MRI Spectroscopy / Ezine
Sweet, sweet: Memorable image
Date: Sep 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
A new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in the US shows that our memories seem to work more effectively when our brains are prepared to absorb new information.
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Pay up and eat up: The true cost of food
Date: Aug 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
Ghrelin, a naturally occurring gut hormone, increases our willingness to pay for food, while simultaneously decreasing our willingness to pay for non-food items, according to researchers who have tracked behaviour linked to the hormone with functional MRI.
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Offensive scans: Impulsiveness and delinquency
Date: Jul 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
Youthful character traits, such as impulsiveness, are often considered amusing until they lead to juvenile delinquency and youth criminality. Now, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brains of young offenders, of both impulsive and non-impulsive character hints at activity in a particular brain structure as being associated more commonly with the negative aspects of this personality trait.
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Aerobics and the elderly: fMRI reveals benefits of staying active
Date: Jun 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
Increased physical activity involving aerobic exercise might slow age-related decline according to a new functional magnetic resonance imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation study. The study shows how the brain's motor cortex changes as we get older particularly in those people who become more sedentary as they do so. However, maintaining a physically active lifestyle can preclude the changes that lead to unnecessary decline.
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Zen and the art of decision making: fMRI revelations
Date: May 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
Buddhists are different from other people, at least when they meditate on an important decision. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows that specific regions of the meditating brain become active when confronted with an ethical decision but that these are different from the brain regions apparently active in people of a less Zen disposition attempting to make the same decision.
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Weighing up breast risk: MRI evidence and diabetes link
Date: Apr 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
A magnetic resonance imaging study reduces the weight of earlier experiments that correlate a high breast volume with visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and a risk of type 2 diabetes.
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Tracking stem cells: Nanoparticle tags for MRI
Date: Mar 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
Stem cells labelled with hollow biocompatible cobalt-platinum (CoPt) nanoparticles remain stable for months and have a strong tendency to align with a magnetic field. The discovery allows low concentrations of the particles to be detected using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and so might provide medical researchers with the means to locate and track stem cells in the body.
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What's love got to do with it: fMRI and the loving brain
Date: Feb 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
When it's almost Valentine's Day, a researcher's mind turns to thoughts of love. A small functional magnetic resonance imaging has been used to investigate love. The study revealed brain activity in 10 women and 7 men when they looked at photos of their spouses to whom they had been married an average of 21 years. The results? Apparently, love lasts.
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Confine and contrast: Nanoporous nests offer relaxing home for contrast agent
Date: Jan 5, 2011
Author: David Bradley
Magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents are currently designed by modifying their structural and physiochemical properties to improve relaxivity and to enhance image contrast. A new approach based on porous, disk-shaped "nests" for nanotubes could offer a way to improve contrast by increasing relaxivity through the confinement of the contrast agent within nanoporous silicon.
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Compressed MRI: image manipulation scans lab-on-a-chip
Date: Dec 1, 2010
Author: David Bradley
Remote instrumentation and image compression allowed US chemists to utilise NMR/MRI to image materials flowing through a "lab-on-a-chip" device and to zoom in on microscopic objects of particular interest with unprecedented spatial and time resolution.
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