Positive Technology Journal

Via the Neurophilosopher's blog 

Alexander Pines and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are working on a new laser-based MRI technique which may lead to the development of a cheap and compact scanning device.

The experimental technique is based on a method called atomic magnetometry, which allows to detect the magnetic signals produced by water molecules without the large magnets or complex cooling systems used in conventional fMRI.

From the LBNL website:

Alexander Pines and colleagues at Berkeley Lab have developed a method to improve NMR/MRI resolution either inside of poorly shimmed magnets or outside of portable one-sided magnet systems, which accommodate arbitrarily sized samples.  This technique will enable for the first time the collection of multidimensional NMR/ MRI information in cases where on-the-spot medical diagnosis is critical, where samples cannot be moved to or placed inside of a superconducting magnet, or where inexpensive, highly inhomogeneous magnets are being used.  Other ex situ systems give relaxation data and sometimes slice-selective images, but not spectra and true 3D images.

Via Neuroguy 

MIT’s Technology Review has an interesting article that describes the development of silicon nanowires to measure small electrical signals on the same neuron:

Via infosthetics

CiteSpace is a network data visualization technique that facilitates the detection of emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature.

From Infoesthetics:

CiteSpace is based on 2 concepts: "research fronts", defined as an emergent grouping of concepts & underlying research issues & "intellectual base", the network of citations & co-citations of a research front in scientific literature. the size of a node is proportional to the normalized citation counts in the latest time interval. The label size of each node is proportional to citations of the article, thus larger nodes also have larger-sized labels. the user can enlarge font sizes at will, & both the width & the length of a link are proportional to the corresponding cocitation coefficient. the color of a link indicates the earliest appearance time of the link with reference to chosen thresholds. current applications show complex patterns regarding mass extinction research & terrorism research.

Via NewScientist.com 

Eli Peli, an ophthalmologist and bioengineer at Harvard Medical School in Boston, has designed an augmented reality device to help patients with tunnel vision, a condition which narrows a person’s field of view.

The system, consisting of glasses fitted with a small camera and a transparent display on one lens, works by superimposing computer-generated images over real scenes.

According to preliminary test results, which will be reported in the September issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, patients who tried the system were able to search objects far more quickly.

Read the original article  

Effects of motor imagery training after chronic, complete spinal cord injury.

Exp Brain Res. 2006 Aug 31;

Authors: Cramer SC, Orr EL, Cohen MJ, Lacourse MG

Abnormalities in brain motor system function are present following spinal cord injury (SCI) and could reduce effectiveness of restorative interventions. Motor imagery training, which can improve motor behavior and modulate brain function, might address this concern but has not been examined in subjects with SCI. Ten subjects with SCI and complete tetra-/paraplegia plus ten healthy controls underwent assessment before and after 7 days of motor imagery training to tongue and to foot. Motor imagery training significantly improved the behavioral outcome measure, speed of movement, in non-paralyzed muscles. Training was also associated with increased fMRI activation in left putamen, an area associated with motor learning, during attempted right foot movement in both groups, despite foot movements being present in controls and absent in subjects with SCI. This fMRI change was absent in a second healthy control group serially imaged without training. In subjects with SCI, training exaggerated, rather than normalized, baseline derangement of left globus pallidus activation. The current study found that motor imagery training improves motor performance and alters brain function in subjects with complete SCI despite lack of voluntary motor control and peripheral feedback. These effects of motor imagery training on brain function have not been previously described in a neurologically impaired population, and were similar to those found in healthy controls. Motor imagery might be of value as one component of a restorative intervention.

Increasing cortical activity in auditory areas through neurofeedback functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Neuroreport. 2006 Aug 21;17(12):1273-1278

Authors: Yoo SS, Oʼleary HM, Fairneny T, Chen NK, Panych LP, Park H, Jolesz FA

We report a functional magnetic resonance imaging method to deliver task-specific brain activities as biofeedback signals to guide individuals to increase cortical activity in auditory areas during sound stimulation. A total of 11 study participants underwent multiple functional magnetic resonance imaging scan sessions, while the changes in the activated cortical volume within the primary and secondary auditory areas were fed back to them between scan sessions. On the basis of the feedback information, participants attempted to increase the number of significant voxels during the subsequent trial sessions by adjusting their level of attention to the auditory stimuli. Results showed that the group of individuals who received the feedback were able to increase the activation volume and blood oxygenation level-dependent signal to a greater degree than the control group.