My Brain, Part III (final)

[nanila]

You all remember how I had an MRI administered by my friend Josh while I was in the States, right? Well, the last part of it was a diffusion scan. From the point of view of the patient, this is the most teeth-jarring four minutes of the procedure. The entire scanner bed vibrates. This shakes around the water in your head so that the position of the tissues in your brain can be determined. After some technical jiggery pokery, a map of the direction of connections between the tissues can be produced: a fiber trace image like the one above.

The difference between this and the first three images in the previous post is like the difference between a scalar (number) and a vector (number & direction). In the previous images, you can see where the structures in my brain are, like the cerebellum and the ventricles. In these images, you can see how they're connected: both where they are and the direction they're pointing.

The second set of three images show colour-coded structures in my brain much more clearly than the previous image, thanks also to the diffusion scan. The right and left hemispheres and cerebellum stand out distinctly.

I'm still not over the notion that all of this can be done. It's amazing, no?

Comments

[ankaret]

Wow, it's beautiful!

[nanila]

Even more so because we don't know exactly what it all means!

[dandelion_salad]

I see:

1. birds in flight, kissing
2. carnival mask
3. hair of a troll doll

This is really fascinating. Do you also get some analysis of what the images mean? I've given you the first three but you'll probably want an expert opinion on the last ones. :)

[dandelion_salad]

Just realized #4 is Popeye!

[nanila]

Well, I do love my spinach!

[nanila]

Other than the structural information, the fiber trace images are, from what I understand, difficult to interpret unless you have a known neurological condition.

[ceb]

Science *squeeee!*

I have Holmes-Adie syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adie_syndrome) and while they were investigating one of the things they did was test my optic nerve responses. They put electrodes on your head and get you to watch a chessboard pattern where the black and white swap every second. Then they measure the electrical signals along your optic nerve THROUGH YOUR SKULL in response to the light pattern changes. It is so scientific it hurts (not literally, I didn't even get a headache).

[nanila]

Fascinating! I see the treatment tends to be reading glasses, but what about those pilocarpine drops? For how long do they help constrict your pupils?

[ceb]

I don't have anything for it, beyond the magic plasticity of the brain - I got extra migraines after it happened as I got used to it but now everything is as it was.

[ironed_orchid]

It's amazing. I love that we can do this stuff now.

[nanila]

If only we knew what it all meant!

[ex_pinetree696]

For some reason I feel that these pictures are really intimate images. I mean, y'know, it's a brain! It doesn't get much more intimate than that.

[nanila]

I agree. And yet I have a lot fewer issues about sharing them than I would about naked images of my body. Weird.