Tag Archives: mri

Brain responses to emotional images predict PTSD symptoms after Boston Marathon bombing

The area of the brain that plays a primary role in emotional learning and the acquisition of fear – the amygdala – may hold the key to who is most vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Researchers at the University of Washington, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Boston University collaborated on a unique opportunity to study whether patterns of brain activity predict teenagers’ response to a terrorist attack. (more…)

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Study reveals workings of working memory

Brown University cognitive scientists have identified specific brain regions that work together to allow us to choose from among the options we store in working memory. Findings appear in the journal Neuron.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Keep this in mind: Scientists say they’ve learned how your brain plucks information out of working memory when you decide to act. (more…)

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Brain Scans Show We Take Risks Because We Can’t Stop Ourselves

AUSTIN, Texas — A new study correlating brain activity with how people make decisions suggests that when individuals engage in risky behavior, such as drunk driving or unsafe sex, it’s probably not because their brains’ desire systems are too active, but because their self-control systems are not active enough.

This might have implications for how health experts treat mental illness and addiction or how the legal system assesses a criminal’s likelihood of committing another crime. (more…)

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Research Resilience: Disappointing Alzheimer’s trial yields new ideas

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine documents the high-profile failure of a promising drug, bapineuzumab, to slow cognitive decline in dementia patients. Dr. Stephen Salloway, the study’s lead author, says researchers have learned key lessons that they are eager to apply in new attempts to find effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Dr. Stephen Salloway pulls no punches in describing the results of two clinical trials of the Alzheimer’s drug bapineuzumab that he helped to lead. The antibody failed to produce cognitive improvement for volunteers compared to a placebo, he and colleagues report Jan. 23 in the New England Journal of Medicine. (more…)

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How Yale doctors are making CT scans safer for kids

Greater awareness and careful usage are bringing down the numbers of pediatric CT scans and cutting radiation exposure. Parents should weigh the benefits and risks.

(September 2013) If your child had a CT scan last year—perhaps to assess damage from a hockey injury or rule out appendicitis—he or she added to a huge statistic: more than 4 million pediatric CT scans were performed in the U.S in 2012.

The experience can leave you a little anxious, since the radiation from a CT scan may increase the risk of cancer, especially in children.

Fortunately, that picture may be changing, especially for children, who are even more susceptible to radiation-induced cancer than adults. In data compiled by the American College of Radiology’s Dose Index Registry, which tracks and categorizes the radiation given by CT scanners in U.S. hospitals, Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital (YNHCH) recorded the lowest doses of any academic hospital in the country in many age groups and types of pediatric radiation. (more…)

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Sugar makes cancer light-up in MRI scanners

A new technique for detecting cancer by imaging the consumption of sugar with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been unveiled by UCL scientists. The breakthrough could provide a safer and simpler alternative to standard radioactive techniques and enable radiologists to image tumours in greater detail.

The new technique, called ‘glucose chemical exchange saturation transfer’ (glucoCEST), is based on the fact that tumours consume much more glucose (a type of sugar) than normal, healthy tissues in order to sustain their growth. (more…)

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Evidence from a quiet MRI: Breastfeeding benefits babies’ brains

A study using brain images from “quiet” MRI machines adds to the growing body of evidence that breastfeeding improves brain development in infants. Breastfeeding alone produced better brain development than a combination of breastfeeding and formula, which produced better development than formula alone.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study by researchers from Brown University finds more evidence that breastfeeding is good for babies’ brains.

The study made use of specialized, baby-friendly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the brain growth in a sample of children under the age of 4. The research found that by age 2, babies who had been breastfed exclusively for at least three months had enhanced development in key parts of the brain compared to children who were fed formula exclusively or who were fed a combination of formula and breastmilk. The extra growth was most pronounced in parts of the brain associated with language, emotional function, and cognition, the research showed. (more…)

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Flawed Diamonds Promise Sensory Perfection

Berkeley Lab researchers and their colleagues extend electron spin in diamond for incredibly tiny magnetic detectors

From brain to heart to stomach, the bodies of humans and animals generate weak magnetic fields that a supersensitive detector could use to pinpoint illnesses, trace drugs – and maybe even read minds. Sensors no bigger than a thumbnail could map gas deposits underground, analyze chemicals, and pinpoint explosives that hide from other probes.

Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley, working with colleagues from Harvard University, have improved the performance of one of the most potent possible sensors of magnetic fields on the nanoscale – a diamond defect no bigger than a pair of atoms, called a nitrogen vacancy (NV) center. (more…)

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