More Brain Points

It is a popular belief that MRI and fMRI emit some type of radiation. Until recently, I firmly believed that this radiation, although not dangerous, had to have some type of effect on humans. This always made me wonder how would an infant’s body react to said radiation. Elizabeth Wakefield presented a talk at Loyola University Chicago about the importance of encouraging fMRI in children, and how could this be beneficial.

A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique used to measure and map brain activity. This technique may be used by physicians to: be able to examine the anatomy of the brain, determine the part of the brain is handling the critical functions, help assess the effects of stroke or trauma, monitor the growth and function of brain tumors, etc. (RSNA & ACR) It’s able to achieve this map by detecting changes associated with blood flow in the brain. Blood-Oxygenated Level Dependent (BOLD) imaging is the standard technique used to generate the images in an fMRI. The BOLD Signal is not comparable between children and adults since it presents physiological and anatomical differences between these two. It also shows us similar amplitude across development, although time course may differ. Overall, fMRI allows us to document and manipulate neural changes that occur as a result of experience, as well as, gain a better understanding of mechanisms underlying developmental changes and compare neural processing in typical and atypical populations. It’s able to do this since it is more sensitive than behavioral measures.

Even though fMRI and MRI present only positive outcomes, there are still some technical and practical issues when dealing with a patient who is a child. In the research conducted about Pediatric Neuroimaging in Early Childhood and Infancy: Challenges and Practical Guidelines it is mentioned how one of the practical issues one may encounter when dealing with children in an fMRI is the anxiety the child may experience, since it’s a very claustrophobic place to be in. Some solutions to this problem would be: to not keep the child in the fMRI too long, and to permit the experimenter to remain in the scanner with the child. Another practical issue is the dealing with the boredom of a child. If a child is bored, it may cause him/her to move, which would then cause the fMRI or MRI scan to be useless, since one must remain perfectly still. A solution for this is too also make sure that scans run short (approx. 30min).

Although I presented you with solutions for some of the issues, it’s because of these problems that people don’t usually want to deal with children in MRIs and fMRIs.

Karen Weintraub, a writer for Scientific American, recently published an article which talks about how Autism can be detected before the symptoms show on the personality of the kid. This is possible because of an MRI scan. The article mentions how the research conducted, scanned children’s brain three times before the age of 2. “The faster growth rate of the surface areas of their brains correctly predicted eight times out of 10 which of the high-risk children would go on to be diagnosed with the condition.” (Weintraub.) Although this study was only done in 100 children, and thus, it is too small of a sample to be consider definite, think about the possible positive outcomes studies like this would bring if they turn out to be true. Take Autism as an example. It is characterized by behaviors, and parents usually don’t notice it until the child is around 2 years old. By using brain scans to see the child’s neurobiology changes, parents would be able to understand their child’s experience and the children would have more resources for help since an early age.

To conclude, brain scanning children can only have positive outcomes. It should not be a common thing to not run these types of tests on a child, simply because of the difficulties and issues it might present. Just like the discovery of Autism at an early age, MRI and fMRI tests help science move forward by discovering new things every day, and even helping save lives.

SOURCES:

• Weintraub, Karen. “Autism Starts Months before Symptoms Appear, Study Shows.” Scientific American, 15 Feb. 2017, www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-starts-months-before-symptoms-appear-study-shows/.     [ARTICLE]

• Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and American College of Radiology (ACR). “Magnetic Resonance, Functional (FMRI) - Brain.” Brain Imaging, Functional (FMRI), 16 Mar. 2016, www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=fmribrain