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Our guest today is Richard Edden 

Richard is a professor in the department of Neuroradiology at Johns Hopkins University. 

He uses a tool — a technology, a method— called Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) to study the brain. Richard’s group focuses on both method development — how can they make MRS better? More informative? — and also what the specific findings mean for brain health. 

Resources:

Edden Research Group Web Page

Pubmed

Pubmed Central 

Healthy Brain and Child Development Study 

Highlights of the episode:

*Susan introduces Richard and today’s topic [1:20];

*Richard talks about his path to becoming a scientist, starting with growing up in Hampshire, England [2:18];

*On how a postdoc is a chance to go to the edge of what are qualified to do — go sideways — [15:30];

*What it’s like to work in a big lab [17:56];

*How interpreting an NMR spectrum is like solving a puzzle [18:50];

*How electronegativity is fundamental to NMR spectroscopy [24:12];

*Richard’s group has worked on interpreting magnetic resonance spectra taken on brain tissue [36:33];

*Magnetic resonance spectrum peaks — in brain tissue, one of the strongest peaks is from creatine [39:00];

*Richard began to ask, what can we do about some of those weaker signals in the spectra? [42:17]:

*Improving methods for looking at GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter, in the brain [42:30];

*Richard’s primary interest in the methods vs the neuroscience led to a a funny thing that happened at a conference [46:20];

*How do changes between people in the amount of GABA relate to people’s ability to do particular tasks? [48:43];

*The approach Richard’s group has taken with Hadamard encoding (subtraction editing) to amplify the GABA signal [51:13];

*We made the experiment twice as fast because we eliminated waste in the old way of doing things [59:00];

*How Richard had the idea for Hadamard encoding years before putting it in practice with GABA in the brain [1:01:42];

*It’s always better to be doing something than not doing something, but doing starts you thinking and generating more ideas [1:03:45];

*These methods are being used in many studies, including the Healthy Brain and Childhood Development study - national level, 25 universities - recruiting pregnant mothers to study brains of thousands of babies during the first five years of life [1:04:15];

*Listener question from Lucy Pohl, an 11th grader at Nightingale-Bamford school in Manhattan: What issues in science have become more significant to you as a result of your research? [1:09:01];

*Richard gives advice to students interested in a career in science [1:12:34];

*Resources for listeners to learn more about Richard’s work [1:20:12]