Understanding the brain has been treated with foremost importance by neuro engineers like Dr. Curtis Cripe. It has not proven to be easy, especially considering that the human brain is a collection of 100 billion neurons and support cells.
The human brain is quite intriguing in that it can store decades’ worth of memories and be used to build something as small as microchips and as complex as space stations. But have you ever wondered how humans are much more intelligent than animals with bigger brains, such as sperm whales and elephants? Such is the intricacy of the human brain. Scientists have been developing ways to study the organ for a long time. Brain mapping has proven to be helpful in this pursuit.
It is a collection of various tools that gives a thorough picture of the brain structure. Dr. Curtis Cripe lists some of the key benefits of brain mapping.
One of the most common use cases of the technology is helping doctors, neuro engineers, and medical professionals plan safe surgeries. For instance, one method of treating epilepsy requires removing an affected part of the brain. Through brain mapping tools, such as functional MRI and EEG, surgeons can determine where the seizure center is.
Similarly, brain mapping can also be used to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. For example, MRI can be used as a tagging technique to examine shrinkages in some parts of the brain, which could indicate tissue loss.
Brain mapping can also aid in identifying the possible root cause of any psychological or physiological symptoms that a patient may be experiencing. With more and more people suffering from mental health conditions like anxiety and depression nowadays, medical professionals are given an effective tool to understand how and why a patient is struggling with the symptoms of the conditions.
Dr. Curtis Cripe is the founder of NTL Group, a technical corporation that combines various fields, including neuroscience, engineering, biology, physics, psychology, and others, with the intent of advancing methodologies for recording, mapping, and analyzing brain activity. Learn more about his work here.
Dr. Curtis Cripe 