The Evidence is In

Well.. I now have conclusive evidence that there is, in fact, something inside my head... and that something looks strangely like a human brain!!

I got an fMRI done today, and it has been one of the top experiences of my year.

Even though it's not super interesting with all the details, I'm going to chronicle all of them more for my sake than necessarily anything else.

I get to the brain imaging building and am shown into the back where there are the imaging computers and a couple of desks etc. I'm run through the questionnaire by this nice old man who is very good about explaining the 'whys' behind most of the stuff, perfect for my inquisitive nature. The PI explained that there would be three phases to the procedure: 1)lay on the floor looking at a computer screen and, according to the directions of the various subparts, either speak the short phrase or mime it out. The phrases were stuff like, "water the flowers" and "wash the dog". Following that section, I did two easy peasy Sukodu puzzles (1-4). Probably distractor tasks. Then after that's done, the PI explains to me that the first task was a memory task--that the third and final part of the study (in the actual fMRI machine) would be recalling which of those phrases I had previously seen. He obviously couldn't tell me that ahead of time or my knowledge of the purpose of that part of the study would skew the results by making me pay more careful "memorizing" attention to those items.

So they run through a final screening just to make sure I don't have any metal on me, and then do a metal detecting wand (very much like those at airports and sounding and looking very much like something out of Star Wars. They even called it the Vader Wand). Then I'm taken into the white, pristine looking room with the ominous looking machine waiting for me to slide right into its gaping mouth. I'm not nervous though, mostly excited. I lay down in the slidey table and the start hooking stuff up to me--two tubes that will administer the puffs of air onto my left foot and left hand, the response buttons for me to press (A for "yes I've seen that phrase before" and B for "no, i haven't") etc. I'm trying not to grin the entire time because I figure that's not the normal face of someone that will be stuck inside a high power magnet for the next hour and a half. Finally, everything is hooked up, I have a blanket over me (cuz it's kinda cold in the room), they snapped a coil (much like a hockey mask) tightly over my face and wedged my head in place with foam pieces, put the two mirrors on the coil to reflect the computer monitor image in front of my eyes, and $16,000 noise-cancelling headphones to combat the 100 db of the MRI. They raise the table and feed me to the machine.

Once inside, they turn on the monitor and talk through the intercom system directly into my headphones. "Are you good in there?" "Yeah." I must try not to move any part of my body while in the scanner, even to answer their questions.

The task: a phrase will flash on the screen and I'm to press the appropriate button for "yes I've seen it" or "no, I haven't". During some of the blocks there was a puff of air administered as the stimulus was presented. There were quite a few blocks, alternating which body part got the puff and whether there was a puff.

After the practice session, the PI got on the intercom in my earphones and commented that typically they see the fastest responses in young men (because of all the video games they play) but that mine were right on par with them.

After the first two blocks were done, the PI gets on again and says that he had looked at the first block of data and I was holding REALLY still. "Good job, Kristen. Keep it up." It was pretty hard to keep so still for so long, but I tried really hard. Every so often (and then when it was all over) they again commented about how still I'd stayed. Mission: Success.

Finally, when I could just barely focus any more, the screen said, "Thank you for participating. You will debriefed shortly." So then the researchers come and unhooked everything from me.

We go out to the computer and after a little finagling, Dr. Hackley pulls up a 3-D picture of my brain. There was a sagittal, coronal, and axial view, and each had a scrolly line to adjust. So you could start at the front of the skull and watch as you built the entire brain from front to back, side to side, bottom to top. It was, hands down, the most amazing thing I've seen in a loooong time.

There's my corpus callosum. There's my third ventricle, and my fourth ventricle. There's my frontal lobes--those make my decisions for me! And there's my basal ganglia and thalamus and cerebellum and brainstem. There's my pons and pituitary<--That makes my oxytocin and antidiuretic hormone. We found the hippocampus and the thing that runs along the corpus callosum whose name escapes me at the moment--we found it, w/e it's called. We found all the sulci and gyri. We found my visual cortex. We also found my optic nerve at the optic chiasm and traced it all the way to my retina. This is what's inside my head!! Sooooo coool!!!

I think what we were looking at was the structural scan (none of the functional hemoglobin measuring scans). So it was the basis upon which the other functional scans were based.

*Note: I'm really glad that I sat in on Boehm's neuroanatomy class last semester or I would have had no idea what I was looking at. Props for audits.

I'm gonna try and score a picture or a print out of my brain before I go home. Hopefully that's not against IRB protocol.

Either way, nothing like hands-on learning. And this is as hands-on on MY brain as I want anyone to get for a long time. Awesome day!