fMRI at 20: has it changed the world?

The prevalence of fMRI in cognitive neuroscience research is clear, but the overall impact of the associated research in the broader scope of our scientific community, and of society, is less obvious. The first reports of fMRI garnered huge interest in many areas, giving rise to a wide range of applications and technical developments over the past 20 years. Using five primary areas, i.

Evolution and current challenges in the teaching of functional MRI and functional brain imaging.

The report of any new and successful method for studying the world triggers the need to train people in the use of that method. In the case of functional magnetic resonance imaging and its use for examining human brain function in vivo, expertise is required in a greater collection of domains than usual. Development of fMRI training programs started shortly after the announcement of BOLD-based fMRI in humans.

Developmental neural networks in children performing a Categorical N-Back Task.

The prefrontal and temporal networks subserving object working memory tasks in adults have been reported as immature in young children; yet children are adequately capable of performing such tasks. We investigated the basis of this apparent contradiction using a complex object working memory task, a Categorical n-back (CN-BT). We examined whether the neural networks engaged by the CN-BT in children consist of the same brain regions as those in adults, but with a different magnitude of activation, or whether the networks are qualitatively different.

Using small numbers of subjects in fMRI-based research.

The preceding speculations may not sound very novel to some ears. Indeed, when I started to describe the above ideas to any fMRI researcher who has been involved in the field for a substantial number of years, their response is invariably a comment to the effect that, "Oh yes, we are doing something like that right now in our lab." What I think they mean, of course, is that sometime in the uncertain future they might run all their own existing tasks on a few subjects, if they can get around to it and if they can find the software for some of those earlier tasks.

Experimental design in brain activation MRI: cautionary tales.

The use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in cognitive neuroscience has expanded at an amazing rate in the past 10 years. Current research includes increasingly subtle and specific attempts to dissect the cognitive and emotional mechanisms called into play when humans make decisions. The present essay will briefly review some of the general considerations and domains of information needed when one designs fMRI-based experiments.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) "brain reading": detecting and classifying distributed patterns of fMRI activity in human visual cortex.

Traditional (univariate) analysis of functional MRI (fMRI) data relies exclusively on the information contained in the time course of individual voxels. Multivariate analyses can take advantage of the information contained in activity patterns across space, from multiple voxels. Such analyses have the potential to greatly expand the amount of information extracted from fMRI data sets.