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What you’ll hear in this episode:

• How MRIs work and why they are so integral to medical research and diagnostics
• How Dr. Rauscher’s work has contributed to our understanding of concussions, comatose patients, MS, and more 
• The importance of enjoying where you live in addition to where you work

There is something inherently interesting about studying the human brain, and when it comes to Dr. Alexander Rauscher’s work, this research is life changing as well. Currently Associate Professor and Researcher in Developmental Neuroimaging at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Rauscher’s education is rooted in engineering and physics, manifesting in a career centered around neuroimaging.

He mostly works with magnetic resonance imaging, otherwise known as the MRI. Dr. Rauscher explains that in the same way a smartphone is optimized through apps, scientists create programs and develop techniques to utilize MRI technology for specific purposes that can be applied to medical research. 

An MRI creates a strong magnetic field that the patient enters. The scanner then translates the magnetized body into structural and functional images. For example, MRIs are able to map and measure brain activity by tracking the oxygen content in someone’s blood. Because magnetization is not harmful to humans, a person can be scanned many times, which proves invaluable in tracking the progression of diseases and comparing brain activity over time. A big part of his work is in programming the MRI scanner and developing new insightful and efficient ways to optimize the use of the MRI scanner in service of research goals. 

Dr. Rauscher’s work has been applied to concussion research, developing a method of locating a concussion on a scan, scanning the entire brain efficiently, and measuring myelin in the brain. For a long time, scans could not capture any evidence of a concussion, so Dr. Rauscher’s research has revolutionized our understanding of this brain injury, helping doctors understand how long it takes for a concussion to heal as well as giving them the ability to locate and assess the impact a concussion has on the brain in the first place. His work has also been applied to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) research and to develop effective treatments for premature babies. 

Dr. Rauscher shares a fascinating study from his career about how MRIs confirmed that unresponsive, comatose patients may still have consciousness. Wondering if patients in comas could hear and were just unable to respond, researchers assigned a “yes” and “no” value to two distinct thought patterns that produced different activity on MRI scans. The research subjects were asked a question and if the answer was “yes,” they were supposed to imagine themselves walking through their house; if the answer was “no,” they were asked to imagine themselves playing tennis. The patients’ MRI scans revealed brain activity in keeping with the “responses” the researchers asked them to think, and the responses were consistent and accurate, suggesting that our brains can talk even if we can not.

Dr. Rauscher encourages anyone who is contemplating multiple career paths to understand that your environment – the city you live in, and the recreation you’re able to do where you live – will impact your work life. He explains that many of his best ideas came to him outside of the workplace, at the pub or while he was hiking or skiing – activities he can do in his city. Liking where you live and where you work will spark creativity and make you a more productive person in and out of the workplace. 

Listen to the full episode for more fascinating details about how our brains work and how people like Dr. Rauscher are helping us understand them better so that we can stay healthy and combat injury and disease. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share rinaLAB with a friend! 

rinaLAB is a founding_media podcast created in partnership with OST Austria.

Host: Dan Dillard

Guest: Alexander Rauscher

Transcript:

welcome back to the rinalab podcast a show that explores the science and the people behind the research and innovation network Austria also known as Reno this week we’re going to go deep inside the mind or at least will be looking into what our brains can tell us with doctor Alexander Russia Alexander is an associate professor at the university of British Columbia and has done research on the brain behavior and development specifically around how we can use advanced injury of the brain to better understand new developmental disorders I’ll let him tell you more about his work and what he’s researching now today we have a special guest Alexander rusher correct this to the right yes it is cool we’ve been having a really good conversation and very very interesting stuff on your field of expertise do you wanna tell the audience what it is that you do so my my training is in engineering physics from the technical university in Vienna and my mas’s degree I became interested in for my masters thesis I’ve found that the medical imaging will be interesting so I started to work in the field of magnetic resonance imaging or MRI back in Vienna started a of monsters project there okay a summer project actually in the beginning and then it became a monsters and then it became a PhD thesis even which I did partly in the end up with animals move to Germany

and then soon after finishing my PhD a move to Canada to Vancouver doing mainly brain imaging referred the MRI techniques that I’m trying to develop yeah I eat one of the things that I found fascinating is and I’d love for you to explain this to the audience how does MRI work so it’s a strong magnet many thousand times stronger than the earth’s magnetic field and then you put biological tissues such as a human insight that field the the mac that the body gets slightly magnetized these not so strong that the person would feel it but the sensitive cannot technology is able to detect any change in that mechanization and then the scanner manipulates of magnetization on purpose in veil defined way and the response of the body to this McNamee pollution content manipulation can then be translated imagers structural images for those of functional images images off composition of the borders of like certain chemicals in the brain can be measured and they can change we have disease for example or we can measure brain activation by a changes in the oxygen content of plot when that happens when certain brain errors are active to two sinking into neurons fire they need oxygen and the oxygen is supplied by the blocked as a bit of an over compensation of that oxygen consumption and that leads to a change in the MRI signaling can be detected and then map the make of maps of brain activation for example we can get maps of how the brain is wired we can measure the diffusion of water on its diffuses more easily along inner fibers they can be then translated in the east many people have probably seen them these beautiful maps of a colorful maps of fibers in the brain that connect different areas of the brain

moon princess literally of using your own water is it within your body right magnetized and yellow of how does that compare and I think you mention this little earlier but has a compare like X. ray in some of the other things that are used to look within the body yeah so the nice thing is that the radiation is harmless so the radiation of comes off of our cell phones are goes into a cell phones radios so it’s the same kind of frequency which is a frequency range that doesn’t deposit much energy is minimal it doesn’t do any ionizing stuff with the with the tissue like X. ray or a CT scanners and so on which is nice because we can scan people again and again I give we if you want to follow someone over a month every day we could scan this person see what happens in the in the body US over months and a lot of very interesting research has been done in the progression of certain diseases in the brain for example multiple sclerosis MRI has taught us a lot how the disease evolves into these bursts of tissue damage the common goal but over time accumulate in such things and that’s only possible because we’re able to put these people into the MRI scanner again and again without harming them because the radiation is harness miss west next raise that short pulses and you don’t know from one to the very high right yeah so there’s a certain does to people can get and Danish should be avoided to give more right right scans so the kind of work that you’re doing now with him or ice you were talking about how a more eyes as they come out they have a certain function but you’re able to work with the engineering to change and to develop apps worker right the addictive visit basically like a smart phones you get the hardware from the manufacturer he comes with apps with scans but there’s a research institution we have we have access to the kind of programming environment of the scan is we can do things with the machine that you can normally comes to me can try different ways of of manipulating it’s just a softer of this kinda in a some half educated weight is a lot of trial error if an error of course but so after some you know months and years of research wrong

sometimes ends up with a useful scan and is able to map something that we haven’t been able to map before and if you really successful these kinds than get picked up by the manufacturer has become a a product on the machines and then run all over the world so that’s kind of the and that’s that has really impact right and that’s the kind of the thing we want to see happening that the two would be create the runs on five thousand MRI scanner something within those numerous can as a benefits everyone one of the things that I found fascinating our discussion of a little while ago is that the brain can talk you can win a human can’t and so explain how people with commas have been able to communicate with people with with the outside world yeah so that’s very exciting research has been going on for a I think ten years or so this guy’s name is Adrian when he was in Oxford Billy for these also nine Canada and so they have put people in the Comoro minimally conscious state into the MRI scans of the did not respond to anything to there was no knowing direction right so and there was no sign of that they would possibly could possibly hear anything or so up box there was a suspicion that some of these people might be able to hear what they are being asked for example but the country’s bond and then the idea was to keep we need to find a way of getting them functional MRI signal it is very clear for the so yes for example in the another way of getting the brain activity that that so that it creates a pattern that the memorize cannot then interprets as a no so that all these people to think of navigating through the house for the one answer and for the other announcer of the ever talked to say think off imagining that the rippling tennis this leads to two very distinct tons of brain activation and so when they asked the people something right the is your brother’s name Bob and the answer is yes and they think of navigating through the house of believe in this case that Patton would be easily easily interpreted as such an okay this looks like a yes and then the roster other things and then you know it’s not a large number of people but some of these patients of gave consistent on so sent it they always give the right answers of this company a coincidence or ten times in a row that the correct answer to stuff that only they could no more into the into the roof fifties people want someone a few of them very able to like the prospect of consciousness based on the information that there was still some consciousness left right well that’s a that’s quite an exciting also creates a lot of very interesting ethical questions of course on how you interact with these people very interesting I’d like to talk about some of the work that you’ve done on concussions and some of that we were discussing the the hell that science works with in the morning right so that’s off basically kind of a by product of our efforts to create new MRI scans to chill things that we haven’t been able to see before

to show things with greater and greater detail about a sensitivity and in concussion which is also called a might dramatic brain injury there is kind of defined almost as as an injury did you Consiglio conventional MRI scan or CT scan or anything no this does not obvious signs of injury and our thought was well we had a scan that was very sensitive to window if there was bleeding in the brain we’ve just training pretty it’s normal scans can see the most cities cannot come see them at all the thought was maybe there are some tiny believes in the brain’s evening concussion which will change the definition of a concussion right so obviously there is now some sign of injury if you can detect it so we thought this was just on the detection threshold and so then the ideal was keeping how do we do this with the ideal thing would be to compare a brain pre injury and post injury to see this whether there’s a difference but obviously can’t get people on the head right so we had to work with a group of people have a very high risk of having a brain injury and kind of the talking players okay in the US it will be football players they even have a higher risk and so we just scanned for trust the big big thing we were able to scan forty five hokey players before in the hockey season and then we waited for the injuries to happen in the never brought back into the Amorites kinda three days off to two weeks off than two months after that we could look at the brain it’s a it’s a good injured between but the the bass lines can the before injuries can at the after injuries can and also vetted recovered over the time period of two weeks up to two months and this is using the new technology as a developing right before it so like you the William Morris works was just a very thin layer of the brain and he did yeah correct so we had that once can it’s also hold brains came with the V. managed to make it more sensitive than the previous versions that’s the one for the money for the parties in the brain and there’s another scan it was actually developed in Vancouver that is able to measure my island in the brain the violinist at insulating sheath that goes around the the nerve fibers it’s damaged the signal along the nerve fibers travel slower and that leads to neurological impairments so the big thing in multiple sclerosis where people have the myelin sheath destroyed due to the season in certain areas and the brain

so second battle wires in your computer right yeah so this the insulation is to be maintained and is to be hopefully repaired if it’s damaged and and the and this I had the suspicion that if this if this can until then it only existed as you see it as a as one slice can we got a thing slice of five millimeters that was useful for multiple sclerosis because of a difference can you could look at where the injury is and then we if this quantity is can we could go in and put that’s kind should that that thing slice there and just look at the degree of injury which is a different things I something is damaged is relatively easy there’s a lot of scans the control that but the degree of damage and Demeter nature of damage is is a different things of that that understanding that better a lot of effort goes into quantity finishing with MRI currently and we managed to make this can much faster than we could US can the whole brain within a reasonable time and that’s very important in concussion because people get hit some hall the fall some phone onto the ice in ice hockey and each injury is different we don’t know where exactly the brain engine is injured so we need to scan the whole brain got a bit of an idea what’s going on so we tried that scan and some people say you’re not going to see anything it’s a mild injury right it’s just a concussion how can you possibly see some things we tried and we did see that when we ever reach across these eleven concussed players that they did have an injury still after two weeks off of their concussion that’s important because these people really felt fine so the brain is able to work around that area of damage no and people have no symptoms anymore and they can go back to playing hockey to date they’ve back to normal activity but the brain still injured so by definition as concussion there was no testing up to this point

and so as long as a person feel fine is the doctor released go back to play they could go back to play and the overlap with the risk of overlapping injuries so when the brain hasn’t healed yet is this a pretty serious so that people can go into some it’s called post concussive syndrome I did want to recover for months and if it’s a ice hockey player who’s going to university and it’s like you know in the past them and the grades become poorer rent and if you can’t can have life changing yeah but effects because in the end the final exam to don’t do as well as the wanted to a could have so it’s so it’s it can be serious and even though they might recover within a few months or so now so this could put them into a completely different subject re flick at university for example right so this this is super important work because now you’re like well you can actually see that the bridge so damage to have them delay going back to playing wrist the second injury right but only so I got the current stage only when we we know now that they’re still injury when they’re already covered and that’s the only only know that from ever reaching across those ten or eleven ice hockey players so in a put in into individual into this kind that I can still Kansi I can still make a reliable well one could do not make a reliable diagnoses that this brain is injured because that the injury still so minor or of the sensitivity of the scan let’s say he’s not good enough to see something about one person we had to ever reach across does eleven concussed hockey players and we have to have the data before the injury yeah so professional athletes that might work I think maybe fall they get their scan them in day have an injury to going to the scanner and people can look okay the other something different trying to run from with regular people might have some you know some some mild brain injury

we come to the right but the knowledge is very important because it informs so that we can through the study is very important because it informs doctors and they can see yes okay you feel fine but research has shown that you should add another week of of taking a break and then you can go back because we know that even though you feel find your brain is still injured and it takes on that because two or something one to heal well pretty incredible I want to talk about many of our listeners or perhaps even considering going into similar work that you’ve done or considering various paths along your path can you explain how you know you made choices to kind of get where your yeah my choices were not really driven by science okay well the first choice was and was in Vienna and then I got this offer from unit which is in Germany by a person who was involved in the invention of a new scam and I found it very exciting today I could have to go there was because this was it was a bit scary

I did not think of us you know this could devote the school can become really difficult to rent but in the end it didn’t think we did some good work if the person and then I got this offer from Vancouver and I wasn’t really on my map of what’s going on in the world take me to an older was erected knew that there was an array research going on but it wasn’t in my field but of course I knew that there’s good skiing and already had our man I forgot the most important thing I already had a girlfriend from kind of the there so she lived in Europe for a long time and so we were we were ready to go to kind of their Z. did some between and and also in Germany and so it was time for me not to go in Vancouver is a nice place with easy was easy for both of us to to move to Vancouver but that was mainly because of the city being nice and the surroundings be nice this outdoors stuff in skiing is also the kind of was the driving a force behind the decision and then things turned out to be working very well right and if if if it’s a place that you like then it’s it helps the brain to get up come up with good ideas and be creative yeah if you go to work and it’s frustrating right then no good ideas might happen so I think that that was in that sense it’s a good decision to go to a place for instance in the ways stimulating it doesn’t have to be necessarily scientifically stimulating yeah but it helps of course as well I thought that was so interesting because at the end of the day it’s follow your passion and and and be happy right and so the here you were looking at this area and this is a beautiful place I can be happy

and you mentioned earlier that a lot of your ideas actually don’t happen on the at the desk they happen out and the other one good if you happen to at the pump and the thought of a few other ones happened on like right back country skiing or hiking as soon as we have like an hour or two of you know walking up some mountain and thinking about stuff so I can think of for think there was two or three ideas and ideas a big thing if it’s a useful idea I have many ideas of course many of them on a useful and then returns all pretty quickly but some of the useful ideas yeah happened away from my desk that’s awesome zoom zoom woods and just festooned didn’t understand MRI eyes and and the work that you’re doing on top of what MRI does is is is completely fasting work arm will thank you very much for being with us today really enjoyed the conversation and will the next time the risks from concussions are not going anywhere anytime soon but hopefully Alex in his team will be able to continue the research and find new ways to make it easier to treat thank you Alexander Fratellis about your work and help even in science it is important to find a good work life the real a podcast includes me Vandalur producer Mariah Gosset an audio engineer J. Wallace special thanks to robin Tim vice and the amazing team at research and innovation network Austria if you have been enjoying the show make sure to subscribe and maybe he was a five star review to help other science fans discover a podcast we have one more pressing the conversation to share next week thanks for listening