On the morning of 18th January, at the Medical Department at Phecda headquarters, Gu Jun, accompanied by Wu Shiyu and Cai Zixuan, walked into the building.
After entering the simple building, they headed to a brain function research lab on the 5th floor. Doctor Shen was waiting for them. Prof Ma Jun and a group of researchers were also there. Prof Ma was one of the best neurologists in the country. He was currently a member of Gu Jun's treatment team.
Gu Jun's brain was in an abnormal state. It was not a normal mental disorder. He was not suffering from anxiety, depression, agitation or hallucinations. His personality did not seem to have changed.
However, whenever he came into contact with 'abnormal' and 'supernatural forces', including the Zoogs, Dreamlands, spells, illusions, other worlds, R'yleh, he would suffer from headaches. Contact included listening to others talk about it, thinking about it and physically participating in it.
Listening to others talk about it was the lightest of the symptoms. If he just listened to it without thinking about it, it would just be a headache; however, once he listened to it, the symptoms would worsen rapidly. There would be a splitting pain in his brain. If he personally participated in it, it would be much worse.
Regardless of the severity of the symptoms, once he stopped the contact, the headache would slowly subside. If he did not come into contact with it, he would be fine.
In contrast, the longer the contact, the greater the pain. It could be so intense that he would experience seizures and temporary fainting.
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation Three days ago, Gu Jun was reading a GOA document sent by Elder Tong. Before he could even finish the document, he fainted from convulsions. Thankfully, he slowly woke up when the medical staff started the emergency treatment.
After that, the medical staff's heart sank again. They knew they were in big trouble.
Gu Jun knew it was not looking good. His mental exhaustion reached rock bottom. He was tired and uncomfortable. It took him a whole day to recover.
The human brain was too complicated. He had suffered from brain tumor, lack of oxygen, injury and surgery. Furthermore, the bleeding area was the right prefrontal lobe. Lobotomy damaged the prefrontal lobe, so it was hard to tell what would happen to this area.
The only clue was that his condition was similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and 'abnormal objects' were the source of his stress.
Back then, Jack Wales had PTSD symptoms. This time, there were also survivors from other countries in the coalition who had mild PTSD symptoms.
But unlike them, Gu Jun did not have the typical clinical symptoms of PTSD. There were no intrusive traumatic reenactments, no negative changes in cognition and mood, no hypervigilance, irritability, and so on. His self-assessment was that he did not have such psychological difficulties, so he did not try to avoid those memories.
However, his brain showed a strong avoidance of things that were similar to or related to stress. Once he faced or came into contact with related things, although there was no psychological pain, there was a strong physiological reaction, which was consistent with the diagnosis of PTSD.
The higher-ups at the headquarters were nervous about Gu Jun's condition, so were Tong Ye and Yao Sinian.
In terms of personal relationship, Tong Ye and the rest did not wish to see Gu Jun like this; in terms of the bigger picture, they did not wish for Gu Jun to be unable to come into contact with abnormal objects anymore. Over the past 2 years, Gu Jun's contribution was self-explanatory. If he could not be cured, it would mean that he would have to rest or even retire …
That would be a huge loss for Phecda and the world's public.
Therefore, the treatment team once again took on a heavy responsibility. Liu Mingfeng and the rest of the physical team left the field while Prof Ma Jun and the rest of the brain researchers took on the heavy responsibility.
Their first mission was to find out the underlying mechanism. Was this just a psychological problem, or was there some kind of damage to his brain that caused this situation?
Gu Jun had tried to use the cleansing stone earlier, but there was no sign of mental corruption. He had not taken the S value assessment yet. Doctor Shen was worried that the trauma would cause him to fall back into a coma and that would only worsen the situation.
At that moment, Gu Jun, Wu Shiyu and Cai Zixuan walked into the lab. The advanced equipment here would allow them to conduct more detailed brain examinations.
The lab was bright and spacious. It was divided into a front room and the front room was connected to several examination rooms with different equipment.
After greeting the group, Gu Jun was led to the FMRI room by Prof Ma. FMRI was functional magnetic resonance imaging. The equipment looked similar to an MRI but there was no need to inject any radioactive substances during the examination. The examination he was going to do was BOLD-FMRI, a blood-oxygen-level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging.
"This is a functional neuroimaging examination." Doctor Shen explained to Wu Shiyu and Cai Zixuan, "During the examination, Ah Jun will be required to complete a stimulation task. By measuring the changes in his blood-oxygen-level dependent signal, it will reflect his local brain activity. This kind of accurate localization will help us diagnose his pathological mechanism."
"I don't understand." Through the glass window of the examination room, Wu Shiyu watched Gu Jun lie on the bed with the FMRI equipment. "Doctor Shen, can you explain it briefly?"
Actually, Cai Zixuan did not know much about FMRI. There were too many specialized fields in modern medicine. Those who did not specialize in neurology might not even have heard of them.
He only came here with his old friend because he was on holiday today. He wanted to learn and read some literature.
"Exactly." Doctor Shen thought for a moment and tried to explain in plain language, "If there is an increase in nerve activity in a brain area, blood flow will increase. The amount of oxygen molecules will be more than the actual oxygen consumption of the active neurons. Therefore, the increase in blood flow caused by nerve activity will increase the blood oxygen content in the corresponding brain area. This is the BOLD signal. This can help us find out where the nerve activity in the brain increases when he is stressed. "
After listening to Doctor Shen, Wu Shiyu nodded. "Oh, okay, I still don't understand."
"That is …" Doctor Shen felt the need to explain everything from the beginning. "The BOLD signal is the effect of neuronal activity on the local oxygen consumption and cerebral blood flow. It changes the relative amount of deoxyhemoglobin in the local area and that changes the properties of the local magnetic field …"
"Doctor Shen, the more I listen to you, the more confused I am." Wu Shiyu raised her hand to cut him off. "Let me explain my understanding first. Dirty-minded Jun's examination is to capture the part of his brain that is agitated when he is stressed. Then we can determine what is wrong with him."
Cai Zixuan believed she was not mistaken, the explanation was very clear.
"Something like that." Doctor Shen said, "But the brain is very complicated …"
As Wu Shiyu listened, she thought to herself, 'Probably because the brain is so complicated, this is as much as I can understand.'
At the same time, the equipment in the examination room started to operate. With a whirring sound, the bed that carried Gu Jun moved towards the magnetic ring.
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