Can You Wear a MRI Scanner? How BCI May Replace MRI
You might be able to wear a MRI scanner in the not so far future as a BCI in the form of a LCD lined ski hat.
What if you could “see” directly into another person’s brain? The ability to read minds, referred to as telepathy, is yet another concept that’s abundant in science fiction.
Openwater has created a wearable prototype to enable scientists to see the inner workings of the body and brain at high resolution. Wearable MRI technology could be quite an asset in terms of disease diagnosis and treatment. It has the potential leapfrog current technology one day, because the it uses the brain to scan the body through LCD’s that are lined inside a piece of clothing. That’s a lot cheaper than a three million dollar MR Suite.
This is a type of BCI, or Brain Computer Interface. A BCI uses computer systems to translate human thoughts into machine commands. Bioengineers are interested in this type of technology, which has numerous applications.
Openwater is a technology startup based in San Francisco that was founded by Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen. She was an engineering executive at Facebook, Oculus, Google and Intel, and is the inventor of over 200 issued patents. She used to teach at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia.
At Sound Imaging, we also invent and engineer medical devices. Check out our line of MRI-safe accessories.