Episode 8 - Autism Friendly MRI

"Autism is part of neurodiversity; it is neither a disorder, nor a disease" This is vital as autistic people might have an MRI scan for common clinical concerns, like headaches or low back pains, or for monitoring of epilepsy, often a comorbidity of autism, but also may participate in MRI studies. Making the scans autism friendly means addressing the preferences and needs of autistic people by using reasonable adjustments. Communication before, during and after scan is essential, environmental adjustments such as reducing noise or ensuring the examination table is comfortable, offering music as a distraction and ensuring prior familiarisation with environment might all help for a successful MRI scan with optimal patient experience. This episode is a conversation between Sanam Assili from ESMRMB and Christina Malamateniou from City, University of London. She discusses her work on how to make MRI accessible for autistic individuals.  There are many MRI studies exploring the anatomical and functional correlates to autism. However, the systematic review published by Christina et al., aims to summarise the different ways how to optimise an MRI scan for an autistic person without the use of sedation or anaesthesia. Her two recently published papers on this topic are available here: https://www.radiographyonline.com/article/S1078-8174(21)00124-3/fulltext https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34961364/ Outline: 00:00 Introduction 03:21 Autism friendly and routine clinical MRI 04:52 Challenges of autism friendly MRI 06:52 Special training  12:40 How to adjust MRI unit 17:05 Future of autism friendly MRI 

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