An Inside Job – Medical Physics Investigates: Lecture 2: The Case of the Busy Brain
Given by staff from the Regional Medical Physics Department
Date/Time: 20th January 2010, 17:00
To hear a recording of this lecture :
The famous detective Mr Sherlock Holmes is feeling unwell. The tables are turned and his constant companion, Dr Watson, is left to investigate. Dr Watson practices medicine in the usual way – with stethoscopes, blood pressure measurements, blood samples and professional skill. But his patient, Mr Holmes, has a range of health problems which are mostly beyond these simple methods. In each lecture Dr Watson will invite his patient to undergo a series of more complex investigations. These will be conducted by his medical physics colleagues.
In The Case of the Busy Brain, we will see how the brain controls the body (the neurological system).The very small electrical signals produced by Mr Holmes’s brain, heart, muscles will be tested. The effect of brain signals on eye movements will be seen. We will be able to see the brain responding to an outside stimulus, hear muscles contracting and see dancing eyes. In Dr Watson’s surgery we will understand how blood pressure is measured quickly and safely by modern equipment developed by medical physicists. Can these tests produce a diagnosis?The Medical Physics Team
This series of lectures will be provided by a team of scientists and technologists from the north’s Regional Medical Physics Department. Their centre is in Freeman Hospital, but staff provide services in 12 hospitals from Newcastle down to Middlesbrough and across to Carlisle and Whitehaven. They also contribute to District, dental and GP services, and have a strong base at Newcastle University in the Institute of Cellular Medicine and its Cardiovascular Physics and Engineering Research Group. They hope that the excitement and challenges of providing scientific solutions for our National Health Service will be communicated and felt in these lectures and demonstrations.
