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05-06-2025: Rock-paper-scissors?Whether at work or at home, we are constantly faced with decisions that we have to weigh up carefully. But what are they actually based on? Neuro- and behavioral economists from the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich have been studying this question for almost two decades. Their object of investigation? The brain. Understanding human decision-making mechanisms forms the basis for better understanding collective decisions, with far-reaching consequences: for example, for ethical consumer behavior, environmental pollution or corruption. In addition, these insights into individual decision-making processes can provide important impulses for the orientation of public policies. In an article published in the magazine 𝘏𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦 of the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF, you can find out why the neuroeconomists decided to play the seemingly trivial “rock-paper-scissors” game, to lay the fundamental building blocks for understanding our decisions, and how the brain is examined in detail using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), EEG (electroencephalogram) and TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation). |
07-01-2025: Toward printing the brainMagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a well-known and widely-used medical imaging modality that is capable of making excellent images of the inside of humans without any harmful side effects. However, its ease of use and undeniable success in the diagnostics pose one of the biggest challenges for MRI. Simply put: if we can make an image of a human body without cutting the body open - how do we know that the image we get is a true representation of internal anatomy? The answer is: we don’t. We build on an enormous amount of prior experience where images provided by the MRI scanner were compared the ground truth after the ground truth was established with an invasive procedure (e.g. surgery in live humans, chemical modification of cadavers etc.). One potential way out of this dilemma is to build inanimate test objects that are precision engineered and describe the live human tissue in its relevant details. For example, diffusion MRI (dMRI) is specific sub-modality, where the MRI scanner generates images that provide information on the extent and direction water diffusion within and around cells. This modality can map the path of connections, called axons, between brain cells, called neurone. Such axons have a thickness of a few micrometers, which makes it very difficult to mimic experimentally.
Together with colleagues from the Technical University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, we used a specialised 3D printing technology to build structures that can guide water diffusion in specific directions. After scanning these structures with MRI, we were able to reconstruct in the images the predetermined structures. Such test objects can help validate the performance of MRI scanners and thereby advance without the need for invasive procedures.
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