Word: fmri
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...much going on under the hood. To glean insights into how the brain worked, scientists would study only volunteers in action, measuring their physiological or biochemical responses as they completed specific mental tasks. But more recently, thanks in large part to the proliferation of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which precisely maps brain activity based on changes in blood-oxygen levels, neuroscientists have found that important activity in the brain - related in particular to memory and learning - may occur when it is at rest...
...participants who served as Davachi's guinea pigs in the study were each scanned, while at rest, before the experiment began. Then, each volunteer was asked to lie flat on the bed of an fMRI machine, outside the magnet, while shown a series of paired images. First they looked at pairs of faces and objects, and were instructed to imagine the person pictured interacting with the object (such as a beach ball). Then they got a few minutes' rest, before being rolled into the magnet for another scan. The experiment was repeated with pairs of new faces and scenes. Afterward...
...brain at rest and the learning of complex visual tasks has yielded similar results. Neurologist Maurizio Corbetta of Washington University in St. Louis recruited 14 people to use their peripheral vision to identify a hidden pattern - an inverted T - that was flashed briefly on a screen inside an fMRI machine. After each daily training session, lasting one to two hours for about a week, participants were given an hour's rest, during which time Corbetta scanned their brains. (Read "The fMRI Brain Scan: A Better Lie Detector...
...disease but no genetic indicators of it themselves and those who had both family members with Alzheimer's as well as a version of a gene for a protein called apolipoprotein E4 (ApoE4) that has been linked to the condition. They slid all of the subjects into an fMRI machine, and while the volunteers were there, they saw names of both famous and not-so-famous people flashed in front of them. (See the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs...
...widespread screening for the gene, even among those with a family history of Alzheimer's, since most people who have the risky version of ApoE4 don't have the necessary gene copies. But looking more closely at people who have a family history of the disease by adding an fMRI scan such as the one Rao conducted to the genetic screen could help doctors select those who do seem to be in the greatest danger of being claimed by the disorder. (See the Top 10 Celebrity Twitter Feeds...