Functional neuroimaging is the use of neuroimaging technology to measure an aspect of brain function, often with a view to understanding the relationship between activity in certain brain areas and specific mental functions. It is primarily used as a research tool in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and social neuroscience.
The first neuroimaging technique ever is the so-called 'human circulation balance' invented by Angelo Mosso in the 1880s and able to non-invasively measure the redistribution of blood during emotional and intellectual activity. Then, in the early 1900s, a technique called pneumoencephalography was set. This process involved draining the cerebrospinal fluid from around the brain and replacing it with air, altering the relative density of the brain and its surroundings, to cause it to show up better on an x-ray, and it was considered to be incredibly unsafe for patients. A form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) were developed in the 1970s and 1980s. The new MRI and CT technologies were considerably less harmful and are explained in greater detail below. Next came SPECT and PET scans, which allowed scientists to map brain function because, unlike MRI and CT, these scans could create more than just static images of the brain's structure. Learning from MRI, PET and SPECT scanning, scientists were able to develop functional MRI (fMRI) with abilities that opened the door to direct observation of cognitive activities.
The angular gyrus is a region of the brain lying mainly in the posteroinferior region of the parietal lobe, occupying the posterior part of the inferior parietal lobule. It represents the Brodmann area 39.
Imaging genetics refers to the use of anatomical or physiological imaging technologies as phenotypic assays to evaluate genetic variation. Scientists that first used the term imaging genetics were interested in how genes influence psychopathology and used functional neuroimaging to investigate genes that are expressed in the brain.
Brain mapping is a set of neuroscience techniques predicated on the mapping of (biological) quantities or properties onto spatial representations of the brain resulting in maps.
The Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) is an organization of scientists with the main aim of organizing an annual meeting.
Voxel-based morphometry is a computational approach to neuroanatomy that measures differences in local concentrations of brain tissue, through a voxel-wise comparison of multiple brain images.
NeuroImage is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research on neuroimaging, including functional neuroimaging and functional human brain mapping. The current Editor in Chief is Michael Breakspear. Abstracts from the annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping have been published as supplements to the journal. Members of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping are eligible for reduced subscription rates. In 2012, Elsevier launched an online-only, open access sister journal to NeuroImage, entitled NeuroImage: Clinical.
Resting state fMRI is a method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that is used in brain mapping to evaluate regional interactions that occur in a resting or task-negative state, when an explicit task is not being performed. A number of resting-state brain networks have been identified, one of which is the default mode network. These brain networks are observed through changes in blood flow in the brain which creates what is referred to as a blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal that can be measured using fMRI.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to brain mapping:
A brain atlas is composed of serial sections along different anatomical planes of the healthy or diseased developing or adult animal or human brain where each relevant brain structure is assigned a number of coordinates to define its outline or volume. Brain atlases are contiguous, comprehensive results of visual brain mapping and may include anatomical, genetic or functional features. A functional brain atlas is made up of regions of interest, where these regions are typically defined as spatially contiguous and functionally coherent patches of gray matter.
George Paxinos AO DSc FASSA FAA FRSN FAHMS is a Greek Australian neuroscientist, born in Ithaca, Greece. He completed his BA in psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and his PhD at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. After a postdoctoral year at Yale University, he moved to the School of Psychology of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He is currently an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia and Scientia Professor of Medical Sciences at the University of New South Wales.
Kaşif Nevzat Tarhan is a Turkish psychiatrist and Psychological warfare expert and neuropsychology expert.
The International Brain Mapping and Intraoperative Surgical Planning Society DBA The Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT) is a non-profit biomedical association (501c6) principally concerned with Brain Mapping and Intra-operative Surgical planning. International Brain Mapping and Intraoperative Surgical planning Foundation (IBMISPF) DBA The Brain Mapping Foundation provides funding to members of the society.
The G20 World Brain Mapping & Therapeutic Scientific Summit aims to contribute to President Obama’s BRAIN initiative and to expand action on the current and upcoming initiatives across the G20 nations, bringing the finest scientists, engineers, physicians and surgeons across the globe in order to rapidly introduce clinical solutions for neurological disorders, which cost the world economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually. G20 World Brain Mapping Summit was launched in 2014 on the initiative of The Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT).
Russell "Russ" Alan Poldrack is an American psychologist and neuroscientist. He is a professor of Psychology at Stanford University, Associate Director of Stanford Data Science, member of the Stanford Neuroscience Institute and director of the Stanford Center for Reproducible Neuroscience and the SDS Center for Open and Reproducible Science.
Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) is a framework for specifying models, fitting them to data and comparing their evidence using Bayesian model comparison. It uses nonlinear state-space models in continuous time, specified using stochastic or ordinary differential equations. DCM was initially developed for testing hypotheses about neural dynamics. In this setting, differential equations describe the interaction of neural populations, which directly or indirectly give rise to functional neuroimaging data e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography (EEG). Parameters in these models quantify the directed influences or effective connectivity among neuronal populations, which are estimated from the data using Bayesian statistical methods.
NeuroVault is an open-science neuroinformatics online repository of brain statistical maps atlases and parcellations.
