Functional MRI shows how mindfulness meditation changes decision-making process. If a friend or relative won $100 and then offered you a few dollars, would you accept this windfall? The logical answer would seem to be, sure, why not? "But human decision making does not always appear rational," said Read Montague, professor of physics at Virginia Tech and director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. According to research conducted over the last three decades; only about one-fourth of us would say, "Sure.
Thanks. " The rest would say, "But that's not fair. Unless they are Buddhist meditators, in which case -- fair or not -- more than half will take what is offered, according to new research by Ulrich Kirk, research assistant professor with the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at Virginia Tech; Jonathan Downar, assistant professor with the Neuropsychiatry Clinic and the Centre for Addition and Mental Health at the University of Toronto; and Montague, published in the April 2011 issue of Frontiers in Decision Neuroscience.
A PET For Your P-e-t. A PET image of a rat's brain PET scan technology, or positron emission tomography, is an extremely important tool in neuroscience. Aside from their use in medicine for the detection of neurological disease, tumors, and stroke, PET scans – like fMRI scans – can measure molecular activity in specific regions of the brain and answer important questions about neurophysiology. Until now, PET scans have been limited to humans. A research group from Brookhaven National Laboratory recently published an article in Nature detailing a customized PET for rodents. Unlike the human PET, which requires subjects to be immobilized, the rodent PET scan allows the animal to move freely while its brain is scanned.
I assume scientifically inclined gerbil owners eagerly await a custom gerbil-fitted PET scan…if not for home experiments, they can at least make sure their furry pets have clean bills of health. via The New York Times. fMRI Fundamentals. RatCAP Allows Portable PET Brain Imaging, More Movement and Less Anesthesia. A portable positron emission tomography (PET) scanner that rats can wear on their heads has been developed and tested effectively. The device is appropriately called the RatCAP. The RatCAP allows researchers to image the brain without the need for prolonged general anesthesia, or other restraining methods. This should allow researchers to image the brain while the subject performs more realistic behaviors with a wider range of movement. Though a rat wearing a 250 gram cap on the head isn’t exactly a normal behavior, one researcher is quoted in the release as saying the rats “wearing the device appear to adapt well and move freely about their environment.”
To test the effectiveness of the device, researchers conducted behavioral experiments on rats wearing the RatCAP. The researchers injected the rats with 11C-raclopride, a PET radiotracer that binds to dopamine receptors, and monitored their behavior. Miniature ‘wearable’ PET scanner ready for use.