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The future of quantum technologies for brain imaging

Daniele Faccio

PLoS Biology, 2024

5 citations

Abstract

The neurosciences have pioneered the use of quantum technologies for sensing and imaging the brain.Next-generation technologies promise routes towards low-cost, wearable imaging devices with high spatial and temporal resolution.Much of the progress in our understanding of the brain and our ability to assess brain health relies heavily on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and quantum technologies that rely on quantum properties of matter or radiation such, e.g., nuclear spin, entanglement or detection of single quanta.These technologies are undergoing a renaissance in funding and research, which has led to some very exciting developments in recent years, for example, reconstructing images, videos [1,2], and the semantics of entire sentences [3] from brain activity and fMRI data alone.The goal of this perspective is to provide a brief overview of some quantum technologies that may have an impact, for example, on the wearability, precision, and cost of these brain reading approaches.Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a noninvasive approach that relies on a quantum effect whereby charged particles can have a spin and thus interact with an external magnetic field that provides information about the conformation of the spins and of the matter that we are probing.One form of MRI known as functional MRI (fMRI)-which measures brain activity by detecting small changes of blood flow in the brain-can now achieve sub-millimetre resolution, albeit typically with a 5 to 10 second time lag…

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