First was the SPECT Scan. This thing isn’t very exciting. First I got a shot of radioactive juice to light up my brain. Then, I laid on a table (and couldn’t move) for 30 minutes while a big flat imaging machine took a 3D picture of my brain. This was tons of fun. All this stuff took quite awhile to finish. My appointment started @ 2:00 and finished @ 3:30. Good thing, that’s right when I needed to get to the basement to do my next test.

The next one was the Functional MRI. This was different from any I’ve done before. If you’ve ever had a MRI, this is a step further. Can’t just sleep through this one. You have to actually do things while the MRI is running.

• First the hand: Image of a hand or a hand with a line through it. Hand image, I had to tap my fingers to my thumb back and forth and the line through it meant take a break. Just the fingers, don’t move anything else.
• Next is the foot: Foot image, move just the toes and not the foot. The image of the foot with a line, stop.
• Then the lips (no, really): See the lips, pucker. See the line through them, relax.

The rest of the tests were “thinking” and not moving at all.

• First is the single letter. A letter would show and I would have to think about saying (without saying or moving my lips) words that start with that letter. That letter would stay there for a few seconds, would relax for a couple and another come up.
• Second was one where there was a sentence missing a word or words and I had to think about what the missing word or words. Now along with these, there were also sentences of gibberish letters and a word missing space. Those I was not supposed to think about anything. Sounded really easy when the guy was explaining it to me before I climbed in. But when the statements started going, they flashed fast! My mind wanders too much too. When I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about anything, I was thinking about my last answer. So….
• Another was showing a single word and I had to think of a word that goes along with that word. Such as: I would see “juice” and then I think of “drink”. I see “car” and I think “drive”.

I think there had to have been one or two more, but that’s all I can remember with this brain of mine. I heard that the guy that reads the output and writes up the reports for the doctor does it pretty quick, as far as the MRI one goes.