First wearable brain scanner to probe people with amazing gifts

Take a walk while I look inside your brain. Scientists have developed the first wearable PET scanner – allowing them to capture the inner workings of the brain while a person is on the move. The team plans to use it to investigate the exceptional talents of savants, such as perfect memory or exceptional mathematical skill.

All available techniques for scanning the deeper regions of our brains require a person to be perfectly still. This limits the kinds of activities we can observe the brain doing, but the new scanner will enable researchers to study brain behaviour in normal life, as well providing a better understanding of the tremors of Parkinson’s disease, and the effectiveness of treatments for stroke.

Bungee contraption

Positron emission tomography scanners track radioactive tracers, injected into the blood, that typically bind to glucose, the molecule that our cells use for energy. In this way, the scanners build 3D images of our bodies, enabling us to see which brain areas are particularly active, or where tumours are guzzling glucose in the body.

To adapt this technique for people who are moving around, Stan Majewski at West Virginia University in Morgantown and his colleagues have constructed a ring of 12 radiation detectors that can be placed around a person’s head. This scanner is attached to the ceiling by a bungee-cord contraption, so that the wearer doesn’t feel the extra weight of the scanner.

The team tried the technology on four people as they spoke and moved freely as they might during every day social interactions. The images produced were of similar quality to those from a traditional PET scanner, says team-member Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, who is also at West Virginia.

Brain in motion

The scanner works on lower doses of radioactive tracers than existing scanners, so a person could safely have many more scans using the device. The maximum number of conventional PET scans recommended per person is only one a year.

This could allow doctors to scan the brain several times during rehabilitation after a traumatic brain injury or stroke, for instance, revealing which treatment or dose works best and what is changing in the brain.

“No one’s ever really been able to study the brain in motion before to this extent,” says Brefczynski-Lewis. “We’re now seeing how low we can get the dose, and increasing the sensitivity of the scanner.” They plan to start scanning the brains of people with medical conditions in the next six months.

Hidden talents

The team is particularly interested in scanning the brains of people who have exceptional skills – such as autistic savants. “There are savants who are incredible artists or musicians. Then there are people who have a knock to the head in a bar fight who suddenly acquire perfect mathematical abilities,” says Brefczynski-Lewis.

Scanning the brains of such people while they perform their skills could help identify the areas responsible for such extraordinary talents.

“What part of the brain that isn’t normally accessed is flourishing in these people? And could we all have access to that?” says Brefczynski-Lewis. “Maybe by studying these people while they perform or draw, we could find a way to access these hidden talents in ourselves – without the bar fight.”

Journal reference: Brain and Behaviour, DOI: 10.1002/brb3.530