The Open fMRI: A Research Breakthrough
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RUSS POLDRACK: This one is sort of interesting. This is a study of dental pain.
MILES O'BRIEN: These images illustrate how cognitive neuroscientists like Russ Poldrack are trying to read minds, so to speak.
RUSS POLDRACK: OK, we're ready to get started with the scanning.
MILES O'BRIEN: They are generated by an fMRI, or functional MRI scan. Researchers use them to watch how blood flows through active areas of the brain in real time.
RUSS POLDRACK: Now, we could use functional MRI not just to see how different brain areas turn on, but also how different ones move together over time. And that's how we know that they're—we say that they're functionally connected, which means basically that they're talking to one another over time.
MILES O'BRIEN: The fMRI is one of the most powerful tools available to image human brain function. But they're expensive. Right now, there is only limited infrastructure for sharing results.
RUSS POLDRACK: This is somebody reading words.
MILES O'BRIEN: With support from the National Science Foundation, Poldrack and a team at Stanford University want to change that with a project called Open fMRI. They're working to make these dynamic brain scans widely available in a computer database to scientists all over the world.
RUSS POLDRACK: The overall purpose of Open fMRI is to give people a framework to share their data.
MILES O'BRIEN: Sharing fMRI scans is difficult because the data sets are large and cumbersome. Poldrack and company have standardized their format, so they can be easily and securely uploaded to the Open fMRI database.
VINOD MENON: So our lab studies cognitive and brain development both typical development, as well as children with ADHD and autism.
MILES O'BRIEN: Neuroscientist Vinod Menon is using Open fMRI to validate his own research. He says the more scans he can analyze, the more certain he can be of his conclusions.
VINOD MENON: They give us more confidence that these findings are strong and robust, and therefore, they are worthy of further study.
MILES O'BRIEN: And as more studies are added to the library, he sees it as a powerful tool for diagnosing and treating neurological disorders.
We'll be able to say how confident are we that this child might have autism based on some features of their brain imaging data. And I think, we'll see a lot of progress in this area in the next five years.
RUSS POLDRACK: You really have to bring together lots of data in order to be able to answer these questions. The willingness of researchers in the field to share their data seems to be really increasing.
MILES O'BRIEN: Poldrack expects the shared database eventually will provide a comprehensive map for scientists to navigate the complex landscape of the brain. It's all about putting their heads together on it. For Science Nation, I'm Miles O'Brien.
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