Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to study human brain functions

Neuroscientists have traditionally relied on physiological and anatomical studies on experimental animals and clinicopathological studies on patients with localized brain damages to reveal the brain mechanisms of mental functions. Modern imaging techniques, however, permit us to observe non-invasively the neural activity of normal human brain. Among noninvasive measurement techniques, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is growing rapidly because of its superior spatial resolution and complete non-invasiveness. We have set up an fMRI system with the static magnetic field of 4Tesla at RIKEN.