donating his brain to science

when i was pregnant with ian i participated in a pre-natal study at cedars-sinai medical center. now that seven years have passed, they asked us to return for a follow-up (the study is looking at effects of pre-natal care and stress on children's development ... or something like that). that was in december. as we were about to leave, the researcher asked us if we'd be interested in going to uci for another part of the study :: having ian's brain scanned in a mri machine.



i thought it would be pretty cool to see ian's brain and he thought so too. so we drove down to irvine yesterday and had the scan done. boy, those mri machines are loud! ian watched a dvd while he was in the machine for 15 minutes; i got to sit around and listen to the clicking and buzzing.

the researcher complimented ian on how still and mellow he was. quite possibly the best scan they've gotten in such a short time. their study emphasis is on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that controls long-term memory. ian's was pretty large, and the researcher guessed that he had a good memory. now we have scientific proof about his pretty amazing memory.

next week we'll get a printout of his brain scans. i think i'll get it framed. ;)

[on a totally different note :: on the way home i dragged ian to paper source at south coast plaza. they were selling this great composition notebook from knock knock (which i can't find on either website) for $14.50. guess what? i got the same notebook at marshall's the day before for $2.99! back to paper source, i also got this label stamp, and these great papers. sigh. i love that store.]