Olga by Kotelko Olga

Author:Kotelko, Olga [Kotelko, Olga]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Health & Fitness, Nutrition, Biography & Autobiography, Sports, Exercise
Publisher: FriesenPress
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

My Brain and the Beckman Institute

In somewhat the same way that Dr. Tanja Taivassalo and Dr. Russ Hepple at McGill University were peeking into my muscles, Dr. Arthur Kramer soon would be peeking into my brain. Writer Bruce Grierson needed to add some specific results from MRI and behavior tests to his book entitled What Makes Olga Run. Arrangements were made with Dr. Kramer, director of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois.

On July 22, 2012, Bruce and I left for Illinois for some cognitive testing. Bruce prearranged the trip so that we could enjoy a little sight-seeing in Chicago, surely one of the world’s greatest cities. We settled at the grand old Chicago Hilton and then went off to explore the city. We took a boat tour down the Chicago River, toured the Art Institute of Chicago, wandered the streets, and enjoyed great meals.

The University of Illinois is an impressive place in a small charming university town called Champaign. It is home to the National Centre for Supercomputing that happens to be right next door to the Beckman Clinic, home of North America’s most cutting-edge work in cognitive science.

Dr. Art Kramer is an energetic, former college athlete who heads up the research facility that is home to a couple of hundred faculty and grad students from some three dozen countries. Dr. Kramer had read Bruce’s story in The New York Times, and he was interested to meet me and to see what kind of shape my brain was in. The Beckman Institute was the perfect place to find out.

I was introduced to some very nice and smart grad students including doctoral student Laura Chaddock, who had arranged our visit. I embarked on a full day of testing that started at the Biomedical Imaging Center where I underwent brain scans in the MRI machine. They told me I am now the oldest patient in their database!

I did something called a “flanker task”, which involved identifying changes in a pattern. While my brain did that work, technicians were looking at movements of blood flow in my brain. They were also interested in my response speed. The brain’s processing speed generally slows down as we age. These tests were so peaceful and calm that I almost fell asleep. Later, one of the technicians said that my brain looked like the brains of some of the fifty-year-olds she had seen.

After a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant across town, we were driven to the Illinois Simulator Laboratory. There I undertook something called the “Street-crossing Experiment”. In a virtual reality environment, my ability to “multi-task” would be tested. Multi-tasking means paying attention to more than one thing at a time, and it is an ability that usually declines with age.

A street scene was projected on a big screen in front and to the sides of me, and as I walked on a treadmill I seemed to be moving through that street scene. I wore headphones so I could hear the instructions from the tester.

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