Functional neuroimaging

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. Common methods of functional neuroimaging include Positron emission tomography (PET) Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) Electroencephalography (EEG) Magnetoencephalography (MEG) Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) Functional ultrasound imaging (fUS) PET, fMRI, fNIRS and fUS can measure localized changes in cerebral blood flow 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 lobe is typically seen in tasks which involve visual stimulation (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. Other methods of neuroimaging involve recording of electrical currents or magnetic fields, for example EEG and MEG. Different methods have different advantages for research; for instance, MEG measures brain activity with high temporal resolution (down to the millisecond level), but is limited in its ability to localize that activity. fMRI does a much better job of localizing brain activity for spatial resolution, but with a much lower time resolution while functional ultrasound (fUS) can reach an interesting spatio-temporal resolution (down to 100 micrometer, 100 milliseconds, at 15MHz in preclinical models) but is also limited by the neurovascular coupling. Recently, Magnetic particle imaging has been proposed as a new sensitive imaging technique that has sufficient temporal resolution for functional neuroimaging based on the increase of cerebral blood volume.