00.00
Images: Sculpture head close up
Exts
Vision Sciences Building
Gaynor
in
Brain
scans on screen
Gaynor
in meg scanner
Interview
Dr Paul Furlong
Guide Voice: For centuries people have used
many different techniques to try to look inside the human mind and
unlock its secrets. Brainwaves were first detected electronically
over a hundred years ago, but much of what has been learnt was only
possible by physically entering the skull.
Today at Aston University, researchers are employing new types
of brain scanning technology to rapidly advance our understanding
of the human brain, in totally non-invasive means. They have just
installed a new version of their Magneto-Encephalography, or MEG
scanner, capable of measuring magnetism given off by brain cell
activity at two hundred and seventy-five different locations
simultaneously.
00.39 SOT Dr Paul Furlong, Convenor of Neuro-Imaging
Research Group, School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston
University - “What MEG is doing is actually
measuring the brainwaves themselves, and those signals that are
produced by brain cells as they’re firing off and talking to
one another. They produce a series of signals which happen very,
very quickly, very high frequency and it’s those brainwaves
themselves that we actually measure and can localise in space so we
can see what parts of the brain are producing those brainwaves and
over what time, so it’s sometimes for very short periods of
time.”
Upsot “If you can open your eyes for me, can you blink
your eye three times…”
01.10
Images: Meg Scan on screen
Gaynor
in scanner
MRI
Scans on screen
FMRI
tests
MRI
Scan taking place
Guide Voice: Aston’s researchers have
more than fifteen years experience of working with MEG and have
helped to develop the techniques and technology of brain imaging on
a national and international level. And they also work extensively
with an MRI scanner funded by Advantage West Midlands, Magnetic
Resonance Imaging or MRI scans, are perhaps the best known
publicly, producing very high quality images of the brain that
shows its structure in detail, and can be used to identify brain
lesions or abnormalities in structure.
However on its own it doesn’t tell us much about how the
brain works, unless it's combined with other techniques like
Functional MRI scans or FMRI. FMRI scans can be used to monitor a
subject while they perform a task and to identify what parts of the
brain are in use by localising changes in blood oxygen levels
within the brain, a different measure of brain activity than
the MEG scan.
Aston’s research team have become adept at going a step
further by combining or “co-registering” these
different types of scan to build up a picture of what activity is
taking place and where it is located, effectively beginning to map
the brain.
02.22 Sot Dr Paul Furlong -
“It’s about mapping brain functions, but it’s
also understanding how parts of the brain work together to produce
thoughts and memories and all the precepts that we have about our
environment, all the functions of biochemical changes in these
cells, we still struggle to understand how all these disparate
parts of the brain sometimes work together in concert to produce an
overall view of the world as you see it and understand it and
we’ve got a long way to go but these techniques are beginning
to allow us a window to see into how these functions are
developed.”
02.56
Images: MEG Scanner in use
Cu
screen
Various
brain scans
Guide Voice: Being able to tell what parts of
the brain are functioning has a range of valuable clinical uses and
the research team work closely with hospitals to help in the study
of areas like mental illness depression, schizophrenia, and
Alzheimer’s disease. Pre-surgery work with children is
another area where mapping brain functions in this way, is
invaluable, because children cannot do many of the cognitive tests
that would be used on an adult.
03.21 SOT Dr Paul Furlong - “We have
a particular expertise in neuro-development and we’re very
interested in how the brain changes over time from childhood
through to early adulthood. And working with inter-disciplinary
teams of physicists, mathematicians, psychologists, paediatric
neuro-physiologists together we’re beginning to characterise
in this multi-disciplinary way, an understanding about how the
brain works and how it develops over time.”
03.48
Images: Brain scan
Sculpture
head close up
Guide Voice: While we cannot read the mind
totally through scanning brainwaves, this kind of research is
revealing more and more about the way human beings think and feel,
and how we make sense of our world.
04.01 Ends.
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