your doctor that you had lesions in your brain. If you were then told that these lesions (called cerebral microbleeds) "likely reflect cerebrovascular pathology and may be associated with an increased risk of cerebrovascular problems" you would probably feel a bit of a sense of panic. It sounds like something awful - and indeed it might be - but a new MRI study shows that these brain lesions may be far more common than originally thought.
The study used brain scans to determine the development of these lesions in people aged sixty and over. At age 60, there was just under a twenty percent likelihood that the patient would have these lesions. Ten years later, the risk percentage had doubled. This seems to indicate that the aging brain may be at risk for cerebral microbleeds.
Learn more about this issue here.
Question of the Day: Would you be interested in a preventive imaging brain scan?
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Tuesday, March 11, 2008
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Brain Scans Read Minds with 90%+ Accuracy
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At the beginning of this year, we reported on a study which revealed that MRI scans are being tested out as mind-reading devices. You can read the report on that here but basically it showed that brain scans can read the patterns of a person's brain when they are viewing a particular item and then know which item the brain is thinking about when that pattern comes up again. A new study shows that the potential for brain scans as mind-reading machines may be even bigger than the original studies indicated.
The major difference between the new study and the previous study was that the original study used pictures that the study subjects hjad already seen while the new study used pictures that were unseen by the study subjects. This speaks to the fact that this technology might have the ability to read the patterns in the mind with less specific rigidity in the parameters of the study than previuosly suspected.
The study showed that a computer could guess what was in the mind of the study subject with over ninety percent accuracy in some cases. Considering that just a plain old guess by a human would result in less than one percent of a correct answer, this indicates that technology has made a big leap in the arena of mind reading.
So what? You might think that this information is only good for a fun conversation topic at parties but it turns out that there are some important medical implications as well. For example, it has been suggested that this could ultimately be used to create technology that would allow quadriplegics to use their minds to communicate commands to a computer which could then assist them in their daily tasks.
Question of the Day: What do you make about these studies of brain scans as mind reading machines?
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Friday, March 07, 2008
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Brain Scans Give Insight into Anorexia
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We normally think of MRI brain scans as being used for medical situations requiring immediate attention to the brain. If you are having symptoms that suggest that you might have a brain tumor (obviously a highly serious condition) then your doctor might recommend checking it out with a brain scan. Likewise, brain scans may be used to detect strokes and determine treatment for them.
However, brain scans are also used in a wide range of medical studies that provide information about all sorts of different medical issues. These may not be immediate problems that require that you look at an individual's brain. However, using brain scans to review the brains of individuals affected by a certain problem can provide insight into ways to diagnose, prevent and treat a variety of medical conditions.
For example, brain scans may be used to study a population such as those people suffering from anorexia. A recent study of this nature revealed information about the anorexic brain which showed that these people can't tell the difference between winning and losing. This information can greatly assist in the treatment of a widespread problem such as anorexia. (Learn more here.)
Question of the Day: Do you think brain scans are used more often to treat individuals or to study conditions?
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Tuesday, March 04, 2008
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Brain Scans in the Courtroom
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A recent online article pointed out the fact that medicine and law aren't as far apart these days as they might have been in the past. More specifically, the article looks at how brain scans are being used in court cases as indicators of different aspects of the crime under trial. For example, a brain scan may be used in a criminal case to show that the defendant likely suffers from a medical disease that impaired his or her judgment in the situation leading to the trial.
It has been suggested that brain scans may also be used to determine whether or not someone is suffering from physical pain elsewhere in the body. If this aspect of imaging does indeed develop, it would be possible for personal injury lawyers to make use of brain scans to show that individuals claiming injury are indeed suffering from pain in the body.
There are many different things that hinder the development of using brain scans in the courtroom. Most importantly, the technology that imaging doctors are so familiar with isn't commonly understood by the average jury member. However, we are seeing an increasing number of cases in which brain scans may be used to make or break a case in the courtroom.
Next thing you know we'll be using MRIs as lie detectors!
Question of the Day: Do you approve of the use of brain scans in proving or disproving information presented in criminal trials?
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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Alzheimer's More Likely to Be Caught by Computer than by Doctors
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Chances are that you would rather have a real person look at your brain scan than to have a computer review it without a doctor's help. However, you could be making a mistake if you choose the doctor in this scenario for diagnosis early dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
A new study found that computers were more accurate at detecting Alzheimer's from a brain scan than doctors were. Computers can "look" at a clinical MRI scan and detect whether or not it's affected by Alzheimer's with an accuracy of up to 96%.
In addition to the fact that the results of these tests are more accurate than those of human brain scan reviews, there are economic benefits to using this method of diagnosis. A computer's time isn't nearly as valuable (or costly) as that of a doctor. Locations with limited medical professionals as resources can use this method to increase efficiency for their patients.
Question of the Day: Would you prefer having a computer or a doctor read your brain scan now that you've heard this information?
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Friday, February 22, 2008
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Studying Brain Tumors
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An article available online now takes a look at what brain tumors are and how they are diagnosed and treated. While the overview that this article provides is fairly simplistic, it does offer some interesting insight into the different imaging that can be used in a brain scan.
Specifically, the article talks both about the CT Scan and the MRI as ways of diagnosing a brain tumor. It describes the way that CT scans use Xray technology where as MRIs use magnet technology. Of course, that's a very basic breakdown but it can help someone who is undergoing tumor diagnosis to better understand what's going on.
In most cases, the brain scan that will be done is going to be the MRI. In addition to diagnosing tumors, this scan can be used to assess the patient for stroke risk and to determine damage done to the inside of the head.
Question of the Day: What would be the first question that you would have about brain tumor diagnosis?
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