My brain

This evening, I had my brain scanned.

Not for any medical reason (I am perfectly healthy, have no fear) but because Bonnie does a lot of work with the MRI scanner and knows the technician quite well. When the technician needs to work out a new protocol or test with the MRI machine, he needs a volunteer to have their brain scanned while he tries the new protocol. Since I wasn't that busy this week, I volunteered to be his guinea pig for an hour.

The scanner wasn't as scary or as loud as I expected. If you've ever seen any medical shows, especially House, you'll have seen the big white machine (looks like a hollow tube) with a platform that people lay on. The platform then slides into the machine and the person gets scanned. That's an MRI. Here, I found a picture of one on Google:I put in earplugs, then laid down and added headphones overtop, to keep out most of the sound. Then they put a cage over my head and fastened the headphones in place - so I couldn't move my head. It sounds scary but it was fine and I was really comfortable. It was important to keep my head still so they can get accurate images of my brain. Next, they put a blanket over me (because the machine is cold) and gave me a panic button in case I wanted out of the machine right away (I didn't need that). Finally, they slid me into the machine and I laid there for an hour while the MRI scanner made loud weird sounds. It could be a littel claustrophobic for some people, but I had my eyes closed almost the whole time. I fell asleep after awhile, waking up mainly when the machine changed the sounds it was making. An hour flew by in no time! It's pretty neat, because it's a crazy way to escape the world and have an hour of down time. When else do you get to nap while helping science?

At the end, I gave the technician my email address and he sent me some pictures of my brain:Looks like a nice, smart brain, hey?