Imaging Techniques and Cognitive Function Essay

Imagine a football player is tackled and hits the back of his head. As a result, his brain has hit the back of the cranium, then the front.

Due to this, it has been deemed difficult to determine which deficit is the consequence of which part of a lesion. To overcome this problem, other methods are being used to aid in the visualisation of memory processes in the healthy parts of the brain. These come in the form of functional neuroimaging studies using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). These studies have allowed researchers to target specific memory processes using targeted psychological experiments. However, with all psychological experiments, there are limitations to using neuroimaging equipment. PET and fMRI attain their signals from local changes in blood flow or metabolism correlated with neural activity rather than from brain waves (or signals). The local vascular changes affect the distribution of an injected radionuclide (e.g. O15) in PET or magnetic properties that are blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) in fMRI. The indirect measure of neural activity limits the temporal and spatial fidelity of activations.

In neuropsychology and behavioral neuroscience, multiple methods have been used to create relations between brain function and behavior in addition to studying how the brain is stimulated to produce action. Static and Dynamic imagery techniques of observation have been used over the years to map out brain regions and understand relationships between internal brain activity and external behavior. However, one brain study method has proven to be a groundbreaking process that has managed to create other derivative methods and increased human understanding of the effects of brain activity alterations. This method is known as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

Neuroimaging can be a useful tool in detecting physical abnormalities in the brain. Most people with a severe brain injury will show an abnormality in a neuro-imaging test. These scans cannot detect all types of brain injuries, so it is possible to have a severe brain injury and be in a coma even though the scan results are normal.

Since the beginning of time people have been trying to figure out how exactly the brain works. Over the years many theories have been developed to try and explain this. In ancient times it was believed that the brain was made of phlegm and in the Renaissance Era people thought that emotions came from animal spirits in the brain. New technologies have made it possible to study the brain and gain more accurate information about how it works. A recent discovery called brain imaging has helped scientists learn how the brain works. There are many different ways one can obtain images of the brain but the most remarkable was developed by neuroscientist and psychiatrist Karl Deisseroth. He came up with a way to replace light-scattering compounds in

The cerebral Cortex is composed of folded gray matter in the cerebrum of the brain, associated with the higher brain functions, coordinations of sensory information, the ability to learn, being able to obtain memorys, and the expression of individuality. playing an important role in consciousness thin sheet of chells composed of billions of nerve cells and their countless interconnections. Each of the two hemispheres of the cortex is divided into four geographic lobes. Frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal. The motor functions at the rear of the frontal lobes controls voluntary muscle movements involving planning, control, and execution. The sensory functions, at the front of the parietal lobes processes and makes sense out of the information

The human brain is one of the most complex systems in nature. Neuroscientists have referred to the brain as the final frontier of science (Pavlopoulos et al., 2011). A substantial amount of the brain’s physiological functions involves collecting information from the body, interpreting the information, and directing the body’s response. The brain recognizes odors, light, sounds, and pain. The study of anatomical and functional connectivity of the nervous system creates an understanding of the brain specialization and integration (Sporms et al., 2005). The temporal dependence of neuronal activity between different brain regions is known as functional connectivity and is examined by measuring the coherence of resting-state fMRI time-series. Continuous debates about the low frequency oscillation of fMRI

Over the years several techniques have been used to describe the brain dynamics in AD. Electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allow to study brain activity in a non-invasive way [5]. In some of the cases, they rely on indirect measures to evaluate the brain

Title: Evaluate experimental and brain-imaging techniques and consider what they tell us about the brain and cognitive behaviour in typical and atypical individuals.

The most interesting thing I learned from this documentary is that our brains have a map of our body surface. According to Dr. Ramachandran, the body map has a corresponding point to every point on the body surface. The right side of our body is mapped on the left side of our brain and the left side of our body is mapped on the right side of the brain.

The EEG recordings where collected with the Quickcap using twenty-six electrodes located to the 10-20 system. The data was recorded at sample rates

With the advancement in technology, neuroimaging has led to the discovery of male brains containing a greater amount of white matter, while female brains contain more gray matter (Gur et al., 1999). Sun et al. (2015) collected imaging data to track the progress of brain network topology over a five-year period and compared the results between gender differences. Participants in the study included 43 males ranging from ages 22-53, and 28 females from ages 21-59. Only those having no brain disorders, mental illnesses, substance abuse, or first-degree family members with mental illnesses were included in the research. Twenty-eight subjects completed the study and received scans over 5 years. The results supported findings from previous

Justin Gardner Laboratory is interested in using a mixture of functional magnetic resonance imaging, computational modeling and analysis, and psychophysical measurements to connection human perception to cortical brain activity. By using these techniques, his lab is interested in studying how the human cortex neural activity creates our awareness of visual perception. In the paper “Encoding of graded changes in spatial specificity of prior cues in human visual cortex” the Gardner’s lab was interested to test quantitative links between cortical activity and behavioral performance. They found that that although parametrically increasing prior probability resulted in graded improvements in behavioral performance, responses in early visual cortex

Neural measures gathered from EEG (Electroencephalogram) data in the form of ERP (Event-Related Potential) components can be used to measure onset of attentional processing, as well as how distracting certain objects may or may not be. Specifically the N2PC reflects a shift in attention to a visual target. Using this ERP component, the neural differences between visual and semantic similarity in objects can be evaluated and compared between participants.

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a recording of the electrical activities of the brain along the scalp, which is generally considered