BF - Studying the Brain Lesson

 

Studying the Brain

With advances in technology come advanced capabilities to understand the human brain. Today, doctors can use brain scans to find the source of malfunctions in the brain, and then use other medical technology to correct many of these problems. Doctors can select a small cluster of malfunctioning neurons and destroy them, leaving the surrounding neurons intact. They can also stimulate other clusters of neurons to help with problems like Parkinson's disease. Medical advances continue to increase our understanding of the nervous system and therefore improve human lives.

Because your neurons communicate with electrical energy, regular waves of electrical energy sweep across the surfaces of your brain. An EEG (Electroencephalogram) is a readout of these electrical waves. After placing electrodes on specific parts of the skull, researchers present a stimulus and then record the resulting brain waves. This type of scan does not look at the brain's structures; it is only focused on the rhythms of electrical energy known as brain waves.

The next four types of scans look at the brain structure itself.

1. CT Scan
2. MRI
3. PET Scan
4. fMRI

The most basic type of brain scan is a CT scan (computerized axial tomography). This type of scan uses x-rays to detect problems in the brain. It can detect large brain bleeds, tumors, or major injuries. This scan isn't very detailed, but it is often enough to decide if a patient has a problem.

An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) uses magnets to align the spinning atoms in your brain cells and then let them relax, allowing the scanner to get a very detailed picture of the soft tissues in your brain. This picture can be used to find enlarged brain structures, missing brain structures, or other abnormalities in the brain.

A special type of MRI can see structure and functionality of the brain in one scan. This type of scan is known as an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), and it tracks changes in the flow of blood to various parts of the brain to see which parts are most active.

Finally, the PET (positron emission tomography) scan shows active parts of the brain by tracking the use of glucose (sugar) in the brain. In order to fire, neurons must consume glucose. In order to do a PET scan, a patient is given temporarily radioactive glucose and then asked to perform certain mental tasks like completing math problems, thinking about a certain type of memory, or imagining a special event while the scanner measures where the amounts of radioactivity are in various parts of the brain. In the image here, the most active parts are red and the least active ones are dark blue.

Recently, scientists published research showing that they were able to use an fMRI to read a person's mind. They asked a participant to think about a certain type of tool (such as a hammer, screwdriver, or saw) while they performed a scan of the person's brain. After scanning dozens of participants, doctors were able to tell which tool each person was thinking about by reading the scans. While this type of mind reading is in its infancy today, someday brain scans might be used as lie detectors or even mind readers for people with disabilities in communication.

 

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