Wow.
I spend one afternoon away from the PC, trying to set up my new shop space (seems futile in this tiny garage) and this is what I miss.
Ok so for the record, I don't do "rats" anymore. Many, many years ago there was this little off-the-wall program called Instant Messenger that was a beta release from AOL. Like 10 people using it, nobody thought it would ever get used by anybody... I got hold of it and needed a screen name. At the time, I was working in a small lab in the App psych dept, doing neuroscience experiments on rats. So picked this name just for fun. Well overt he years I was just too lazy to come up w/ anything else... even though I haven't worked w/ rats in quite soem time.
Humans are a lot more fun, they don't piss on your feet and smell quite as bad. Most of the time.
As for the MRI, don't know what to tell ya there. Some people hate them, some people enjoy them. IMO 90% of it has to do with how they prep you you for it, both physically and psychologically, and the other 10% is un what kind of imaging sequence they are doing. Some of the pulse sequences are very fast loud constant deals, while others are more of a slow rhythmic psychodelic deal.
Definitely the "holding still" is the hardest part. Unfortunately many times, kids have to be sedated just to get them to do it.
Of course, except for the rare research scans (only very small % of MRI's done), anybody who is in an MRI is there b/c there's something wrong woth them... e.g. they're probably uncomfortable or unhappy anyway.
We always try and keep each scan to a max of 7 min or so, just to make it easier for the patient/subject. Unfortunately many times tehre are 3-5 scans to do... and if you much between them, they don't line up. Fortunately us brilliant research guys have cool software that will "adjust" for movement, but the clinicians don't have it b/c they are buttheads and are too busy to pay attention to us and actually use the things we develop.
We also try and make things as nice for the subject as possible; mentally prep them for the experience, and adjust them on the table so they are comfy. Clinicians just want to get you in and out, they can be assholes. See, we depend on you havinga good experience and wanting to come back again, so we try to be nice, lol. We also don't play cheesy music, and if we do, it's either something you choose, or we give you a specific task to do - when people's minds are engaged, the time passes much faster.
I've had dozens of them (always of my head, though), and I don't really like it either, unless (a) they given me something to do, or (b) it's a real, slow rhythmic sequence (like DRI or PASL) and I can kind of sleep/meditate... but even then, 10 min it my limit.
There's a whole business around equipment for making MRI patients comfy... but all the good stuff is really expensive (our VR goggles cost $60k!).
