Editing Talk:1453: fMRI

" ... and the magnetic field could rip off their jewelry if they are wearing ..." No, I think he's referring to the fact that the subjects were told to remove their jewelry before going into the machine, so that is still on their minds. --[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 08:10, 28 November 2014 (UTC) 

Which they are told because of the fields, which might rip and tear, or just heat up metallic objects... :) --[[User:Ergonomist|Ergonomist]] ([[User talk:Ergonomist|talk]]) 10:00, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

: Oh come on, it says "the parts of the brain associated with ... and the removal of jewelry". "Removal of jewelry" is something one does oneself. It's not something one typically thinks about as being done to you by magnetic waves. --[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 10:23, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Look what the Americans have done to the rather beautiful word 'Jewellery'! I thought it was a horrendous typo by Randall... but no. Lets rip out a couple letters so that a flowing word is reduced to sounding like a sullen teenager. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 10:29, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Do not blame us - its not our fault. The root goes back to 1828, where a linguist named Noah Webster (of Webster's dictionary) laid out a new way to spell words differently in an attempt to differentiate Americans from Britons. It was a whole identity thing, and became extremely popular and took off. Oh well. I always liked the spelling of words with the "ou" in it (colour, etc). On the other hand, "jewellery" just looks rediculous. USA! USA! USA!

Not sure about 'warped tour' referring to 'cognitive confounders'. It's capitalised, so believe that it refers to the travelling music festival; the subject is displaying irritation with the operator constantly talking about their experience at The Warped Tour, just as you would if they were jabbering about last night's TV or the latest boyband. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.176|141.101.98.176]] 11:07, 28 November 2014 (UTC) IB


The Warped Tour reference may be a scientific in-joke: a key part of algorithms for analyzing MRI data is warping the images so the brain regions are lined up to compare them.  Your brain and my brain and every other person's brain are not exactly the same size and shape.  So an algorithm identifies key anatomical landmarks and warps the images of each brain to a standard brain map.  Otherwise it would be impossible to compare brain scans -- pixels that represent your amygdala might be in the same location as pixels that represent your cerebellum.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.221|108.162.219.221]] 16:17, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Here is a small sample of the extensive scientific literature about biomedical image warping methods:

"warping tensors according to the spatial transformation that is calculated between the original and template spaces will also produce inaccurate results by altering the shape of individual tensors, thereby also altering measurements of local diffusivity and distorting inferences concerning tissue microstructure that are based on those measures of local diffusivity"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2365743/
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.125|173.245.52.125]] 12:39, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

This is surely an example of the Observer Effect? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_%28physics%29 [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.160|141.101.98.160]] 19:31, 29 November 2014 (UTC)


..."In real experiments, reported activity patterns are always a result of subtracting average brain activity from many samples gathered during task from so called resting-state activity"
Actually, task activation is generally compared to some other control task or condition, rather than resting state, especially for a short-term memory study such as that referenced in the comic. For example some other task with matched stimulus presentation and response demands (i.e. press a button), but without any memory load. And if rest were used as the implicit baseline, it is extremely unlikely any actual subtraction would be done--rather the so-called resting state would be the implicit baseline state of a multiple regression, in which the task-related predictor variables are convolved with a canonical hemodynamic response function. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.118}} [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.118|108.162.219.118]] 18:57, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, the concern with unremoved piercings would not be that they could be ripped off during scanning. A participant or patient would not be allowed in the MR room with a dangerous (i.e. large, ferrous metal) piercing, and if somehow one were it would be noticed prior to the initiation of any functional scans (the magnet is always on, so it would be ripped off or otherwise respond to the magnetic field while the participant was being positioned in the scanner bore). Rather, the concern here would be about the piercings heating up during scanning and potentially burning the participant, or potentially causing magnetic susceptibility artifacts in the acquired images (particularly for facial piercings). As precaution it is common to warn participants with unremoved piercings to be attentive to any heating sensation around their piercings and to notify MR technologists immediately if any heating occurs. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.118|108.162.219.118]] 18:57, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

When I remove jewelry, my main worry is that it will get stolen. {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.94}}