Posts by author:

Aziz

research money well spent

by Aziz on March 11, 2007

in fMRI

news flash: emotions sometime trump rational thought! Shocking, I know. Though I was intrigued at how the fMRI paradigm in this case provides a neat empirical example for why prisoner’s dilemma models don’t translate well into real-world practice:
A classic economic example is the “ultimatum game,” in which one participant gets 10 $1 bills (or loonies, [...]

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The Lamp Post Rule

by Aziz on March 9, 2007

in Science

Matt McIntosh, writing at Gene Expression, proposes The Lamp Post rule for discussions of science and science policy. Simply stated, “All arguments conducted in a state of relative ignorance must be algebraic.” Head over to GNXP for details.

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The Scientist has released the results of its annual poll and the verdict: MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston ranks highest, followed by the J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco and the Environmental Protection Agency in the Research Triangle Park. Via Ars,
The most important criteria identified in the survey were access to training [...]

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PET and MRI

by Aziz on March 7, 2007

in Imaging

An editorial in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine (J Nucl Med. 2007 Mar;48(3):331. PMID: 17332606) argues that combination PET/MRI systems are the future and will supplant PET/CT:
In a number of ways, the path to PET/MRI has been reverse of that to PET/CT. The first PET/CT design emerged from industry–academia collaboration and was a prototype for [...]

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GE issues warnings about Omniscan

by Aziz on February 20, 2007

in Safety

The following just came out over the SMRT mailing list:
Vendor issues new warning on Omniscan MR contrast for patients with kidney disease
GE Healthcare warned European providers Feb. 7 to discontinue the use of gadodiamide (Omniscan) for patients who may be at risk for a rare and life-threatening skin disease.
read the rest of the press [...]

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MRI-compatible pacemaker

by Aziz on February 15, 2007

in Cardiac

via MedGadget,
Medtronic began the evaluation of its EnRhythm® MRI SureScan™ pacer, a technology designed for safe use in MRI machines, “under specified scanning conditions.” The company did not disclose what these specified scanning conditions are.
There’s a copy of the press release, too. I assume that certain kinds of scans are off-limits, like diffusion imaging. [...]

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2007 may be a big year, at least according to industry spokespeople:
Low-cost MRI machines, super-fast Internet routers, and high-capacity power lines top the list of likely breakthroughs in the field of superconductivity in 2007, according to a ‘Top-10′ forecast list released today by Elie K. Track, Ph.D., senior partner, HYPRES Inc., a leading developer of [...]

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MRI of neonates

by Aziz on February 12, 2007

in Clinical

Philip Gordon, M.D. is a neonatologist whose blog, Tales from the Womb, occasionally touches on MRI-related topics. He has a recent post about the trouble with MRI in neonatology that is well worth reading. He takes issue with the emerging practice of attempting to use MRI to predict neuro-developmental outcomes in preterm infants, pointing to [...]

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from the AP wire: Significant inventors honored Thursday on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inventors of the MRI, the Ethernet, the LP record and a popular weedkiller are among 18 people picked for induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
The 2007 class of inductees was to be announced at an event Thursday on Capitol [...]

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Revising MRI

by Aziz on February 11, 2007

in Links

RefScan is hardly the only MRI-geek website out there; another great one is Revise MRI, by Dave Higgins Ph.D. It’s primarily an educational resource, but there’s also a blog (Revising MRI) which has a broader scope. There’s even a discussion forum where people can ask MRI physics questions.
Some examples of cool posts on the [...]

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