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New research suggests MRIs change brain activity. (spam lite please)
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 2:36 am
by Ode to a Grasshopper
Thought this was interesting: According to the Faculty of 1000 Medicine [url="http://f1000medicine.com/article/lrqbfysb40nj39h/id/3202958"]MRIs change brain activity[/url].
Thoughts/comments?
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 6:54 am
by C Elegans
The study is published in Neuroimage, a high-impact journal for brain research, and the first author, Nora Volkow, is a leading scientist in the field and also the head of NIDA. This paper is very important and will create a lot of waves in the fMRI world. Together with the dead-fish study, I think it's a very funny paper
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 7:49 am
by Tricky
I almost participated in fMRI calibration tests two years ago. Sounded interesting at the time, but as it turned out I had a chunk of metal in my mouth that disqualified me. Perhaps a good thing then?
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 8:38 am
by C Elegans
Tricky, it's highly unlikely that the very low and very transient electromagnetic field used for fMRI would cause any harm or lasting effects. What is interesting with Nora's paper, is that it may be a confounding factor in all fMRI studies used to identify brain regions that are activated when various tasks are performed, as well as differences in activation between patients and normal control subjects.