Winter 1999
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Exactly what happens in the human brain as a person thinks, observes, remembers, or feels emotions? Using techniques developed in the past five years, scientists are now able to understand these activities as never before.
"This has been a dream for neuroscientists for many years and now, with fMRI--functional magnetic resonance imaging--we have the technology," says Helen Neville, a University of Oregon psychology professor who uses the fMRI in her research. "This advance is vastly important. It opens the doors to a whole new universe."
The fMRI is similar to the MRI machines used at hospitals which, like x-ray machines, produce images of physical structures. But while an x-ray or an MRI primarily shows structure--where things are--the fMRI shows the activity taking place at a specific location. To accomplish this, it measures the oxygen in blood, which precisely indicates areas of activity. Research-grade fMRI machines can pinpoint activity in the brain to within one millimeter (about the thickness of a nickel) in humans, and down to a micron (about one-fiftieth the width of a human hair) in animals.
Before the fMRI, researchers had a comparatively sketchy sense of how the brain develops. With the new machine, scientists are able to observe the very finest wiring of an animal's nervous system while it's being strung together.
Neville uses this powerful tool to discover how the brain organizes itself as a child grows and how that organization affects the individual.
The answers to these fundamental questions promise to have profound implications. For example, a child's brain is most receptive to learning language during certain periods of his or her development. Additional research is expected to specify similar windows of greatest opportunity for children to develop their skills in reading and mathematics. Such knowledge could lead educators to intensify certain kinds of teaching during the periods when the child is most ready to learn.
New understanding of the brain will also help doctors design treatments and rehabilitation therapies for people with brain damage and stroke as well as for children born deaf or blind or those deafened or blinded through accidents.
While the new brain-imaging technology is opening doors to important discoveries, research-grade fMRI technology is currently available in only a handful of facilities across the country.
"We have limited access to facilities at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Canada. We even have a student doing work in Germany," Neville explains.
Once they arrive at these far-flung locations, the Oregon researchers are only allowed access as "guests"--usually on weekends, sometimes at 2, 3 or 4 in the morning, when the machines are not ordinarily in use.
"Even then, we find ourselves getting bumped if there is a big traffic accident and the machines are needed for emergency use," Neville says.
She laments the inefficiency of this system and is enthusiastic about the benefits to Oregon and Oregonians of having a research-grade fMRI facility in the state (see "Taking the Initiative").
"It would give neuroscience a huge boost here at the UO. Our researchers study memory, visual perception, language acquisition, hearing, and attention. Access to a machine will give them all a huge advantage."
She sees the investment in the Brain, Biology, and Machine Initiative as the beginning of a snowball effect.
"The return on such an investment for the citizens of Oregon comes in better health care; more federal dollars flowing into the state; more high-skill, higher-paying jobs and the additional taxes that are paid from those salaries. Perhaps most important of all, a first-class facility will draw first-class researchers and give Oregon students the best possible education, preparing them to become the next generation of top scientists."