What to expect when participating in an fMRI study at MIT
Date Posted:
November 28, 2022
Date Recorded:
November 28, 2022
Description:
For adult studies using visual stimuli only (ie no earphone use).
RESENTER: Hi. We are very excited to have you participate in our study. We have recorded this video to make sure your scan session goes smoothly and you know what to expect. The scan will take place at MIT building 46. The street address is 43 Vassar street, but you should enter through the Main Street entrance. You can identify the building because of the big sculpture that you see in the background. The entrance says McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
Welcome to MIT'S fMRI Research Building. You will meet a researcher here who will bring you into the waiting room for the scanner. In the waiting area, you will be given some scrubs and disposable socks to change into before the scan. As well as changing into scrubs, it is important to remove all metal objects from your body. This includes jewelry and even most bras as they contain under wires made from metal.
Each bathroom has two lockers to store all of your valuables. You simply put all your stuff in one of these lockers, shut the door, and take the keys with you. Don't forget to also use this time to use the bathroom as well. You want to be as comfortable as possible before you start.
[TOILET FLUSHING]
After getting changed into scrubs, you can hand the key to the experimenter, who will in turn give you MRI compatible glasses, if you need them. This way, you will be all metal free. Then you will be taken over to this machine to check you for any metals. You will be asked to stand in the circle and do a couple turns within that circle. If you have any metal on you, the machine will light up in red.
Next, to double check you don't have any metal, we will be doing another metal detector manually. Please bring your arms up so we can check our entire body. In the unlikely scenario that you still have any metal on you, the machine will turn red. Please hand in any metal you have. If everything looks good, we will head into the scanning room.
The scanner is very loud, so we will provide you with earplugs. We will also give you two ear protectors to muffle the sound and help keep your head still while in the scanner. Place them next to your ears and lie down in the scanner.
For some tasks, you will need to respond. Please hold the response device using your middle and index fingers. The button on your left is one. The button on your right is two. You will also be provided with an emergency squeeze ball. When a scan is in progress, we can't hear you because the machine is very loud.
During a scan, squeeze this ball if you feel discomfort or need to stop the scan. We will do so and talk to you. You will be given the option to use a leg rest and/or a sheet. We want you to feel comfortable and cozy, but be aware of feeling too cozy. We need you to be paying attention to the tasks and not fall asleep.
Once you are all set, we will place the head coil, which may be snug. The head coil receives the pictures being taken of your brain, which is why it sits very closely around your head. Now you are ready to go up. The next step is to align you with the scanner. We use a laser for this purpose, so you will have to close your eyes. This will only take a couple of seconds and the researcher will let you know when you can open them again.
Lastly, we will place a mirror over the head coil so that you are able to see the stimuli. You are now ready to be sent into the scanner. Between each task, we will talk to you from the outside about these tasks and to check in to make sure you are doing OK.
In the scanner, we will be doing several different tasks. The first scan will be a five minute imaging task, where we are taking high resolution images of your brain. Because we are taking images of millimeter sized sections of your brain at a time, it is really important to stay very still. Any movement will create a distortion in the image.
We hope you have a great experience participating in our study and we look forward to meeting you.
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