Brain Imaging Study at MGH
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We would like you and your baby to join us in a research study at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Measuring the amount of oxygen in your baby's brain will help us develop a safe and inexpensive technique for monitoring the health of infants.

The study will not cause any additional risk to your baby, and will not interfere with any treatment or standard monitoring.

As a big thank you, your baby will take home one of the specially made t-shirts shown to the left. Wearing this shirt, he or she will be the envy of all the other babies in the neighborhood!

For more information, e-mail Maria Angela Franceschini, Ph.D., or call her at 617-726-4024.
Boston's WBUR recently sat down with our researchers to talk about the study. Listen to the segment here.

The optical system measures the amount of oxygen used by your baby's brain, as well as the blood volume in his or her brain. Studying babies at different ages will tell us how these parameters change over time, and how they vary in different regions of the brain.

Ultimately, we hope to be able to assess brain development based on these values.

Once we define the normal range at different ages we will be able to tell when these values aren't normal. In this way the system might allow us to screen for - and maybe even diagnose - certain brain injuries without having to move babies from their isolettes.

LITERATURE

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