{"id":42467,"date":"2025-09-04T06:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T06:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/42467\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T06:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T06:16:08","slug":"new-wearable-brain-scanner-at-tcd-will-be-able-to-detect-earliest-signs-of-epilepsy-dementia-and-adhd-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/42467\/","title":{"rendered":"New wearable brain scanner at TCD will be able to detect earliest signs of epilepsy, dementia and ADHD \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u20ac2 million wearable brain scanner capable of picking up the earliest signs of epilepsy, dementia<\/a> and ADHD<\/a> has arrived at Trinity College Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanner \u2013 which resembles a cycling helmet punctuated with microchips \u2013 is better than MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, because users do not have to stay motionless as it works. <\/p>\n

It is superior too to the EEG (electroencephalography) scans used to detect electrical signals from the brain, because, unlike EEG, the magnetic fields MEG scanners pick up are not impeded by the skull.<\/p>\n

Prof Redmond O\u2019Connell, director of the new MEG system, described it as \u201cthe most important breakthrough in human brain imaging in the last two decades\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new OPM-MEG system here in Trinity will provide scientists with unique information about the timing and location of brain activity,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The TCD system allows voluntary participants to be seated comfortably in a chair as experiments take place, or to move around freely in ways that are more typical of our daily lives. <\/p>\n

It is the second MEG system in Ireland, said Prof O\u2019Connell, with the first located at Ulster University (UU) in Derry. <\/p>\n

The TCD system is less expensive, he said, because unlike the UU machine it doesn\u2019t need cryogenic temperatures of -150 centigrade or lower to operate. <\/p>\n

The MEG is housed in a specially constructed, copper-lined room in the basement of the Lloyd Building on the main campus of TCD. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a bank vault, or a submarine,\u201d said Prof O\u2019Connell, as he described the facility\u2019s thick shielding and advanced sensors. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a room within a room, designed to eliminate all background magnetic fields so we can pick up the tiny signals coming from the brain.\u201d <\/p>\n

The MEG\u2019s sensors \u2013 known as optically pumped magnetometers \u2013 rely on advanced quantum technology to measure brain activity. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a vapour cell inside each sensor,\u201d said Dr O\u2019Connell. \u201cWhen you shine light through the gas, it aligns the atoms\u2019 spins. Any magnetic field from the brain disturbs that alignment and the senor picks it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can now get both the \u2018where\u2019 and \u2018when\u2019 of brain activity \u2013 something that\u2019s been impossible with previous technologies like MRI and EEG.\u201d <\/p>\n

In future, MEG can enable scientists to locate precisely the regions of the brain affected by epilepsy, and remove the need for invasive surgery to apply sensors directly on to the brain, as happens today. <\/p>\n

There are many ways MEG technology could be applied clinically, said Prof O\u2019Connell, but it\u2019s most immediately significant for people with epilepsy. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith epilepsy, you\u2019re looking for very fast spikes in brain activity,\u201d said Dr O\u2019Connell. \u201cMRI can\u2019t pick them up and EEG often requires invasive electrodes placed directly on the brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cMEG could allow us to locate the source of epilepsy non-invasively, which would be a huge advance for patients.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u20ac2 million wearable brain scanner capable of picking up the earliest signs of epilepsy, dementia and ADHD…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[16255,868,18,135,19,17,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-42467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-adhd","9":"tag-dementia","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-trinity-college-dublin-tcd"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}