I was about to say that when diagnosing Alzheimer's or other brain diseases you're measuring the number of dopamin receptors in the brain. But for that you'd need a PET scanner... I think that's a different machine, I'm not too sure though [/geek mode]

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It's definitely a different machine used for PET scanning. It picks up the radiation from the radiated substance introduced into the blood, and requires rather different detection methods.

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I know, I know, I just wondered if it was because of that, I can really think of no other reason. There are ventures to build one machine which functions as both, but I have no idea if hospitals can buy those already

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Me neither.

I suppose one could argue that since both deal with radiation, maybe the room is multipurpose. Or something.

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Technically NMR is not using radiation, just magnetic fields. Sorry, I am still too proud of that A in the exam to let this go ;)

I could see why they would want one machine for it, IIRC you usually do both anyway (as PET only gives you these nice blobs of colour), and it would be a lot cheaper to just buy one machine for two purposes

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Art director had a blank spot on the wall that needed dressing.

I speak as a former set designer: it don't have to make sense, it gotta look good.

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Yeah, that's probably the most logical explanation. ;)

I just picked up on it because of the last three weeks of lectures on Dopamine.

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I wondered if it was set-dressing to capture Martha's feeling of "omg, this man is CRAZY INNA HED"

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I don't think it'd be intended that way, because Dopamine isn't quite that well known. But it's an interesting subtext to consider.

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