Performance Facilities & Equipment
Human performance facilities and equipment are located on the first and second floors of the McDermott Clinical Sciences Building.
MRI simulator (mock scanner)
MRI studies require long periods of scanning with minimal participant movement. The procedure can be an unsettling experience for many participants causing excessive movement resulting in unusable data and lost funds. Special populations such as children, the elderly, and psychiatric participants, are often prone to claustrophobia and anxiety in the bore of a magnet, and consequently have a much higher rate of terminating the scan session before its completion.
The MRI Simulator (Psychology Software Tools, Inc., Sharpsburg, PA) provides a realistic approximation of an actual MRI scanner to allow habituation and training of participants in an environment less daunting than a real scanner. The MRI Simulator introduces the participant to an authentic scanning environment, permitting them to gradually become accustomed to the scanning procedure and trained to minimize movements. Allowing the participant to acclimate to the scanner before the actual session helps to prepare them and encourages a calmer and more focused participant, ultimately resulting in more productive scanning sessions. The MRI Simulator includes: ~60cm bore with tapered entry and flat façade with integrated control panel (Light, Fan, In/Out), lights, fan, speakers & subwoofer, motorized patient table with drag sensing safety stop, manual table release.
NeuroCognitive Testing Facility
Two 10’x’15’ cognitive testing rooms (McDermott 1.204 &1.205) are equipped with computerized systems for automated cognitive and emotional assessments.
RII investigators also conduct psychological experiments to develop the behavioral paradigms that serve as the basis for PET and TMS experiments, as well as for fMRI and ERP studies. In these experiments, a computer presents visual or auditory stimuli and collects either verbal, button-press, or joystick responses from a subject, which then can be analyzed for accuracy, reaction times, or other behavioral parameters. These computer experiments are conducted using either E-Prime (Psychology Software Tools, Inc.) on PC platform, SuperLab (Cedrus, Inc.) on an Apple or PC platform. Further the laboratory has audio and video recording capabilities during motor and speech studies.
Speech & Hearing Testing Facility
This facility is a two-room suite (McDermott 2.318). The inner room is an Industrial Acoustic Company sound-proof booth equipped with for speech recording and audiometry. The laboratory is fully equipped with microphones and digital video-recorders for analysis of speech and limb data (e.g., motor rating scales). Computers digitize audio signals at >22 KHz for acoustic and perceptual analyses. In general, in-house routines have been developed for analysis of the acoustic signal through the use of PRAAT. The outer room is the operators’ room. The post-screening audiometric assessments described in this proposal will be carried out in this room.
Kinetmatics Laboratory
This one room suite (McDermott 1.206) is equipped for kinematic assessment. An optical movement detection system, NDI Optotrak Certus, tracks the position and movement of of infrared light emitting diodes with two sets of cameras to minimize blind spots during movement. The system allows for representation of movements of any body part (e.g., arm, lips) in 3D space in real time. The system contains a control unit that allows for synchronization with other signals and data collection from other signal sources, like EMG or speech. It also has triggering capability to time for example the onset of a TMS pulse with data collection. The system is highly accurate relative to position and time allowing for precise measurement of kinematic data. The system has a spatial resolution of 0.01 mm and a temporal accuracy that is less than one millisecond.
It also includes a Thermo CRS F3 Robot system consisting of a robot arm, controller and umbilical cable for power and data communication between the arm and controller. The F3 arm has 6 joints for accurate spatial localization from any angle. The controller contains safety circuits, power and motion control for the arm. It stores feedback information from encoders located in the arm, and computes trajectories through storage of applications in memory. The controller detects any damaging situations (e.g., overheating, errors in communication) which when trigger cause an immediate shutdown. The arm has 6 axes and weighs 52 kg with a nominal payload of 3kg and a reach of 710mm. The system has a positional repeatability of 0.05 mm, a maximum linear speed of 4 m/s, and breaks on the first 3 joints.
The controller has a dual microprocessor (133 MHz system processor and a 60 MHz DSP (motion control). It has 16 digital inputs, 12 digital outputs, 1 analog input, and 4 relay outputs. It weighs 31 kg. The robot meets FDA safety specifications and is used with both healthy subjects and those with motor disorders.