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In the University’s Lewis Center for Neuroimaging, psychology assistant professor Scott Frey and his team of seven other faculty members work on the cutting edge of technology every day – they operate one of the most expensive and elaborate machines on campus.
Frey, director of the lab, is one of several University researchers analyzing brain activity using the lab’s MRI machine, an elaborate piece of equipment that came with a price tag of between $4 million and $5 million after purchase and setup, said Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies Richard Linton.
“I think it’s really a special situation,” Frey said. “This kind of a lab is very rarely found outside of a medical school or a major academic medical research institution. It’s really a special thing to find it in an arts and sciences university like the U of O.”
The University brought in the machine in 2001, and it has been operational since 2002, Frey said. He added that one of the most valuable aspects of the lab was having it exclusively on campus and not having to compete with others for time using it as if it were located in another institution. This way, all related research can be conducted right here at the University.
“Really, the instrument is available 24/7 just for doing science,” he said.
Frey is one of the most active users of the lab, he said, conducting research that monitors the brain activity of amputee patients who are given stimuli to imitate the presence of phantom limbs. Other faculty research includes analysis of the brain’s response to taste, touch and severe head trauma.
University professors Li-Shan Chou and Paul van Donkelaar lead the head trauma research, which analyzes the long-term affects of concussions.
After observational research that determined mechanical and functional deficiencies in concussion victims, van Donkelaar has used MRI scans to find that the same victims also have more stress on the brain while doing everyday activities.
“Someone who has had a concussion may have to activate more of their brain for a simple task that normally would be easy to do,” van Donkelaar said. “There having to work harder to get the task done.”
The MRI facility adds a lot to an already long-term study that Chou has worked on since 2002, van Donkelaar said, which would not have been possible otherwise.
Linton said much of the research conducted in the lab is funded by larger organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Frey gave the Emerald a tour of exactly what goes on in the lab recently, offering a step-by-step account of what a test subject goes through before being slid into the 34-centimeter head chamber for analysis. Subjects are first required to remove any metal from their pockets or clothing because of a powerful magnetic field within the chamber. In the event of an oversight, Frey said, any metal object would fly directly into the center of the machine, where the subject’s head lies. Though Frey said this has happened before at other labs, there have been no major mishaps at the University’s lab.
Once through a separate metal detector in the doorway, inside and strapped in, the subject is then slid back into the chamber and given a stimulus while several computer screens in a separate lab, looking into the chamber from outside, monitor activity in the brain. Two 8-foot computer infrastructures in another room record and store data through the whole process.
“It’s very well backed up, so if everything failed, we’d still have some hard copies on tape,” Frey said.
In all, the total staff of eight oversees research conducted from a number of science departments at the University.
“You can see why it takes a team of people to do this,” Frey said. “It’s big science.”
Even the staff in the Lewis Center comes from a variety of different backgrounds.
“It’s really a case where we find that no one area of expertise is sufficient for this kind of work,” Frey said. “You really have to bring a variety of different disciplines together.”
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