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Images of my Brain?
Written by Chloe on Sunday, November 2, 2008
One aspect of my work is that I am a member of a six person multidisciplinary team, doing research on multiple brain imaging techniques. Most things in (my) life seem to have some connection with BIID.
At the beginning of the project, we realised that one of us would have to be the guinea pig for the experiments. We each took turns sitting in the recording chamber for several hours while our brain was being imaged. It was very important for the subject to be able to shut off various brain functions in order to minimise "noise" in the recordings. Critical among these brain functions was the necessity for not moving any muscles. In fact it was necessary not to even think about moving any muscles; for hours at a time. It turned out that I was by far the best subject; so I am the guinea pig. There is a reason I am good at this.
When I was a little girl I wanted my legs to be paralysed. I pretended that they were paralysed. I imagined that they were paralysed. I imagined extremely well. I couldn’t move my legs even though I was trying to. Sometimes I believed that I had actually paralysed myself. I wanted to call my mother to help me, but I was too scared. It could take me as much as an hour before I was able to move my legs again. Much later I understood that what I was doing was called self hypnosis.
I still indulge in hypnotic paralysis. It only takes me about a second now. I do it every morning after I wake up, before I transfer to my wheelchair. I love that first act of the day, with my legs completely floppy. It can still take several minutes for me to get out of the hypnosis.
So, when my head is immobilised in the brain imaging apparatus, I just go into that hypnotic paralysis. It works for my arms too. I can keep it up for hours. Another factor that facilitates me being a guinea pig is that, since my back injury, I can go for many hours without feeling a need to pee. What I’m not always good at is remembering that I can’t have any metal at all on me when my brain is being imaged. Sometimes I’ve had to have one of the guys (the gay one) assist me in that little magic trick of removing the bra through one’s shirt sleeve.
In order to pinpoint more accurately my brain areas that are being activated, it will be necessary to superimpose the images on an anatomic MRI. Our research project is low budget, funded internally by the university. We don’t yet have the funding approval for my MRI. However, I am looking forward to this. I can’t help but wonder if there will be anything odd about the right parietal lobe (which has been implicated in BIID). I have no medical training, so I won’t have a clue what to look for. I will ask the neuroanatomist on our research team. I can trust him to be discreet if I tell him about my BIID.
Tags: Back Injury, BIID, Brain Imaging, Hypnotic Paralysis, Paralysed, Right Parietal Lobe, Wheelchair
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6 Comments
Hello Chloe
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
I think it great that you have been able to share your personal “tools”.to work toward and help the greater good.
Your work sounds very interesting and perhaps it may lead to a better understanding of people with other conditions.
It is also always good to be able to practice the bra out of the sleeve trick! I haven’t done that in years :) :)
Thanks for the link, inVivo. It looks complicated. I’m glad you are anomalous though ;)
4 On 7 November, 2008, Abasios said:
There is a good chance that this winter I shall be having an MRI scan as a guinea pig in some medical research on speech and language. I hope to collect the MRI scan files to see if they point to any anomalies which could be the reason for my leg-brace BIID. If this happens is there anyone I can send these to?
5 On 7 November, 2008, Sean said:
Hi Abasios, Paul McGeoch at the University of California in San Diego would be the person to talk to, he’s the one working with Ramachandran. Email me directly if you wish to get contact details.
Yesterday we had a brain imaging team meeting over at the main hospital. None of them had seen my leg brace before, and they asked about it. It’s no big deal; didn’t make me at all uncomfortable.
Anyway, I had a nice talk with the professor of neuroanatomy about a recent journal article “Movement Intention After Parietal Cortex Stimulation in Humans”. I’ll quote a couple of lines from the abstract. “We used electrical stimulation in seven patients undergoing awake brain surgery. Stimulating the right inferior parietal regions triggered a strong intention and desire to move the contralateral hand, arm, or foot…” “When stimulation intensity was increased in parietal areas, participants believed they had really performed these movements, although no electromyographic activity was detected.” Interesting stuff, I thought. You can see it at http://www.sciencemag.org; May 8th issue.
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1 On 2 November, 2008, inVivo said:
I have more than one full scan, and a clearly visible anomality in the right parietal lobe.
There is a free software to learn brain anatomy, it comes with a normal MRI scan.
http://www.brainvoyager.com/BrainTutor.html
If you get scanned, ask for the DICOM files, there is a lot of free soft to reconstruct your head in 3d.