Het brein in beeld - Structural Imaging

4 important questions on Het brein in beeld - Structural Imaging

What are the differences between structural and functional imaging?

Structural imaging is based on the fact that different types of tissue have different physical properties. These different properties can be used to construct detailed static maps of the physical structure of the brain (CT and MRI).

Functional imaging is based on the assumption that neural activity produces local physiological changes in that region of the brain. This can be used to produce dynamic maps of the moment-to-moment activity of the brain when engaged in cognitive tasks.

How does computerized tomography (CT) works?

Are constructed accoring to the amount of X-ray absorption in different types of tissue. This is related to tissue density: bone absorbs the most, cerebrospinal fluid absorbs the least and the brain matter is intermediate.

What are the adventages of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) over CT?

1. It does not use ionizing radiation and so it's completely safe

2. It provides much better spatial resolution, which allows the folds of individual gyri to be discerned

3. It provides better dicrimination between white and gray matter; this may enable early diagnosis of some pathologies and can be used to explore how normal variation brain structure is linked to differences in cognitive ability

4. It can be adapted for use in detecting the changes in blood oxygenation associated with neural activity (fMRI)
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What are the sequence of events for acquiring an MRI scan?

1. A strong magnetic field is applied across the part of the body being scanned.

2. When the protons are in the aligned state a brief radio frequency pulse is applied that knocks the orientation of the protons. This produces a detectible change in the magnetic field.

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