Dunedin Study staff using brains ahead of more tests

Dunedin Study data manager Antony Ambler holds a brain scan of a staff member involved in the cohort study. Photo: Stephen Jaquiery
Dunedin Study data manager Antony Ambler holds a brain scan of a staff member involved in the cohort study. Photo: Stephen Jaquiery
They might look like works of art, but the colourful images adorning the walls of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit are actually of the brains of staff members, a Dunedin Study researcher says.

The Dunedin Study is carrying out its first MRI imaging study of participants, and ran pilot scans on staff members and volunteers.

The multidisciplinary study has followed a cohort of 1037 children born at Queen Mary Maternity Hospital in 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, through their childhoods and into middle age.

Research manager Dr Sandhya Ramrakha said the colours visible in the photographs represented the direction the brain signals were travelling - going ''up, down, sideways and so forth''.

The imaging of staff members was done to make sure the testing process was in ''tip-top shape'', and the brain scanning had been planned for a decade, she said.

Nearly 80% of the Dunedin Study participants had completed the latest round of testing, which began in August 2016 and will finish in December.

The scans would be used in conjunction with data already gathered.

What researchers were interested in was people's reactions to different life experiences, how parts of the brain were connected to the body's functioning. Also, how brain functioning was connected to ageing, Dr Ramrakha said.

Researchers were looking at how the brain functioned when people were asked to do different tasks - for instance tasks related to memory, motivation, and self-control.

The research was being done with collaborators from Duke University in North Carolina.

Dunedin Study participants have been tested at intervals throughout their childhood, adolescence and adulthood, with the latest round of testing being conducted on them when they were 45 years old.

elena.mcphee@odt.co.nz

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