Want to See Your Brain?
by Mohamed Algarf ~ September 26th, 2010. Filed under: UBC.Hassan Arshad sat on a chair in front of the UBC MRI Research Center on Saturday and read a consent form given to him by Matt Dixon.
Arshad took off his black sunglasses, crossed his legs and swayed his right foot lightly as he read the form. Arshad is subject number 14 of 15 participants that Dixon is using for his research leading to a Masters in Psychology. Each participant earns $30 by signing up and could possibly earn an equal amount through the experiment itself.
“I’m interested in how the brain allows us to form goals in our mind,” said Dixon. “Or intentions to do things before we do it, and therefore be more proactive in the world as opposed to just reactive to whatever is currently happening in our immediate environment.”
After signing the papers, Dixon left Arshad to prepare himself and entered the control room. In the room he greeted Paul Hamill, an MRI Technologist and seated himself facing a table full of computer screens. Arshad, now dressed in a cream coloured hospital pajama, leafed through a magazine until he was called in to start.
From the control room, Arshad could be seen being helped into the MRI machine by Hamill. Dixon placed a sticker on Arshad’s left eyebrow so he could differentiate the sides in the scans.
From the control room, only half of Arshad’s body was in view. He was wearing striped light and dark blue socks with red tips and red heels, he crossed and uncrossed his feet a few times as he waited.
The experiment started.
Dixon would explain to Arshad what to do over the intercom. He would then run a program asking him questions, when Arshad got the right answer he earned 25 cents. The aim of the research is to see what is happening throughout the brain and how it is active in different areas as a people make goals.
When Dixon was ready to start each interval he would turn to Hamill and say “guacamole”, the agreed upon signal. Every two seconds the MRI takes an image composed of 36 slices of different angles of the brain. That adds up to 1,600 images per subject, 36 slices each, for 15 subjects. The data will take at least two to three months to analyze and a month or more to write and publish, said Dixon.
The MRI machine made a set of different noises, one sounded like loud knocking, another time it started a loud squeal. An hour and a half later, Arshad was let out of the machine. He squinted, looked around and stretched.
I did this because it would be interesting to see a picture of my brain, he said. “The brain is just so interesting, there are many things we don’t know about the brain…so I thought it would be a great way to get to see what happens with the MRI.”
