E. Stern et Da. Silbersweig, Advances in functional neuroimaging methodology for the study of brain systems underlying human neuropsychological function and dysfunction, J CL EXP N, 23(1), 2001, pp. 3-18
Citations number
83
Categorie Soggetti
Psycology,Neurology
Journal title
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
Functional neuroimaging allows the non-invasive identification of distribut
ed patterns of human brain activity associated with perceptual, congnitive,
emotional and behavioral processes, in health and disease. Work in this fi
eld is methodologically intensive, requiring an interdisciplinary team of s
cientists to develop and apply rapidly advancing techniques. Here we focus
upon the principles and methods of functional imaging, from hypothesis gene
ration and study design, to subject recruitment and clinical characterizati
on, neuropsychological paradigm development, image acquisition, image proce
ssing and statistical analysis, and data interpretation. The strengths and
limitations of the various techniques are discussed, with an emphasis on po
sitron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI), which have proven to be powerful tools for human brain mapping. The
integration of these techniques with electroencephalography (EEC) and magn
etoencephalography (MEG), which provide greater temporal information, is ou
tlined. An understanding of such methodological issues is a necessary prere
quisite to the development of new imaging methods with improved capabilitie
s, to the careful application of existing methods to neuropsychological pro
blems, and to the critical examination of planned or published studies.