#cognitive neuroscience

9:00 // Royal Holloway, University of London is beautiful.

I’ve been running experiments with a masters student using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). I also got an updated scan of my own brain. Nice nice.

Some cool stuff about fMRI experiments:

• Glasses can’t be worn in the scanner (because they contain metal) so you get to wear these sexy specs instead. The lenses that work best for you are slotted in. They’re like swimming goggles. 
  
• People who wear the hijab or a turban can go in the scanner with their head coverings on. Yay! All pins,metals and hair ties need to be removed though. 
• Experiments in fMRI tend to have a maximum running time of 90 minutes. 
• There is a panic button (looks like a pump) given to participants in the scanner, if you ever want to leave the scanner all you have to do is press it. 
• If it’s not given by default you can ask to have a copy of your brain scan. Download a free software called Mango and play around with your brain!!
• The equipment tends to look old - our comps run Windows XP. You’ll see this in science quite a bit and think “why don’t they update??”. Operating systems (Windows/MAC OS) sometimes have updates that tamper with medical software and it can be hard to pinpoint what’s gone wrong. So if it’s working we don’t update it until there’s a reason on our part e.g. when it breaks.

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