Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, wrote an important article for Wired Magazine in 2010 about the effect that our modern culture of distraction--specifically the Internet--is having on our brains. "When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning," [...]
Depression can have negative effects on the people who suffer from it, effects that are so far-reaching that they take a toll on their loved ones as well. While much progress has been made in recent years to lift the stigma of the disease in society's eyes, researchers--though they have made progress--are still unsure what [...]
Ubiquitous as Facebook has become, it still feels somewhat jarring when a new MRI study is published about its possible effects on the brain. Is Facebook so all-important that medical research studies about it are now necessary? Truly though, what started out as a photo-sharing website for university students has pervaded into nearly every aspect [...]
Long has it been rumored that playing Mozart for your infant will aid in their brain development. Now, the results of a trio of MRI studies claim that musical education--especially when embarked upon at a young age--shapes and strengthens the brain for the better. According to the study, beginning a musical education before the age [...]
As the National Post announced in an October 30 article, "Ontario recently became the first jurisdiction in Canada to begin using imaging machines designed to diagnose the living as a tool to uncover the medical secrets of the dead." Morbid though it may sound, there are indeed benefits to using medical imaging methods such as [...]
On October 8, the Vancouver Sun published an article reporting that a UBC-led study had cast doubt on an unproven medical theory called Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency, or CCSVI, which claims that constricted veins in the neck are the cause of Multiple Sclerosis. The article, like the study and theory that preceded it, is controversial: there is [...]
In an article published in the Globe and Mail last week, national president and CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society, Pamela Fralick, discussed the two biggest issues prevalent to treating cancer in Canada. The first issue addressed was the huge economic impact the disease has on society. Fralick writes, "In 2000, cancer cost $2.6-billion in [...]
Please see last week's post for the first half of this blog. In addition to outlining Whole Body DWI, Attariwala and Picker outline DWI applications for the following areas of the body: neck, lung, breast, genitourinary, gynecologic applications, esophagus, stomach, bowel, pancreas and liver. The article states that DWI in routine imaging of singular body [...]
Last week we announced the publication of Dr. Attariwala's and Wayne's article in the Journal of MRI. This week, let's take a look at their discoveries, and how they may be applied to diagnostic medicine to advance the state of the art for patients' best interests. In the article, authors Attariwala and Picker share their [...]
AIM Medical Imaging wishes to congratulate Dr. Raj Attariwala and Wayne Picker on the publication of their invited review article Whole Body MRI: Improved Lesion Detection and Characterization With Diffusion Weighted Techniques, published August 19, 2013 in the Journal of MRI. Now, patients, radiologists and the public can access the article in order to see for themselves [...]