13 ms·

A neuroscientist had his brain scanned for a year and a half

77 points by bpolania 11y ago

codeulike 11y ago
Tldr: he had an MRI twice a week. Cross referenced with other data about mood, diet, blood. Didn't find much out because sample size = 1.
- paulddraper 11y ago
  Well, there was more than one day. But yeah, results limited to himself.
  - jackreichert 11y ago
    It's just a matter of time before there's a kickstarter for a limited functionality MRI-esk device that will allow the multitudes to scan 24/7.
    - kaybe 11y ago
      Waiting for room-temperature super conduction and enough computation power to even out the effects of an uneven magnetic field (so you do not need to rotate the full device at high speed to average the field).
    - russpoldrack 11y ago
      There is a lot of ongoing work looking at very-low-field MRI using SQUIDs, but it's doubtful that it will work for functional imaging at any point in the near future.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Also interesting to know that someone can go through 104 MRI per year safely.
  - tricky 11y ago
    The physics behind MRI is great. All it does is line up the magnetic moments of all the hydrogen atoms in your body, flips their spin with a burst of energy then watches for electrons as they flip back to a lower energy state. Totally safe!
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      And spin don't affect biochemistry ? naively I'd say everything have a limit..
      - rbinv 11y ago
        Pretty sure he was being sarcastic.
        wyager 11y ago
        No, he was not. It is totally safe.
      - wyager 11y ago
        Chemical interactions are mostly about charge, not spin. I won't say there's no effect at all, but it would be a small effect.
  - rbinv 11y ago
    You might be thinking of CT scans? MRI scans should be harmless.
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      No, but it was the source of my question. I was curious if MRI had negative side effects that would show when done as often.
      - russpoldrack 11y ago
- ozborn 11y ago
  True, but I was pretty surprised to see how large the differences were between his breakfast/caffeine state versus fasting state. That's a substantial difference and pretty interesting. I also think just tracking MRI variation (even for n=1) is useful - this kind of detailed longitudinal tracking simply hasn't been published before.
peter303 11y ago
I wonder if there are any risks to spending a cumulative 20 hours in a MRI machine other than the loud noise he mentioned?
- ska 11y ago
  None that are known or expected, although I don't believe effect of high field and high field gradients are really well understood. For what its worth there are people who have been in for far more than 20 hours (e.g. hundreds of cumulative hours).
  - kaybe 11y ago
    The only biological effect that I know of that uses spin is the detection of the vertical component of Earth's magnetic field in bird eyes. [1] I don't think the effect has been reseached further (such as exposing birds to a very strong magnetic field and see if their perception is altered afterwards, not sure whether that would pass an ethics commitee..) The floating frogs were supposedly fine afterwards. [2] Supposedly, if any long term effects occur, they are subtle. There is a lot we do not know yet - for example, cells seem to be able to communicate through glass. (How? no clue. Photons have been proposed.) [1] eg http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/pia-entanglement.cfm http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/pia-entanglemen... [2] http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/#Whyfrogs http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/#Whyfr... </rant>
    - Practicality 11y ago
      While I applaud your use of citations, do you have another one for cells being able to communicate through glass? That one seems very interesting.
      - kaybe 11y ago
        Sure, lmgtfy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2660427/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2660427/ which is a study from 2009 on the phenomenon.
brechmos 11y ago
As a note, there is a longer study, weekly for 3.5 years, that has been published, in part, at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0140134 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal..... The results in this paper relate to the functional MRI aspect of the study.
russpoldrack 11y ago
Thanks for the interest in the study (I'm the first author/experimental subject). I seem to have survived with no lasting effects - at least small pieces of metal are no longer clinging to me :-)
- nswanberg 11y ago
  Thank you for doing the study (especially the self-tracking drudge work) and for publishing both the raw data and the analysis code.
- duncancarroll 11y ago
  Terrific work! Not presently having time to read the entire paper, I am curious: did you find much of interest in the metabolomic and/or genomic data? Or did MRI prove most fruitful. Also, did you obtain any MRS data?
  - russpoldrack 11y ago
    no MRS data, alas. there is a lot of interesting stuff in the metabolic and RNA-seq data. metabolomics was mostly related to food and sleep, whereas gene expression was related to psoriasis severity and brain connectivity. Hard to know what to make of all of the relations but they definitely tell us that there is some interesting stuff in there.
- alias123abc 11y ago
  This is awesome, would be great to see you speak at one of the Quantified Self meetups in SF! - http://www.meetup.com/quantifiedself/ http://www.meetup.com/quantifiedself/
  - russpoldrack 11y ago
    would be happy to - I talked about it a few years ago at a QS meetup in Austin when we were just starting
    - 11y ago
wyldfire 11y ago
A link to the data: http://results.myconnectome.org/ http://results.myconnectome.org/ -- pretty interesting, IMO!
TaylorSwift 11y ago
"Poldrack’s team found more connectivity in certain networks of the brain -- particularly between systems associated with movement and vision -- if he didn’t have breakfast and coffee. Poldrack says that’s surprising: “If anything we would have predicted that if you’re tired and caffeinated, connectivity would have gone down.” Figuring out why this effect occurred might be a fruitful avenue for research." It is very intriguing and interesting that neural connectivity in systems of movement and vision is increased when one is fasting. My speculation is that those neural activities are handed down from our early ancestors. Perhaps when we were hungry, our brain is actively scanning our surrounding areas for ways of obtaining sustenance.
- OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
  It made me nod in agreement when I read that. Anyone who has fasted for a minimum amount of time, at least 10 hours or so can attest that you end up with an incredibly clear head, powerful sense of smell and very "switched on" vision system where everything seems sharper and clearer. It's a well known effect and this shows one mechanism behind it.
  - eecks 11y ago
    > Anyone who has fasted ... I don't find that at all

77 points by bpolania 11y ago

Tldr: he had an MRI twice a week. Cross referenced with other data about mood, diet, blood. Didn't find much out because sample size = 1.

paulddraper 11y ago
Well, there was more than one day. But yeah, results limited to himself.
- jackreichert 11y ago
  It's just a matter of time before there's a kickstarter for a limited functionality MRI-esk device that will allow the multitudes to scan 24/7.
  - kaybe 11y ago
    Waiting for room-temperature super conduction and enough computation power to even out the effects of an uneven magnetic field (so you do not need to rotate the full device at high speed to average the field).
  - russpoldrack 11y ago
    There is a lot of ongoing work looking at very-low-field MRI using SQUIDs, but it's doubtful that it will work for functional imaging at any point in the near future.
agumonkey 11y ago
Also interesting to know that someone can go through 104 MRI per year safely.
- tricky 11y ago
  The physics behind MRI is great. All it does is line up the magnetic moments of all the hydrogen atoms in your body, flips their spin with a burst of energy then watches for electrons as they flip back to a lower energy state. Totally safe!
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    And spin don't affect biochemistry ? naively I'd say everything have a limit..
    - rbinv 11y ago
      Pretty sure he was being sarcastic.
      - wyager 11y ago
        No, he was not. It is totally safe.
    - wyager 11y ago
      Chemical interactions are mostly about charge, not spin. I won't say there's no effect at all, but it would be a small effect.
- rbinv 11y ago
  You might be thinking of CT scans? MRI scans should be harmless.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    No, but it was the source of my question. I was curious if MRI had negative side effects that would show when done as often.
    - russpoldrack 11y ago
ozborn 11y ago
True, but I was pretty surprised to see how large the differences were between his breakfast/caffeine state versus fasting state. That's a substantial difference and pretty interesting. I also think just tracking MRI variation (even for n=1) is useful - this kind of detailed longitudinal tracking simply hasn't been published before.

peter303 11y ago

I wonder if there are any risks to spending a cumulative 20 hours in a MRI machine other than the loud noise he mentioned?

ska 11y ago
None that are known or expected, although I don't believe effect of high field and high field gradients are really well understood. For what its worth there are people who have been in for far more than 20 hours (e.g. hundreds of cumulative hours).
- kaybe 11y ago
  The only biological effect that I know of that uses spin is the detection of the vertical component of Earth's magnetic field in bird eyes. [1] I don't think the effect has been reseached further (such as exposing birds to a very strong magnetic field and see if their perception is altered afterwards, not sure whether that would pass an ethics commitee..) The floating frogs were supposedly fine afterwards. [2] Supposedly, if any long term effects occur, they are subtle. There is a lot we do not know yet - for example, cells seem to be able to communicate through glass. (How? no clue. Photons have been proposed.) [1] eg http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/pia-entanglement.cfm http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/pia-entanglemen... [2] http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/#Whyfrogs http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/#Whyfr... </rant>
  - Practicality 11y ago
    While I applaud your use of citations, do you have another one for cells being able to communicate through glass? That one seems very interesting.
    - kaybe 11y ago
      Sure, lmgtfy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2660427/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2660427/ which is a study from 2009 on the phenomenon.

brechmos 11y ago

As a note, there is a longer study, weekly for 3.5 years, that has been published, in part, at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0140134 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal..... The results in this paper relate to the functional MRI aspect of the study.

russpoldrack 11y ago

Thanks for the interest in the study (I'm the first author/experimental subject). I seem to have survived with no lasting effects - at least small pieces of metal are no longer clinging to me :-)

nswanberg 11y ago
Thank you for doing the study (especially the self-tracking drudge work) and for publishing both the raw data and the analysis code.
duncancarroll 11y ago
Terrific work! Not presently having time to read the entire paper, I am curious: did you find much of interest in the metabolomic and/or genomic data? Or did MRI prove most fruitful. Also, did you obtain any MRS data?
- russpoldrack 11y ago
  no MRS data, alas. there is a lot of interesting stuff in the metabolic and RNA-seq data. metabolomics was mostly related to food and sleep, whereas gene expression was related to psoriasis severity and brain connectivity. Hard to know what to make of all of the relations but they definitely tell us that there is some interesting stuff in there.
alias123abc 11y ago
This is awesome, would be great to see you speak at one of the Quantified Self meetups in SF! - http://www.meetup.com/quantifiedself/ http://www.meetup.com/quantifiedself/
- russpoldrack 11y ago
  would be happy to - I talked about it a few years ago at a QS meetup in Austin when we were just starting
  - 11y ago

wyldfire 11y ago

A link to the data: http://results.myconnectome.org/ http://results.myconnectome.org/ -- pretty interesting, IMO!

TaylorSwift 11y ago

"Poldrack’s team found more connectivity in certain networks of the brain -- particularly between systems associated with movement and vision -- if he didn’t have breakfast and coffee. Poldrack says that’s surprising: “If anything we would have predicted that if you’re tired and caffeinated, connectivity would have gone down.” Figuring out why this effect occurred might be a fruitful avenue for research." It is very intriguing and interesting that neural connectivity in systems of movement and vision is increased when one is fasting. My speculation is that those neural activities are handed down from our early ancestors. Perhaps when we were hungry, our brain is actively scanning our surrounding areas for ways of obtaining sustenance.

OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
It made me nod in agreement when I read that. Anyone who has fasted for a minimum amount of time, at least 10 hours or so can attest that you end up with an incredibly clear head, powerful sense of smell and very "switched on" vision system where everything seems sharper and clearer. It's a well known effect and this shows one mechanism behind it.
- eecks 11y ago
  > Anyone who has fasted ... I don't find that at all