Pediatric fMRI Interface
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI, is a technique for noninvasively mapping brain activity.
It works by using a strong magnetic coil to briefly magnetize hydrogen nuclei in the blood circulating in your brain, which then release a faint MR signal as they return to their normal nonmagnetized state. The MR signal is detected and converted into colorized brain images. Because increased brain lobe activity is correlated with increased blood flow to that lobe, fMRI can detect brain activity from minute differences in MR. [1]
images produced by a fMRI scan
The Gaab Lab
Dr. Nadine Gaab, head of the Gaab Lab at Boston Children's Hospital, uses fMRI to research developmental cognitive neuroscience, particularly:
What happens in our brains as we learn to read
How to diagnose dyslexia early on in order to intervene more effectively.
To participate in her studies, children are scanned with an fMRI while performing simple tasks and answering questions. To avoid head movement while answering questions, which impacts scan quality, input devices are used to select multiple choice answers. However, the input devices are designed for adults, and are often unwieldy or confusing for children to use.
In 2018, Dr. Gaab reached out to Alisha Sarang-Sieminski, the professor for Olin's Biomedical Device Design course. She asked our project team to develop a better pediatric fMRI input device.
A fake fMRI setup in the Gaab Lab used to familiarize children with the fMRI process.
Prototype
Our team conducted user studies with children of the target age group, which we used to design the relative dimensions, physical attributes, and form factor of the input device. We devised a completely nonmagnetic button design able to be manufactured for less than $200: a large improvement over the current market price of $1300-$3000 per input device.
This project was accepted to the IEEE 2018 Human Robot Interaction Conference (HRI 2018) Student Design Competition, but Boston Children's Hospital requested we withdraw due to pending patent considerations. [3]
Keeping the project description vague to avoid accidental public disclosure!
The rough nonmagnetic button design
The nonconfidential part of our prototype
Our team: Me, Mackenzie Frackleton, and Christian Lichter
Diagram of circuit transmitting and receiving from fiber optics
References
[1] “What Is Fmri?” Center for Functional MRI, UC San Diego Center for Functional MRI , http://fmri.ucsd.edu/Research/whatisfmri.html.