Alan Jasanoff is designing imaging sensors that could help reveal the brain’s inner workings.
After finishing his PhD in molecular biophysics, Alan Jasanoff decided to veer away from that field and try looking into some of the biggest questions in neuroscience: How do we perceive things? What happens in our brains when we make decisions?
After a few months, however, he realized that he didn’t have the tools he wanted to use — so he decided to start making his own.
The Department of Biomedical Engineering (www.imt.liu.se) is a national center for research and education within the field of medical technology. The research is based on the needs within health care and is carried out in close cooperation with the medical industry and medical clinics.
Our research group in medical informatics is internationally known, among other things for our work with the development of new theories and algorithms for analysis of multidimensional data.
Successful applications include; analysis of local image structure, adaptive filtering of volume sequences and imaging of
brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Currently we have an open position for a PhD student in medical informatics at the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Background: The aim of medical informatics is to develop general methods in order to find the best representations and presentations of different types of information. We are currently seeking a PhD student in medical informatics, specializing in neuro-economics and multidimensional signal analysis. In neuro-economics, the parts of the brain that are activated at different decisions are studied, with the aim to investigate the neurological mechanisms that govern economic decision making. The analysis of neuro-economic data has some major challenges, thus, to develop and to improve statistical analysis is central to the development of the field of neuro-economics. Work within this new
position will be a part of the research conducted at the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (www.cmiv.liu.se).
Applications are invited for a PhD position in the Biological Psychology Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Oldenburg, Germany (Prof. Christiane Thiel, Dr. Carsten Gießing). The department has a new research focus in cognitive neuroscience, and is one of the best equipped psychology departments in the country (3T MRI, EEG, TMS, eyetracking, NIRS and an MEG machine from the end of 2011).
Right now, getting an MRI scan means you have be still—and alone—in a gigantic machine. Thanks to some clever researchers though, future fMRI scanners might be double-headed—meaning that you can bring a buddy for simultaneous, cuddle-filled brain scans.
Two heads are better than one—particularly if you’re studying the brain activity underlying social interaction. The problem is that imaging technologies such as MRI have only been able to handle one brain at a time – until now. Ray Lee at Princeton University has developed the world’s first dual-headed fMRI scanner. The innovation allows the simultaneous imaging of the brain activity of two people lying in the same scanner.
The BrainVoyager product family ranges from professional fMRI imaging tools, to at-home and on-the-go brain anatomy tutors. I’ve actually had the award-winning Brain Tutor application since I took a class in which I had to dissect a sheep brain. It helped me review the different areas of the brain and their functions when I wasn’t in the lab.
More recently, BrainVoyager has developed iPhone/iPad Apps you can use on the go. There’s a free iPhone/iPad version, and a more robust iPad-only version for $1.99. Both let you explore the structure and function of the human brain from the palm of your hand.
