Portable Brain Scanner to Save Premature Babies

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at UCL (University College London) are developing a portable brain scanner which could help save the lives of premature and newborn babies in intensive care by avoiding to move them to conventional scanning facilities. A current prototype combines the advantages of both magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. It uses optical tomography to generate images showing how the brain is working and a new generation should be ready by 2008 and such scanners should be commercially available shortly after."

Comments

Re:According to the pro-abortion left,

[Anonymous Coward]

It said premature and newborn babies, not unborn. I know it's too much to expect for you to actually read the article, but is just reading the summary too strenuous for your miniature intellect?

Sorry it's no real MRI

[DrYak]

Problem is : it's not a real MRI. A portative MRI would be a REAL public danger because it has to generate ultra-strong magnetic fields to function properly.

This is just a bunch of lasers shining light through their target.
It only works on newborns' head because :
- Their skull is thin on most places and even un-fused in some places : light can easily go in.
- Their head is small so that the laser travels a short path and isn't absorbed that much and therefor still caries useful information when going out.

It's unusable for knees because they're to big and the bone is WAY to thick (one of the thickest. Remember : it has to support your body's weight).