[2024.11.08]

Professor Changwei Wu brought the Master’s and PhD students in his fMRI elective class on an exciting field trip to tour National Taiwan University’s state-of-the-art brain scanner facilities.

We had the unique opportunity to get up close and personal with the technology, exploring how BOLD (blood oxygen level-dependent) signals map dynamic changes in neural activity in real-time, thanks to the help of two brave student participants. They stepped into the scanner, allowing us to examine their T1 scans to visualize their brain anatomy and detect changes in brain activity via echo-planar imaging (EPI) as they performed simple cognitive tasks. 

We were most surprised to see the strength of the 3 Tesla magnetic field—NTU researchers safely demonstrated that a tiny safety pin attached to a stuffed lemur toy was instantly pulled towards the machine’s isocenter, creating the funny illusion of a flying lemur.

This hands-on experience left us inspired by the precision and power of modern neuroscience tools, and we are motivated to continue unraveling more mysteries of the human brain. Stay tuned as we showcase what we learned during the semester in our upcoming final poster presentations.