A study led by Stanford colleagues describes a new imaging method that uses a type of strobe-action amplification technique. It has the ability to blow up the minute heartbeat-induced pulsations of the brain to produce video sequences.

This has medical value, because certain mental states and conditions are associated with an exaggerated brain-pulsation propensity. One of the two brains depicted in the video is from a normal brain, while the other brain has a rare syndrome called Chiari I malformation, a complex of structural defects in the base of the skull and cerebellum. The new imaging technique may prove useful someday in diagnosing not only this but other structural brain abnormalities, as well as concussions and aneurysms.

The study was recently published in the journal Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and co-authored by Stanford life-science research assistant Itamar Terem, then-postdoc Samantha Jane Holdsworth, PhD, (now at the University of Auckland) and several other Stanford colleagues.