All posts tagged: imaging

MIT’s self-organizing laser revolutionizes 3D imaging of the brain’s protective barrier

MIT’s self-organizing laser revolutionizes 3D imaging of the brain’s protective barrier

Published by Jenni Sidey

At high power, laser light inside a multimode optical fiber is supposed to misbehave. The beam usually breaks into a noisy, scattered pattern as the light ricochets through many paths at once. But MIT researchers found a case where that expectation fails. Push the system close to its limit, line the beam up just right, and the optical mess can collapse into a tightly focused, self-organized “pencil beam.” That beam, the team reports, can do more than tidy up a physics problem. In experiments on a human model of the blood-brain barrier, it produced 3D images about 25 times faster than a standard approach. This was achieved while keeping similar cellular-level detail. The work appears in Nature Methods. “The common belief in the field is that if you crank up the power in this type of laser, the light will inevitably become chaotic. But we proved that this is not the case. We followed the evidence, embraced the uncertainty, and found a way to let the light organize itself into a novel solution for bioimaging,” …

New imaging uncovers hidden text in ancient Christian manuscript

New imaging uncovers hidden text in ancient Christian manuscript

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — An international research team has recovered 42 lost pages from Codex H, a sixth-century Greek New Testament manuscript of St. Paul’s letters, using multispectral imaging and carbon dating. The new discovery, led by Garrick Allen, a professor of divinity and biblical criticism at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, offers insight into how early Christians read and understood Scripture — and provides a point of connection for contemporary Christians. Monks annotated the letters of St. Paul with poems, prayers and reflections at the remote Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. Codex H is also one of the earliest-known examples of the Euthalian Apparatus, a system of chapter lists and headings to organize Paul’s letters, relied on long before the chapter and verse system used today.  “We mark up our own Bibles or make annotations or think about the complexities of these texts that were part of a much longer tradition of people who have been doing this same activity for 2,000 years,” Allen told RNS in an interview Monday (April 27), …

Inventor recalls eye imaging breakthrough

Inventor recalls eye imaging breakthrough

Published by skeptic

“It uses infrared light that’s barely visible compared to the bright flash of fundus photography [another common method of eye imaging] and provides a lot more information—three-dimensional rather than two-dimensional information—at higher resolution,” Huang says. The discovery earned him and his co-inventors slots in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2025 as well as the Lasker Award and the National Medals of Technology and Innovation in 2023. Huang didn’t expect to change the paradigm of eye imaging when he began studying electrical engineering as an undergraduate at MIT, but he was interested in using an engineering mindset to contribute to medical advancements. That, he thought, could be his way to follow in the footsteps of his father, who was a family practitioner.  OCT emerged from his work as an MD-PhD student in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. While studying ultrafast lasers at MIT under James Fujimoto ’79, SM ’81, PhD ’84, the Elihu Thomson Professor of Electrical Engineering, Huang was tasked with using the lasers to improve various ophthalmological tasks, including …

New imaging tool reveals how cancer reshapes the body’s energy use

New imaging tool reveals how cancer reshapes the body’s energy use

Published by Jenni Sidey

A small molecule inside your body quietly fuels life every day. It helps your cells turn fat into energy, keeping your heart beating and your muscles moving. Now, scientists have found a way to watch that process unfold in real time, offering a rare glimpse into how diseases like cancer reshape the body’s energy use. Researchers at King’s College London have developed a new imaging tool that tracks how cells use fats for fuel. Their work introduces a tracer that reveals how tumors and healthy tissues rely on a molecule called carnitine. Carnitine plays a simple but vital role. It carries fatty acids into the mitochondria, the part of the cell that produces energy. Without it, your body would struggle to use fat as fuel. Until now, scientists could not easily observe how this process works inside living organisms. “Using this novel tracer, we can look at carnitine metabolism in living subjects for the very first time,” said Professor Tim Witney, Professor of Molecular Imaging at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences. “Understanding …

New deep-UV pocket scope provides instant molecular imaging

New deep-UV pocket scope provides instant molecular imaging

Published by Jenni Sidey

Minutes matter when a surgeon is deciding how much tissue to remove. Yet for centuries, medical imaging has leaned on stains and dyes that take time and change what you are trying to study. During surgery, traditional staining can take 20 to 30 minutes, and that pause can slow decisions about tumor margins. In routine pathology, the wait often stretches longer because samples go through preparation steps that alter the very molecules under inspection. A new handheld device aims to change that rhythm. In a paper, researchers led by Professor Guoan Zheng at the University of Connecticut describe a deep-ultraviolet ptychographic pocket-scope called DART. The name is short, but the idea is sweeping. Instead of relying on dye binding, the device reads signals that already exist inside living material. “DART provides molecular information instantly, and because it’s based on intrinsic molecular properties rather than dye binding, the results are inherently quantitative and reproducible,” Zheng said. The system uses deep-ultraviolet light to measure how DNA and proteins naturally absorb specific wavelengths. That absorption becomes a direct, …

Apple’s Studio Display XDR Supports DICOM Medical Imaging for Diagnostic Radiology

Apple’s Studio Display XDR Supports DICOM Medical Imaging for Diagnostic Radiology

Published by skeptic

The new Studio Display XDR is designed for all kinds of professional work, and it is uniquely suited for use in the medical field. The Studio Display XDR supports DICOM medical imaging presets and a Medical Imaging Calibrator so it can be used for diagnostic radiology. Radiologists will be able to view images right on the Studio Display XDR without the need to use a single-purpose medical imaging display. There is a display mode switching option for transitioning from a standard viewing mode to a radiology viewing mode. Pricing on the Studio Display XDR starts at $3,299, and it is more affordable than many specialized medical imaging monitors. Apple says the Medical Imaging Calibrator that it created for the Studio Display XDR is pending FDA clearance and it should soon be available in the United States. According to Apple, its aim with the new functionality is to continue to improve technology available to the healthcare community to boost patient care. The Studio Display XDR also features a mini-LED backlight with 2,304 local dimming zones, 2000 …

Brain imaging provides insight into the biological roots of gambling addiction

Brain imaging provides insight into the biological roots of gambling addiction

Published by José Betancourt

A new doctoral dissertation from the University of Turku shows that gambling disorder is rooted in specific brain networks responsible for reward and self-control. The research indicates that people with this condition have measurable changes in how their brain regions communicate and process information. These findings suggest that the struggle to stop gambling is tied to biological shifts in the brain rather than a simple lack of willpower. Gambling disorder is currently recognized as the only behavioral addiction in major medical manuals. This classification reflects the many ways that problem gambling resembles addiction to alcohol or drugs. Albert Bellmunt Gil, a researcher at the University of Turku, led this work to better understand the internal mechanics of the condition. Many researchers focus on a specific circuit that connects the front of the brain to deeper centers for reward and information filtering. This pathway acts as a bridge between the parts of the brain that seek rewards and the parts that manage behavior. Most existing studies on this topic only look at one type of brain …