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Hologram-like 3-D brain helps researchers decode migraine pain

Date:
April 18, 2013
Source:
University of Michigan
Summary:
Wielding a joystick and wearing special glasses, a pain researcher rotates and slices apart a large, colorful, 3-D brain floating in space before him.
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Wielding a joystick and wearing special glasses, pain researcher Alexandre DaSilva rotates and slices apart a large, colorful, 3-D brain floating in space before him.

Despite the white lab coat, it appears DaSilva's playing the world's most advanced virtual video game. The University of Michigan dentistry professor is actually hoping to better understand how our brains make their own pain-killing chemicals during a migraine attack.

The 3-D brain is a novel way to examine data from images taken during a patient's actual migraine attack, says DaSilva, who heads the Headache and Orofacial Pain Effort at the U-M School of Dentistry and the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute.

Different colors in the 3-D brain give clues about chemical processes happening during a patient's migraine attack using a PET scan, or positron emission tomography, a type of medical imaging.

"This high level of immersion (in 3-D) effectively places our investigators inside the actual patient's brain image," DaSilva said.

The 3-D research occurs in the U-M 3-D Lab, part of the U-M Library.


Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Michigan. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Cite This Page:

University of Michigan. "Hologram-like 3-D brain helps researchers decode migraine pain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 April 2013. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130418124644.htm>.
University of Michigan. (2013, April 18). Hologram-like 3-D brain helps researchers decode migraine pain. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 19, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130418124644.htm
University of Michigan. "Hologram-like 3-D brain helps researchers decode migraine pain." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130418124644.htm (accessed March 19, 2024).

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