I hope you have already heard about TED before (if not, seriously check it out here). TEDMED is a TED conference dedicated only to medical issues and it starts today. I hope medical imaging will be part of some talks...
The schedule of the conference is here, but most important it is possible to watch the conference online in real-time or on-demand following a couple of instructions. I'll see it later on-demand according to my interests and time. Right now, the talks I am looking forward are:
- Can Science take the next leap? by Francis Collins
- What's the 21st century version of prevention? by Danny Hillis
- How can we improve health care if doctors don't know if they do any good? by Michael E. Porter
The TEDMED experience:
The videos from last year can be accessed online in TEDMED youtube channel.
Showing posts with label innovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label innovation. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Making the Brain transparent with Clarity Gel
Recently, there has been news about a new method for neuroimaging. It consists of making the brain "transparent". This new method is probably going to revolutionize imaging of biological tissues. When I first read the news, I wasn't sure how the method really worked. As I have studied in vivo neuroimaging techniques, I also thought that this method was in vivo (they were talking about rats and an autistic brain). So I was wondering how they look through the cranium and also how the biological processes are affected by this new technique. Until I read an article which explained clearly that this is an in vitro technique (Guardian Neurophilosophy Blog by Mo Costandi).
So this new technique is a method to image biological tissues post mortem. The brain passes through a process where it is put into preparation gels and liquids, and after that it is ready to be properly imaged in a electron microscope (or other techniques such as fluorescence microscope), without the need of slicing it. The innovation here is the use of the new Clarity gel, which holds everything together, while fat components are eliminated (fat is what prevents the brain from being imaged correctly).
Nature video which shows spectacular images using nice visualization techniques:
Other Links:
http://www.nature.com/news/see-through-brains-clarify-connections-1.12768
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/04/11/3734738.htm
So this new technique is a method to image biological tissues post mortem. The brain passes through a process where it is put into preparation gels and liquids, and after that it is ready to be properly imaged in a electron microscope (or other techniques such as fluorescence microscope), without the need of slicing it. The innovation here is the use of the new Clarity gel, which holds everything together, while fat components are eliminated (fat is what prevents the brain from being imaged correctly).
Nature video which shows spectacular images using nice visualization techniques:
Other Links:
http://www.nature.com/news/see-through-brains-clarify-connections-1.12768
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/04/11/3734738.htm
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