How to Use MRI for Measuring Liver Fat Levels in Patients Who Have Undergone Bariatric Surgery
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an effective method for measuring liver fat levels in obese patients who undergone weight loss surgery, according to researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.In their studyrecently published inRadiology, the researchers set to out to determine how bariatric surgery influences changes in liver fat. Gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy have successfully helped obese patients lose weight. However, physicians are mostly in the dark about how these surgeries lower liver fat, since it ’s challenging to quantify liver fat non-invasively, and biopsie...
Source: radRounds - December 28, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Using fMRI to Understand the Link Between Risk and Criminal Activity
A study published in theJournal of Experimental Psychologyis using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to draw the correlation between the attraction toward risk and criminal activity.Valerie Reyna, PhD, director of both the Human Neuroscience Institute and the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility at Cornell University, and her colleagues relied on the theory that non-criminals tend to avoid risk when they ’re likely going to win or achieve something, and they pursue risky options when they’re probably going to lose. Yet, based on their findings, criminals demonstrate opposite behavior, and tend to take riskier chances whe...
Source: radRounds - December 28, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Getting Rid of Annoying MRI Acoustics With Music
Researchers at Case Western University are turning the noisy and distressing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine acoustics into a lulling music box that plays Yo Yo Ma.MRI ’s continuous switching patterns create jolting vibrations, which cause anxiety, annoyance, and even hearing loss for patients inside of the machine. Instead of attempting to mask the sounds, the group of researches invented Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF), a method that converts mp3 music files to arbitrary encoding gradients.For their phantom study published recent inMagnetic Resonance in Medicine, the researchers used Yo Yo Ma ’s vers...
Source: radRounds - December 23, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
How do you respond to unfamiliar music?
Music seems to be a social glue. Think of how love songs enhance our romantic feelings, how marching bands intensify our affinity for the home team, or how huge rock concerts make us feel one with a crowd of thousands. Music has some special power to increase our sense of connection and help us affiliate with others.
But why? What’s happening in our brains that makes an isolated set of sounds resonate in these ways? A new neuroscience study aimed to find out.
In the study, researchers scanned twenty college students’ brains using fMRI technology while they listened to very short clips of music—some familiar and some ...
Source: SharpBrains - November 26, 2018 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Greater Good Magazine Tags: Cognitive Neuroscience Health & Wellness brain-scans brains empathic fMRI music neural patterns unfamiliar music Source Type: blogs
How the dog brain works
A lot of people, usually people who don’t have dogs, talk about dog psychology and how dogs see humans, specifically their owners and handlers as being like the alphas in the dog’s pack and that’s why they (usually) do what we command them to do and always come to us for food, tummy rubs, and treats.
The simplest of observations shows that this is not true. Most dogs on seeing a human walking towards them will, if they’re well adjusted (dog and human) may approach with caution and interact. But, if it’s a strange dog, the response is almost always entirely different. Now, the scientific evide...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 22, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Biology Sciencebase Vertebrates Source Type: blogs
Using MRI to Understand the Linguistics of Beatboxing
Researchers at the University of Southern California are using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to understand how beatbox artists make their rapid and precise percussion sounds. They recently presented their project at the Acoustical Society of America meeting.Linguists have long struggled to understand how exactly beatboxers produce certain sounds. The researchers wanted to fill in this knowledge gap by creating MRI videos that can show how the velum, tongue, and vocal cords create these extraterrestrial-seeming noises.The shadowy MRI videos demonstrate exactly how the beatboxers make the clicking, popping, trilling, and ...
Source: radRounds - November 17, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
MRI in Adult Clinic Proven to Be Effective in Diagnosing Pediatric Appendicitis
Researchers have found that unenhanced Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for child patients with appendicitis in an adult clinical setting is effective and accurate, according to a study recently published in theAmerican College of Roentgenology.Taking into account positive outcomes using ultrasound and CT to evaluate children with appendicitis, researchers from the San Antonio Military Medical Center in Fort Sam in Houston, Texas wanted to see if MRI could be practical procedure for diagnosing the emergency medical condition.The study authors looked at pediatric patient data between 2012 and 2016 and found that 528 childre...
Source: radRounds - November 10, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
AFM: The scary polio-like illness
It is a scary illness, not just for parents but for doctors, too: Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) causes sudden weakness and loss of muscle tone in the arms and legs and can go on to cause even more serious problems.
It’s not just the symptoms that are scary. It’s also scary because we don’t know what causes it. Although the symptoms are similar to polio, patients with AFM have tested negative for polio. At one point it was thought that it was caused by another enterovirus, but that didn’t end up being the explanation. It may be another virus, or it may be some sort of toxin, or something else entirely — or perhaps ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 9, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Children's Health Neurological conditions Parenting Source Type: blogs
MRI Helps to Optimize Vagus Nerve Stimulation for GI Conditions
Vagus nerve stimulation to address various gastrointestinal conditions is already an approved FDA therapy. While effective in many people, it is hard to understand the mechanism of such treatment and to tune it well for each individual patient. Researchers at Purdue University are now utilizing MRI scanning to actually see what effect nerve stimulation has on the stomach.
The team manipulated the pyloric sphincter, which controls stomach emptying, in lab rats by stimulating the vagus nerve. At the same time, they used an MRI scanner to image the activity of the stomach. Animations were created using the scans that demons...
Source: Medgadget - November 8, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: GI Radiology Source Type: blogs
MRI Installation Causes iPhones to Go Haywire but not Androids. Why?
One day in early October, around 40 Apple phones, tablets, and watches belonging to staff at Morris Hospital in Illinois stopped working while a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine was being installed. The mysterious mass shut down had to do with how helium interacts with the devices ’ microelectromechanical system.A systems administrator at the hospital, Eric Woolridge was perplexed when his colleagues ’ iPhones “seemed completely dead” that day, until he realized that the helium that’s boiled when installing the MRI could have something to do with it. Typically, the helium is released out of the facili...
Source: radRounds - November 3, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Using MRI to Understand How Electrical Stimulation Heals Stomach Problems
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is helping doctors comprehend how electrical stimulation helps alleviate stomach problems, a phenomenon that experts had previously struggled to visualize, according to research recently published inNeurogastroenterology& Motility.Stimulating the vagus nerve with an electric impulse manipulates the speed in which the stomach empties, a method that can effectively cure gastroparesis. As a part of Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC), a project funded by the National Institutes of Health and carried out at four academic institutions, the Purdue University group cr...
Source: radRounds - November 3, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Dutch Medical Startup to Develop MRI That Visualizes Soft Tissue and Bone
MRIGuidance, a med-tech company spun out of the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, has just been granted $1.9 million in seed investment for a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) software called BoneMRI that can analyze soft tissue and bone without radiation.MRI is traditionally used to image soft tissue, and x-ray-based technology is used for bone scans. However, this new software can use MRI scanners to generate three-dimensional images of human bone that are akin to CT-images in one single exam.The investment comes from Health Innovations, a coalition of Dutch financial and healthcare groups, and a ...
Source: radRounds - October 26, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Researchers are Using Non-Invasive Antenna for MRI
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are taking magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to new levels. By using a tiny radio antenna implanted in the brain as a sensor, they can detect electrical currents and light generated by luminescent proteins, according to a study published this week inNature Biomedical Engineering.“MRI offers a way to sense things from the outside of the body in a minimally invasive fashion. It does not require a wired connection into the brain,” saidthe study ’s lead author Aviad Hai, PhD, a postdoc working in Alan Jasanoff, PhD’s, brain imaging lab. “We can implant the se...
Source: radRounds - October 26, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
MRI Implant to Detect Light and Electric Fields Inside Brain
Monitoring certain kinds of processes happening inside the brain can be pretty easy or exceedingly difficult. EEG, for example, provides a pretty good look into the brain using relatively simple technology, while measuring light emitted by luminescent proteins within the brain is incredibly challenging.
Now researchers at MIT are adapting MRI technology, coupled with a tiny implant, to be able to measure both electric fields and light at excellent spatial resolution. Previously, the same would require extremely invasive procedures, with wires protruding from the head, that essentially make it impossible to do so in most c...
Source: Medgadget - October 26, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Materials Neurology Source Type: blogs
MRI Reveals How Neurostimulation Can Treat GI Disorder
Though it may come as a surprise to some, there are a number of gastrointestinal conditions that can be treated using electrical nerve stimulation. The stomach, for example, can be motivated to empty by neurostimulating the vagus nerve to treat gastroparesis in patients with diabetic autonomic neuropathy and others. While this has been known for a while, there hasn’t been a very convincing explanation for how this process works. Now researchers at Purdue University have used MRI scans to spot exactly how the stomach can be pushed to empty what’s inside.
The team put rats under MRI and stimulated the vagus nerve...
Source: Medgadget - October 25, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: GI Neurology Source Type: blogs
