AAAAAhhhhhhhhhh

ahhhhhhh = a sigh
aaaahhhhhhh = stress
AAAHHHHHHHH = a scream
AAAAAhhhhhhhhhh = the baritone of a singing quartet


Anyway,

I wanted to make a *~BLOG POST~* (`･ω･´)~
because I got an incredibly high-detail MRI scan of my brain from TMS lab at Beth Israel in Boston. I'm participating in a study for them (Jack and his father were my in, obviously) and they need a pretty darn detailed 3D image of a brain if they're going to do TMS on someone.

So they gave me a copy on disc, and I downloaded some freeware application that reads this kind of file. It's awesome. Great for studying the brain for my anatomy final, too. And because they only did it for a good picture of my brain, it means it flesh renders to this:









Hahahahahahahaha
You can so tell that I was blinking.









it's a fully-rotatable and transverse-through-able picture of my head cut off just below the level of the hard palate.





Also, even better, is noticing that my face is all smushed up from the padding they put around my head to keep me still!




















I had two square cushions pushing into the sides of my head (see the ears/cheeks?) and a plastic bar touching my nose ever so slightly. The cheek thing is my favorite, definitely.





On to the good stuff!




There's an enormous amount of cool things to see in an MRI scan like this, but for the sake of practicality I'll just illustrate a few of my favorites.



1.
















You can see the turbinate bones in my nasal cavity! The turbinate bones help warm air as it's breathed in, as well as humidify and filter. They are one of the synapomorphies of Mammalia. Woohoo!



2.
















This program yet again proves its worth by including the ability to see a varying degree of averages of all the images taken. You can see the arteries in my neck! Jesus christ!



3.














This is crazy. This is about half way averaged of all the images. It's interesting to see the brain nestled comfortably into a head. Its natural habitat, and all that.



4.



















Right before cutting into the eyes, the dorsal rectus muscle that moves my eye is visible, as well as some nice blood vessels.



5.



















You can see the optic chiasm perfectly! Half of the signals from your left eye get sent down the left fork, and the other half goes down the right folk. Same goes for your right eye. The optic chiasm is the name for the place where they cross over.
Also, you begin to see some of the squishing effect of the pillows lol.



6.













Going a couple centimeters deeper, it's those arteries we saw before coming up from either side of my spinal cord and snaking between my cerebrum and cerebellum. I'm assuming they're the carodids, but I don't know the human circulatory system as well as I do the shark...




I wish there was a way to turn it all into a gif animation, but I don't know how I'd even begin. Oh well.




EDIT: I just figured out you can do 3D multilayer volume rendering!! Check out my cheek fat! Hahahahaha



















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Day 20 — A hobby of yours


This totally counts as a hobby.