Going to make this a fairly quick one… well, we’ll see how it turns out.
One of the labs I’m assisting in uses the fMRI machine (by the way, did you know the MRI machine was invented in our very own Stony Brook University? Yeah!) to study the functional activity of the brains of participants. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging. It’s actually sort of crazy. We are still under construction with getting all the program down to make sure the timing is right with the machine and our study (our lab does not own the machine, it’s extremely extremely expensive. 1 run with the machine costs you a whopping $500) so we get couple of freebies. I was able to pilot one of the scans and boy, was it an experience.
In the beginning, I lay there not really knowing what to expect. Not until I actually went into this tight hole did I think, ‘I am going in a tiny little small hole, where I won’t be able to budge one bit’. After one mistrial with the program, I began to feel a little droopy. I did have a long night the night before, and didn’t get much sleep. So without even knowing that I was drifting to sleep, I would wake up thinking, ‘when did I fall asleep?!’. One after another, mistrial after mistrial, the clock finally hit almost 40. When the loud noise stopped, I was really hoping for some freedom. So I woke myself up entirely, getting ready to exit. Then, the MRI speakers uttered what any MRI patient would fear, MRI: “You hangin’ in there?”, Me: “Yep!”, MRI:”Okay, we had some miscalculations, just going to be a little bit more okay?”, Me: “..okay” That last okay out of my mouth triggered panic in my body. That nightmarish claustrophobia began creeping up my spine, then into my head, then into all little nerves in my body, even to the tiny little cells in the tip of my fingers. I had to move, stretch, and breathe, AHH. I quickly squeezed the get-me-out button. Although the data was incomplete, I could not stay in there longer. I gave up….. I got out, but thankfully our researcher quickly volunteered to complete the data, so we could get the pilot over and done with.
Good news is, I got to see some parts of my brain! It’s kind of weird when you see your brain for the first time, you don’t really know how to react actually. How would you guys react to seeing your own brain? It’s kinda cool ain’t it? Well without further ado, here is where it all happens: (Be my guest, you can snoop around any other place besides my brain. I personally like my sinus area for some odd reason)
2:05
My shift is over, but up there it’s 24/7
Good night ya’ll
Kyu
It starts from the hadopelagic 