Virtual Reality 3D Brain Helps in Understanding Migraine Pain
Researchers at University of Michigan rotate and slice through a large, floating hologram-like 3D brain to learn how our brains produce natural pain killing chemicals during migraine attacks. The 3D brain is a novel way to examine data from images taken during a patient's actual migraine attack, says Alexandre DaSilva, who heads the Headache and Orofacial Pain Effort at the UM School of Dentistry and the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute. Different colors in the 3D brain give clues about chemical processes happening during a patient's migraine attack using a PET scan, or positron emission tomography, a type of medical imaging.