Brain scans a bright idea
They might look like works of art, but the colourful images adorning the walls of a research unit are actually of the brains of staff members, a Dunedin Study researcher says.
The Dunedin Study is carrying out its first MRI imaging study of participants, and ran pilot scans on staff members and volunteers.
The multidisciplinary study has followed a cohort of 1037 children born at Queen Mary Maternity Hospital between 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, through their childhoods and into middle age.
Research manager Dr Sandhya Ramrakha said the colours visible in the photographs at the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit represented the direction the brain signals were travelling — going “up, down, sideways and so forth”.
The brain scanning had been planned for a decade and the imaging of staff members was done to make sure the testing process was in “tiptop shape”.
Nearly 80 per cent of the Dunedin Study participants had completed the latest round of testing, which began in August 2016 and will finish in December.
The scans would be used in conjunction with data already gathered.
What researchers were interested in was people’s reactions to different life experiences, how parts of the brain were connected to body
Pfunctions and how brain functioning was linked to ageing, Dr Ramrakha said.
Researchers were also looking at how the brain functioned when people were asked to do different tasks related to things such as memory, motivation and self-control. The research was being conducted with the assistance of Duke University in North Carolina.
Dunedin Study participants have been tested at intervals throughout their childhood, adolescence and adulthood, with the latest round being conducted when they turned 45 years old.