SOUTH KOREA: South Korean researchers introduce a revolutionary helmet they say shows the clearest image of the human brain
- 00:00:06
- ITN Source
SOUTH KOREA: South Korean researchers introduce a revolutionary helmet they say shows the clearest image of the human brain
South Korean researchers have introduced a helmet which they claim shows the clearest image of the human brain. South Korean researchers said that they have succeeded in developing a new way of visualizing the inside of a human brain at high resolution, using a self made helmet as an antenna. The research team also claims they have reached a final stage of completing the world's first fusion system to create pictures showing molecular images at high resolution. Cho Zang-hee, director of Gachon University's Neuroscience research institute, claimed that his team could take clear MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) pictures of bundles of tiny nerves in brainstem and microscopic blood arteries in brain thalamus, which had never been seen before. The MRI device used for this process was 7 Tesla, which has about five times more magnetic energy than ordinary MRI systems. "MRI pictures at high resolution, which have a various purposes are used for from cerebral angiography to observe tiny structures in a brain. The core technologies are a strong magnetism (of the device) and self-made coils (in the helmet) picturing images," said Professor Cho at the interview with Reuters. The round helmet has coils of electric wires. When a patient is going into MRI device wearing the helmet, these coils in the helmet correspond to the MRI. The team explains this process made clearer pictures possible. Professor Cho was involved with inventing the PET (Position Emission Tomography) in 1975, which is for picturing molecular images and detecting cancer tissues. He has been working to combine the function of PET and MRI and finally created images showing molecular images at high resolution. MRI cannot take pictures of molecular images, but instead it's got great resolution. Therefore we invented the world's first PET-MRI fusion image system," said Professor Cho. He says pictures taken through this system would help to prevent various kinds of brain diseases in advance.
ITN Source | January 13, 2007
