2023-04-19 21:55:20
American researchers have been able to develop magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology that produces images 64 million times sharper than devices currently used in hospitals, giving them hope for a better understanding of the disease. Alzheimer’s.
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After decades of research, the team of scientists led by Duke University have shared the most detailed images ever captured of a mouse’s brain.
“It’s the equivalent of going from an 8-bit image to the hyper-realistic detail of a Chuck Close painting,” the university said in a statement.
Although the scientists pointed their new technology in the direction of mice rather than humans, the details contained in the images captured by this new MRI might lead to “a better understanding of changes in the brain according to age, diet and even for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s,” we add.
“It’s something that will allow us to do a lot of things, shares the main author of the study linked to these images, Allan Johnson. We can start to see degenerative diseases in a whole new light.”
Several advances were necessary to achieve this feat, in particular the use of a magnet with a force of 9.4 Tesla, ie a magnet 3 to 6 times more powerful than that currently used by MRIs.
Coils 100 times stronger are also used, in addition to a computer equivalent to 800 laptops running at full power to produce the image of a single brain.
This image is then analyzed using light sheet fluorescence microscopy, which allows them to isolate the different cells with different colors, resulting in an image that is “more accurate in terms of anatomy and gives more detail to the cells and circuits in the brain”.
Researchers from the universities of Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Pittsburgh and Indiana also took part in this tour de force.
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