BB code hacker Dean Putney spotted this wonderful site "Inside Bill Moorier's Head" in which Moorier created an interactive viewer of his own MRI data. From the site:
In September 2009 my doctor recommended an MRI to rule-out a couple of potential conditions. The scan came back completely normal, which was a great relief! As a kind of cathartic exercise, and inspired by Dustin Curtis's brain tour I decided to do something with the images. I spent most of a fun weekend writing this MRI explorer. I hope you enjoy playing with it!Inside Bill Moorier's Brain
RSS Feed
A little short on the "interactive" (unless I'm missing something significant, it's more like just "animated", a lot like YouTube is), but high on the "wonderful". Pretty cool.
Dennis Curtis makes some of the most beautiful websites I have ever visited.
You can click in the different brain slices to stop the animation and look at individual points in his brain.
I did the same thing last year:
http://neil.fraser.name/news/2008/brain.html
The difference is that instead of Flash, mine renders the images using JavaScript. Loading time takes about 15 seconds. Works in all browsers except IE.
Very cool. Looks like it must have been 1mm slices, or even bigger.
And saying it's just the brain is underselling this a bit. You can also see his sinus cavities, eyes, and middle and inner ear, including his semicircular canals (a personal interest of mine since I have defects there).
I've always wondered if I could pay cash money to get a head MRI done so I could have the dataset.
And if I could, how much.
I had a head x-ray once. I wish I'd asked for a copy.
I imagine I'd have to contrive some story about being a NEA-funded artist with a grant just to get in the front door.
Of course I could always fake a head injury and film it all as one giant performance art piece and THEN apply to the NEA for a grant...