Intelligence Theories

At number three on my list is a device in whose story I or rather my rabbit Wilhelmina played here by an actor had a starring role. Well a role anyway. I met some physics friends in the bar having a beer one evening and they said "We've just built this machine with lots of wire "and string and ceiling wax and an old television screen "and it's called a Magnetic Resonance Image machine "and would you like to put your rabbit in it?" So we went down to the sub-basement of Hammersmith Hospital and we put Wilhelmina gently into the machine. I was a bit worried about it and then after minutes of cooking we got a photograph and it looked a bit like this. Just a blur. And I didn't have the sense to realise that this was going to be quite revolutionary in its time. I think my pet rabbit was one of the first living organisms to be photographed like this. And the technology which was then in its infancy went on to become the MRI scanner. For much of my career in medicine X-rays were the most effective way of looking inside the human body. But they didn't give a particularly clear image of all the organs beyond our bones. MRI scanning changed all that. Engineers first used MRI to look inside metals. Now we're able see directly into living tissues and that's given amazing

 new insights into the most complicated organ in the human body. I find it really rather humbling that this space this inanimate object this brain was once the place where somebody felt angry felt sad and loved. And the extraordinary thing is that until quite recently we had no idea how it was really working. Exciting research at the University of Cambridge is using the MRI scanner to see how the mind works. Robert hello. Nice to see you. In the scanner next door is a willing volunteer I've never met. I want you to face this way. And not to look in the window? So I can't see your subject. By asking some simple yes or no questions I'm going to try to find out a bit about him. Or her. If the person in the scanner is trying to convey a yes you'll see a bright red area of activity around his pre-motor cortex right at the top in the middle of the head. If the person in the scanner is trying to convey a no you'll see the same area of the brain lighting up but it will be a blue-green colour. Are you a man? There you go. I'm pretty confident this person is conveying a yes at this stage. Are you over six foot high? He's now got a green area so this is signalling a no answer which would mean that actually this man is shorter than six foot. We can't actually see the brain think yes or no. That would be too difficult even for an MRI machine. What our volunteer was asked to do was to imagine playing tennis when he wants to say yes and when he does the area of the brain which deals with movement his motor cortex shows increased activity and that is easy for the MRI to see. And this is our last question. Do you have facial hair? Again pretty obvious activation. I would say that this guy's either got a beard or a moustache. Hi! Thank you so much. I'm Robert Winston. You're certainly not six-foot high we got that right. One recent study using this technique has given us an insight into communication with some patients in what was thought to be a permanent vegetative state. We've seen a patient recently who'd actually been in that situation for five years and he was able to use this technique to convey yes and no responses.
It's certainly not the case for all patients but we now know there are a sub-group of these patients who probably can do more than we think they can. It's quite scary isn't it? Do you not find that really quite amazing but also very on the edge of our humanity? It is and it is something that many people find quite difficult to think about the idea that you could be trapped inside your body and unable to communicate. Hopefully we've found a way where some of these patients can get around that issue. Essentially what you're measuring is changes in blood flow. We're looking at the areas of the brain that are working hardest. They're drawing blood which is delivering oxygen and that's what we're measuring. I couldn't look at somebody with this machine and say "He thinks I am a complete moron." No that might be true but at least you won't know that. Undoubtedly the MRI machine has been the most important way of seeing how our brain works. And that alone qualifies it as one of the most significant advances in the last years. But what really makes it stand out for me is its extraordinary ability to transform lives through its use in medicine. -year-old Elyse Westrip has had severe epilepsy since she was . MRI scans have recently revealed that the seizures are due to a brain tumour. This bright area here is the area that is abnormal. What we need to do now is determine how close that area to be removed is to parts that carry out vital functions. Though it's been decided that the tumour can be removed the bad news is that it's dangerously close to her optic nerve. The operation carries the risk of partial blindness. But for Elyse it's a risk worth taking. I'm trying to forget the risks and just think positive the good things about having the surgery. I feel I'm going to get better. I can change my life back to how it was before. The epilepsy got so bad I decided to leave school early because I couldn't cope any more. I just got upset a lot that I was different. It did change my life a lot.