Plague Doctor

On the morning of January 18, Gu Jun, accompanied by Wu Shiyu and Cai Zixuan, walked into the Institute of Psychology building at the Medical Department of the Tianji Bureau Headquarters.

After entering this simple building, they came to an advanced brain function research laboratory on the fifth floor. Dr. Shen was waiting there, as well as the director of the laboratory, Professor Ma Jun, and a group of researchers. Professor Ma is one of the best brain experts in the country and is now a member of Gu Jun’s treatment team.

Gu Jun's brain was in an abnormal state. He was not suffering from ordinary mental disorders, but there was no anxiety, depression, agitation, delirium, etc., and his temperament had not changed at all.

But as soon as he comes into contact with "abnormal" and "supernatural forces" - including things like Zugo, dreams, spells, illusions, otherworlds, R'lyeh, etc., he will have headache symptoms, and contact refers to things including Listen to what others say, think about it yourself, and participate in it through action.

Hearing other people talk is the mildest symptom. If he just listens casually and doesn't think about it, his head will just feel bloated and painful. But once he hears it and thinks about it, the symptoms will quickly worsen and there will be a strong feeling in the brain. The cracking pain; if you personally participate in it, it will be much more serious.

But regardless of the severity of the symptoms, when he stopped contact, his headaches gradually subsided. If there is no contact, nothing will happen.

On the contrary, the longer the exposure time, the more severe the pain will be, which can lead to the symptoms of epilepsy's general tonicity and convulsions, as well as transient syncope.

Three days ago, Gu Jun was just reading a goa document sent by Tong Ye in the ward. Before he finished reading the document, and after reading less than two pages, he twitched all over and fainted, which really scared the people around him. Fortunately, he woke up slowly just as the medical staff were about to start first aid.

Since then, the mood of the medical staff has darkened again, and everyone knows that there is big trouble.

Gu Jun also knew that he was not optimistic. Just for a moment, his energy consumption reached the bottom, and his whole body felt tired and uncomfortable. It took him a day to recover.

The human brain is too complex. His brain has had tumors, lack of oxygen, injuries, and operations. Moreover, the site of injury and bleeding was the right prefrontal lobe. The lobotomy damaged the prefrontal lobe area. It is very difficult to say what happened in this area.

There are traces that his condition is similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), and "abnormal things" are his stressors.

Jack Wells had symptoms of PTSD back then, and this time there were also some survivors from other countries in the joint force who had mild symptoms of PTSD.

But what makes Gu Jun different from them is that he does not have the typical clinical manifestations of PTSD, no intrusive traumatic reappearance, no negative changes in cognition and mood, no hyper-vigilance, irritability and anger, etc., and he does not have such symptoms in his self-assessment. In terms of psychological difficulties, I did not want to avoid the memories of those events.

However, his brain shows a strong avoidance of things that are similar or related to stress. Once faced or exposed to related things, although there is no psychological pain, there is a strong physiological reaction, which is consistent with the diagnosis of PTSD. .

Regarding Gu Jun's situation, the senior officials at the headquarters were very nervous, as were Tong Ye and Yao Shinian.

In terms of personal relationships, Tong Ye and the others don't want to see Gu Jun like this; for the sake of the overall situation, they also don't want Gu Jun to be no longer exposed to anomalies. Needless to say, Gu Jun's contribution and role in the past two years need not be overstated. If he cannot recover, it means that he can only rest for a long time or even retire...

So it is a huge loss to the Tianji Bureau and the people around the world.

It is precisely because of this that the treatment team once again has a heavy responsibility. People who treat the body such as Liu Mingfeng have withdrawn, while people who study the brain such as Professor Ma Lin have taken up the important responsibility.

Their first task is to find out the pathological mechanism. Is this just Gu Jun's psychological problem, or is his brain damaged and disordered?

Gu Jun had tried to use the Old Seal Purification Stone before, but no mental erosion was detected. He has not done an S-value test yet. Dr. Shen and the others are worried that the impact of the traumatic scene may cause him to fall into a coma again, which will only make the situation more difficult.

At this time, Gu Jun, Wu Shiyu and Cai Zixuan walked into this laboratory. The advanced and complete equipment here can do some more detailed brain examinations for him.

The laboratory is very bright and spacious, divided into front rooms, and the front room is connected to several examination rooms containing different equipment.

After everyone said hello, Gu Jun was taken to the fMRI examination room by Professor Ma and others. fmri is functional magnetic resonance imaging. The equipment looks similar to nuclear magnetic resonance, but does not require the injection of radioactive substances during detection. The examination he wants to do is BOLD-FMRI, blood oxygen level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging.

"This is a functional neuroimaging examination method." Dr. Shen explained to Wu Shiyu and Wu Shiyu. "During the examination, Jun will be asked to complete a stimulation task. By measuring the signal changes dependent on his blood oxygen level, it can reflect his local brain activity. This precise localization can help diagnose his pathological mechanism."

"I don't understand." Wu Shiyu looked at Gu Jun lying on the bed with fMRI equipment through the glass window of the examination room, "Dr. Shen, can you explain briefly?"

In fact, Cai Zixuan doesn't know much about fMRI. There are so many detailed fields in modern medicine. Those who don't specialize in neurology may not even have heard of them.

Because he had a holiday today, he came with his old friend to check it out. He also wanted to learn about it, and he understood it after reading some literature.

"That is to say." Dr. Shen thought for a while and tried to speak in plain language: "If the neural activity in any brain area in the brain increases, the blood flow will increase, and it will bring more oxygen molecules than the actual activity of the neurons. oxygen consumption, so the increase in blood flow caused by neural activity will increase the corresponding

The blood oxygen content in the brain area is the bold signal. This can help us find out where in the brain the neural activity is increased when he is stressed. "

After Wu Shiyu listened to what Dr. Shen said, he nodded: "Oh, okay, I still don't understand."

"That's it..." Dr. Shen felt it was necessary to explain it in detail from the beginning, "the bold signal is the difference in the impact of neuronal activity on local oxygen consumption and cerebral blood flow, which changes the relative content of local deoxygenated hemoglobin, resulting in The properties of the local magnetic field change..."

"Dr. Shen, it seems that the more I listen to you, the more confused I become." Wu Shiyu raised his hand to interrupt, "Let me tell you my understanding first. This examination is done by Xian Jun to take pictures of where he is in his brain when he is stressed. Excited to find this location and then judge what’s wrong with him.”

Cai Zixuan felt that she understood correctly and her words were very clear.

"That's more or less the case," Dr. Shen said, "but the brain is very complex..."

Wu Shiyu listened and thought, just because her brain is so complex, she can only understand it to this extent.

At the same time, the equipment in the examination room started to operate, and with a buzzing sound, the examination bed carrying Gu Jun moved towards the ring magnet.

Love the Plague Doctor.