Ceramic material could improve MRIs by enabling faster times, better images

An academic/enterprise partnership that includes Penn State researchers is developing a new dielectric material to enable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines with shorter scan times and higher image resolutions, good news for cutting the cost of MRI scans for the hospitals and for patients who struggle with MRI-related anxiety.

How not to use brain scans in neuroscience

The idea that a lone snapshot of a brain can tell you about an individual’s personality or mental health has been the basis of decades of neuroscience studies. That approach was punctured by a paper in Nature earlier this year showing that scientists have massively underestimated how large such studies must be to produce reliable findings. At the center of the research is MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans. Reaching that conclusion required getting a far broader view of the field than was possible until recently. Along with colleagues at a number of institutions as well as his advisor, Pitt Professor of Psychiatry Beatriz Luna, Tervo-Clemmens combined three recent publicly available studies that together included MRI data from around 50,000 participants.

Ultra-high field MRI detects subtle differences in structure and function of brain’s ‘hippocampus’ in people with Down syndrome

Using ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to map the brains of people with Down syndrome (DS), researchers from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and other institutions detected subtle differences in the structure and function of the hippocampus—a region of the brain tied to memory and learning.

¬Children With Asymptomatic Brain Bleeds As Newborns Show Normal Brain Development At Age 2

A study by UNC School of Medicine researchers finds that neurodevelopmental scores and gray matter volumes at age two years did not differ between children who had MRI-confirmed asymptomatic subdural hemorrhages when they were neonates, compared to children with no history of subdural hemorrhage.

One-Off Extreme Drinking May Cause Structural Brain Atrophy in Young Adults

A new study suggests that a single episode of extreme drinking in young adults may be linked to almost immediate structural brain atrophy. Adolescence and emerging adulthood are known to represent critical stages for brain development, involving heightened vulnerability to the toxic effects of drinking. Chronic alcohol use among young adults is associated with structural brain abnormalities, especially in the corpus callosum, which transfers information between brain hemispheres — a key function in learning and memory. Preclinical research in rodents suggests that a single drinking episode might result in brain atrophy. However, it was unclear whether and how a single episode of extreme drinking in young adults could affect brain structure. The study, published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, assessed participants before and after a single episode of extreme drinking — consuming more than four to five alcohol-containing beverages in a single episode — scanning the br