Functional neuroimaging

Functional neuroimaging is the use of medical imaging technology to study neural function in the human brain.

Methods used include Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). These methods are used measure localized changes in cerebral bloodflow related to neural activity. These changes are referred to as "activations". Regions of the brain which are activated when a subject performs a particular task may play a role in the neural computations which contribute to the behaviour. For instance, widespread activation of the occipital cortex is typically seen in tasks which involve viewing moving pictures (compared with tasks that do not). This part of the brain receives signals from the retina and is believed to play a role in visual perception.

However, interpretation of the results of functional neuroimaging studies is fraught with difficulty. It depends careful experimental design and statistical analysis (so that the effects of different potential sources of activation can be distinguished from one another). This can be particularly challenging when considering processes which inherently difficult to measure directly (e.g., those involved in attention, memory, language, consciousness).

Functional neuroimaging also draws on data from other areas of cognitive neuroscience and from neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.