World’s First Double Headed MRI to Study Brain Activity during Cuddling with friends
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.