Psychological and medical research at the university has access to a new piece of large-scale equipment: The new magnetic resonance tomograph at the School V - School of Medicine and Health Sciences is being used for the first time for a study on the effect of chronic pain on numerical reasoning.
Does the structure of the brain change in chronic pain patients? Do they therefore assess numbers differently - also in relation to each other - than pain-free patients? Does this mean that medicine may need to rethink the numerical scale commonly used to describe pain levels? The University Clinic for Anaesthesiology / Intensive Care Medicine / Emergency Medicine / Pain Therapy at Oldenburg Hospital is investigating these questions in co-operation with the university's Biological Psychology working group headed by Prof. Dr Christiane Thiel.
They are using the method of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to analyse the structure of various brain regions and their connections in 40 pain patients and 40 control subjects. MRI (also known as magnetic resonance imaging) is based on the magnetisability of hydrogen molecules. The device measures the signals of these molecules - which vary depending on the type of tissue or composition - using magnetic fields and radio waves in order to obtain an image of the structure of different parts of the body, such as the brain.
The university's high-resolution MRI scanner has a magnetic field of 3 Tesla. At the heart of the device is an electromagnet weighing several tonnes and cooled with helium, with a tubular opening 60 centimetres in diameter into which the patient couch is inserted.
The scientists can use the MRI method to analyse not only the structure but also the functioning of the brain. They are focussing on the oxygen saturation of the blood, which changes in the currently active regions of the brain. "With this methodological approach, we want to analyse, for example, whether and how hearing loss changes the way the brain functions," says Thiel, one of the lead researchers in the Hearing4all cluster of excellence. For the cluster, the MRI scanner is a central research instrument for the brain structures involved in hearing. In addition to hearing research, cognitive neuroscience studies on attention, learning and memory are also planned.
The resulting co-operation between clinics and the university is a big plus. "Both sides benefit from each other," emphasises Thiel. As a scientist, she has access to patients who are interesting for certain questions. In return, the natural scientists offer the clinicians their methodological knowledge for data collection and analysis. "The co-operation goes hand in hand," praises Dr Carsten Bantel, pain expert and senior physician at the University Clinic for Anaesthesiology and Pain Therapy. "The willingness to collaborate between the natural sciences and clinical disciplines in Oldenburg is also excellent from my perspective."
"Answering such important clinical and basic scientific questions with the help of new devices such as MRI is exactly what the founding of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Oldenburg was intended to achieve," says its Dean Prof Dr Gregor Theilmeier. "We are therefore very pleased that such studies can now be carried out." The costs for the new device amount to more than two million euros, roughly half of which was covered by federal and state funds.