The lack of specificity in neuroimaging studies of neurological and psychiatric diseases suggests that these different diseases have more in common than is generally considered. Potentially, features that are secondary effects of different pathological processes may share common neurobiological underpinnings. Intriguingly, many of these mechanisms are also observed in studies of normal (i.e., non‐pathological) brain ageing. Different brain diseases may be causing premature or accelerated ageing to the brain, an idea that is supported by a line of “brain ageing” (...) research that combines neuroimaging data with machine learning analysis. In reviewing this field, I conclude that such observations could have important implications, suggesting that we should shift experimental paradigm: away from characterizing the average case‐control brain differences resulting from a disease toward methods that place individuals in their age‐appropriate context. This will also lead naturally to clinical applications, whereby neuroimaging can contribute to a personalized‐medicine approach to improve brain health. (shrink)

Could neuroimaging evidence help us to assess the degree of a person’s responsibility for a crime which we know that they committed? This essay defends an affirmative answer to this question. A range of standard objections to this high-tech approach to assessing people’s responsibility is considered and then set aside, but I also bring to light and then reject a novel objection—an objection which is only encountered when functional (rather than structural) neuroimaging is used to assess people’s responsibility.

According to many researchers, it is inevitable and obvious that psychiatric illnesses are biological in nature, and that this is the rationale behind the numerous neuroimaging studies of individuals diagnosed with mental disorders. Scholars looking at the history of psychiatry have pointed out that in the past, the origins and motivations behind the search for biological causes, correlates, and cures for mental disorders are thoroughly social and historically rooted, particularly when the diagnostic category in question is the subject of (...) controversy within psychiatry. This is obscured by neuroimaging studies that drive researchers to proclaim 'revolutions' in psychiatry, namely in the DSM. Providing neuroimaging evidence to support the contention that a condition is 'real' is likely to be extremely influential, as has been extensively discussed in the neuroethics literature. This type of evidence will also reinforce the pre-existing beliefs of those researchers or clinicians who are already expecting a biological description. The uncritical credence given to neuroimaging research is an ethical issue, not in its potential for contributing to misdiagnosis per se but because of the motivations that often drive this research. My claim is that this research should proceed with an awareness of presumptions and motivations underlying the field as a whole, in addition to an explicit focus on the past and potential future consequences of classification and diagnosis on the groups of individuals under study. (shrink)

Under the umbrella of the burgeoning neurotransdisciplines, scholars are using the principles and research methodologies of their primary and secondary fields to examine developments in neuroimaging, neuromodulation and psychopharmacology. The path for advanced scholarship at the intersection of law and neuroscience may clear if work across the disciplines is collected and reviewed and outstanding and debated issues are identified and clarified. In this article, I organize, examine and refine a narrow class of the burgeoning neurotransdiscipline scholarship; that is, scholarship (...) at the interface of law and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). (shrink)

Cowan argues that the true short-term memory (STM) capacity limit is about 4 items. Functional neuroimaging data converge with this conclusion, indicating distinct neural activity patterns depending on whether or not memory task-demands exceed this limit. STM for verbal information within that capacity invokes focal prefrontal cortical activation that increases with memory load. STM for verbal information exceeding that capacity invokes widespread prefrontal activation in regions associated with executive and attentional processes that may mediate chunking processes to accommodate STM (...) capacity limits. (shrink)

Recent neuroimaging studies of the psychedelic state, which have commanded great media attention, are reviewed. They show that psychedelic trances are consistently accompanied by broad reductions in brain activity, despite their experiential richness. This result is at least counterintuitive from the perspective of mainstream physicalism, according to which subjective experience is entirely constituted by brain activity. In this brief analysis, the generic implications of physicalism regarding the relationship between the richness of experience and brain activity levels are rigorously examined (...) from an informational perspective, and then made explicit and unambiguous. These implications are then found to be non-trivial to reconcile with the results of said neuroimaging studies, which highlights the significance of such studies for the mind-body problem and philosophy of mind in general. (shrink)

Brain images are used both as scientific evidence and to illustrate the results of neuroimaging experiments. These images are apt to be viewed as photographs of brain activity, and in so viewing them people are prone to assume that they share the evidential characteristics of photographs. Photographs are epistemically compelling, and have a number of characteristics that underlie what I call their inferential proximity. Here I explore the aptness of the photography analogy, and argue that although neuroimaging does (...) bear important similarities to photography, the details of the generation and analysis of neuroimages significantly complicate the relation of the image to the data. Neuroimages are not inferentially proximate, but their seeming so increases the potential for misinterpretation. This suggests caution in appealing to such images in the public domain. (shrink)

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame (...) to move these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

A growing number of scientists have become interested in the relation between cognitive processes and their biological basis. This growth in interest has led to the creation of a subfield within psychology called cognitive neuroscience, which has now spawned its own scientific journal, a conference, and several graduate programs around the United States. One reason for recent enthusiasm is the development of several methods that allow researchers to observe brain activity in healthy, awake subjects while they perform cognitive tasks. These (...) methods, which are referred to as neuroimaging techniques, provide a unique window into the function of the human brain. (shrink)

Advances in neuroscience have revolutionized our understanding of the central nervous system. Neuroimaging technologies, in particular, have begun to reveal the complex anatomical, physiological, biochemical, genetic, and molecular organizational structure of the organ at the center of that system: the human brain. More recently, neuroimaging technologies have enabled the investigation of normal brain function and are being used to gain important new insights into the mechanisms behind many neuropsychiatric disorders. This research has implications for psychiatric diagnosis, treatment, and (...) risk assessment. However, with some exceptions, neuroimaging is still a research tool—not ready for use in clinical psychiatry. (shrink)

Images come in many varieties, but for evidential purposes, photographs are privileged. Recent advances in neuroimaging provide us with a new type of image that is used as scientific evidence. Brain images are epistemically compelling, in part because they are liable to be viewed as akin to photographs of brain activity. Here I consider features of photography that underlie the evidential status we accord it, and argue that neuroimaging diverges from photography in ways that seriously undermine the photographic (...) analogy. While neuroimaging remains an important source of scientific evidence, proper interpretation of brain images is much more complex than it appears. ‡This work was supported in part by a grant from the Leslie Humanities Center at Dartmouth College. I thank John Kulvicki for helpful comments, and Kim Sterelny, for making it possible for me to spend some time at the ANU with a grant from the Australian Research Council. †To contact the author, please write to: Dartmouth College, Department of Philosophy, Hanover, NH 03755; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Neuroimaging has provided insight into numerous neurological disorders in children, such as epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Many clinicians and investigators believe that neuroimaging holds great promise, especially in the areas of behavioral and cognitive disorders. However, concerns about the risks of various neuroimaging modalities and the potential for misinterpretation of imaging results are mounting. Imaging evaluations also raise questions about stigmatization, allocation of resources, and confidentiality. Children are particularly vulnerable in this milieu and require special attention with (...) regards to safety guidelines and modality adaptations. This article examines pediatric neuroimaging practice through an ethics lens. Most authors in the field of neuroethics focus on the future concerns of neuroimaging. In contrast, our paper examines ethical matters surrounding current clinical applications in the pediatric population. We first provide a brief overview of the neuroimaging technologies most commonly used in a pediatric clinical context and then discuss a variety of ethical issues arising from the use of these technologies. (shrink)

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame (...) to move these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

Previous studies suggest that psychopathic traits commonly present as comorbid with substance use disorders. Moreover, neuroimaging and psychometric findings suggest that psychopathic traits may predispose individuals to a sensitized reward response to drugs. Given that substance use disorders are characterized by a neurocognitive bias toward drug-reward relative to non-drug reward, it is possible that heightened psychopathic characteristics may further predispose to this processing bias. To evaluate this possibility, we assessed psychopathic traits (measured using the PCL-R; Hare, 2003 ) in (...) 105 probationers/parolees and evaluated the relationship between PCL-R scores, lifetime duration of drug use, and biases in neural response to drug- compared to food-related videos. Psychopathic traits (potentially driven by interpersonal/affective traits) were positively correlated with drug > food reactivity within the right insula and left amygdala. In addition, psychopathic traits modulated the relationship between drug use and drug > food reactivity within the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, right insula, and left caudate nucleus. Specifically, lifetime duration of drug use correlated positively with drug > food reactivity in participants with lower levels of psychopathic traits and correlated negatively with drug > food reactivity in individuals with higher levels of psychopathic traits. These results help reconcile prior studies on psychopathy and drug-stimulus processing and provide neurocognitive support for the notion that psychopathic traits serve as an underlying risk factor for substance use disorders. These results suggest that different treatment regimens for substance abuse for individuals with higher or lower levels of psychopathy may be beneficial and suggest that reduction of neurocognitive biases to drug-related stimuli may offer useful targets for future treatment protocols. (shrink)

The method of positron emission tomography (PET imaging) illustrates the circular logic popular in subtractive neuroimaging and linear reductive cognitive psychology. Both require that strictly feed-forward, modular, cognitive components exist, before the fact, to justify the inference of particular components from images (or other observables) after the fact. Also, both require a "true" componential theory of cognition and laboratory tasks, before the fact, to guarantee reliable choices for subtractive contrasts. None of these possibilities are likely. Consequently, linear reductive analysis (...) has failed to yield general, reliable, componential accounts. (shrink)

The method of positron emission tomography illustrates the circular logic popular in subtractive neuroimaging and linear reductive cognitive psychology. Both require that strictly feed-forward, modular, cognitive components exist, before the fact, to justify the inference of particular components from images after the fact. Also, both require a "true" componential theory of cognition and laboratory tasks, before the fact, to guarantee reliable choices for subtractive contrasts. None of these possibilities are likely. Consequently, linear reductive analysis has failed to yield general, (...) reliable, componential accounts. (shrink)

BackgroundReturning neuroimaging incidental findings may create a challenge to research participants’ health literacy skills as they must interpret and make appropriate healthcare decisions based on complex radiology jargon. Disclosing IF can therefore present difficulties for participants, research institutions and the healthcare system. The purpose of this study was to identify the extent of the health literacy challenges encountered when returning neuroimaging IF. We report on findings from a retrospective survey and focus group sessions with major stakeholders involved in (...) disclosing IF.MethodsWe surveyed participants who had received a radiology report from a research study and conducted focus groups with participants, parents of child participants, Institutional Review Board members, investigators and physicians. Qualitative thematic analyses were conducted using standard group-coding procedures and descriptive summaries of health literacy scores and radiology report outcomes are examined.ResultsAlthough participants reported high health literacy skills, 67 % did not seek medical care when recommended to do so; and many participants in the focus groups disclosed they could not understand the findings described in their report. Despite their lack of understanding, participants desire to have information about their radiology results, and the investigators feel ethically inclined to return findings.ConclusionsThe language in clinically useful radiology reports can create a challenge for participants’ health literacy skills and has the potential to negatively impact the healthcare system and investigators conducting imaging research. Radiology reports need accompanying resources that explain findings in lay language, which can help reduce the challenge caused by the need to communicate incidental findings. (shrink)

Following coma, some patients will recover wakefulness without signs of consciousness (only showing reflex movements, i.e., the vegetative state) or may show non-reflex movements but remain without functional communication (i.e., the minimally conscious state). Currently, there remains a high rate of misdiagnosis of the vegetative state (Schnakers et. al. BMC Neurol, 9:35, 8) and the clinical and electrophysiological markers of outcome from the vegetative and minimally conscious states remain unsatisfactory. This should incite clinicians to use multimodal assessment to detect objective (...) signs of consciousness and validate para-clinical prognostic markers in these challenging patients. This review will focus on advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques such as magnetic resonance spectroscopy, diffusion tensor imaging, and functional MRI (fMRI studies in both “activation” and “resting state” conditions) that were recently introduced in the assessment of patients with.. (shrink)

There is considerable interest in the use of neuroimaging techniques for forensic purposes. Memory detection techniques, including the well-publicized Brain Fingerprinting technique (Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, Inc., Seattle WA), exploit the fact that the brain responds differently to sensory stimuli to which it has been exposed before. When a stimulus is specifically associated with a crime, the resulting brain activity should differentiate between someone who was present at the crime and someone who was not. This article reviews the scientific literature (...) on three such techniques: priming, old/new, and P300 effects. The forensic potential of these techniques is evaluated based on four criteria: specificity, automaticity, encoding flexibility, and longevity. This article concludes that none of the techniques are devoid of forensic potential, although much research is yet to be done. Ethical issues, including rights to privacy and against self-incrimination, are discussed. A discussion of legal issues concludes that current memory detection techniques do not yet meet United States standards of legal admissibility. (shrink)

Recent studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging of patients in a vegetative state have raised the possibility that such patients retain some degree of consciousness. In this paper, the ethical implications of such findings are outlined, in particular in relation to decisions about withdrawing life-sustaining treatment. It is sometimes assumed that if there is evidence of consciousness, treatment should not be withdrawn. But, paradoxically, the discovery of consciousness in very severely brain-damaged patients may provide more reason to let them die. (...) Although functional neuroimaging is likely to play an increasing role in the assessment of patients in a vegetative state, caution is needed in the interpretation of neuroimaging findings. (shrink)

The method of positron emission tomography illustrates the circular logic popular in subtractive neuroimaging and linear reductive cognitive psychology. Both require that strictly feed-forward, modular, cognitive components exist, before the fact, to justify the inference of particular components from images after the fact. Also, both require a "true" componential theory of cognition and laboratory tasks, before the fact, to guarantee reliable choices for subtractive contrasts. None of these possibilities are likely. Consequently, linear reductive analysis has failed to yield general, (...) reliable, componential accounts. (shrink)

Functional neuroimaging is sometimes criticized as showing only where in the brain things happen, not how they happen, and thus being unable to inform us about questions of mental and neural representation. Novel analytical methods increasingly make clear that imaging can give us access to constructs of interest to psychology. In this paper I argue that neuroimaging can give us an important, if limited, window into the large-scale structure of neural representation. I describe Representational Similarity Analysis, increasingly used (...) in neuroimaging studies, and lay out desiderata for representations in general. In that context I discuss what RSA can and cannot tell us about neural representation. I compare RSA with fMRI to a different experimental paradigm which has been embraced as being indicative of representation in psychology, and argue that it compares favorably. (shrink)

For over a century, scientists have sought to see through the protective shield of the human skull and into the living brain. Today, an array of technologies allows researchers and clinicians to create astonishingly detailed images of our brain's structure as well as colorful depictions of the electrical and physiological changes that occur within it when we see, hear, think and feel. These technologies—and the images they generate—are an increasingly important tool in medicine and science.Given the role that neuroimaging (...) technologies now play in biomedical research, both neuroscientists and nonexperts should aim to be as clear as possible about how neuroimages are made and what they can—and cannot—tell us. Add to this that neuroimages have begun to be used in courtrooms at both the determination of guilt and sentencing stages, that they are being employed by marketers to refine advertisements and develop new products, that they are being sold to consumers for the diagnosis of mental disorders and for the detection of lies, and that they are being employed in arguments about the nature (or absence) of powerful concepts like free will and personhood, and the need for citizens to have a basic understanding of how this technology works and what it can and cannot tell us becomes even more pressing. (shrink)

Socioeconomic status -related health disparities persist for numerous chronic diseases, with lower-SES individuals exhibiting greater risk of morbidity and mortality compared to their higher-SES counterparts. One likely contributor is disparities in health messaging efforts, which are currently less effective for motivating health behavior change among those lower in SES. Drawing on communication neuroscience and social neuroscience research, we describe a conceptual framework to improve health messaging effectiveness in lower SES communities. The framework is based on evidence that health-message-induced activity in (...) the ventral striatum and subdivisions of the medial pre-frontal cortex predicts behavior change. Additionally, we draw from social neuroscience work showing that activity in these regions during valuation and the processing of self-related vs. social information, differs as a function of SES. Bringing together these previously disparate lines of work, we argue that health messages emphasizing the benefits to close others of engaging in behavior change will be more effective among lower SES individuals. We also outline a research agenda based on our framework. Ultimately, we hope that this framework utilizing a “brain-as-predictor” approach generates novel insights about the neural underpinnings of message-induced behavior change among lower SES individuals, and helps to close the gap in SES-based health disparities by harnessing the power of neuroimaging. (shrink)

Neuroimaging techniques have made a huge contribution to our understanding of schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Until now however, texts on both schizophrenia and neuroimaging have paid little attention to the overlap between these areas. This new volume is the first dedicated to unravelling how these techniques can help us better understand this complex disorder. Each chapter focuses on a particular research method, describing the nature of the findings, the main technological problems, and future possibilities. Though including sufficient (...) methodological detail to be of value to imaging researchers, the emphasis throughout is on providing information of value to clinicians. Written and edited by leaders in schizophrenia research, this book details what structural and functional brain imaging studies have already established about schizophrenia and what developments are likely in the foreseeable future. (shrink)

Neuroscientists have long sought to study the dynamic activity of the human brain—what's happening in the brain, that is, while people are thinking, feeling, and acting. Ideally, an inside look at brain function would simultaneously and continuously measure the biochemical state of every cell in the central nervous system. While such a miraculous method is science fiction, a century of progress in neuroimaging technologies has made such simultaneous and continuous measurement a plausible fiction. Despite this progress, practitioners of modern (...) neuroimaging struggle with two kinds of limitations: those that attend the particular neuroimaging methods we have today and those that would limit any method of imaging neural activity, no matter how powerful.In this essay, I consider the liabilities and potential of techniques that measure human brain activity. I am concerned here only with methods that measure relevant physiologic states of the central nervous system and relate those measures to particular mental states. I will consider in particular the preeminent method of functional neuroimaging: BOLD fMRI. While there are several practical limits on the biological information that current technologies can measure, these limits—as important as they are—are minor in comparison to the fundamental logical restraints on the conclusions that can be drawn from brain imaging studies. (shrink)

PET studies in domains like vision and attention have been successful because the experiments are the product of highly articulated theories. In contrast, the results of PET studies investigating language processing are difficult to interpret. We suggest that this difficulty is due to the more tentative connection of these experiments with the insights of psycholinguistics and linguistic theory.

DNA methylation plays a key role in neural cell fate and provides a molecular link between early life stress and later-life behavioral phenotypes. Here, studies that combine neuroimaging methods and DNA methylation analysis in pediatric population with a history of adverse experiences were systematically reviewed focusing on: targeted genes and neural correlates; statistical models used to examine the link between DNA methylation and neuroimaging data also considering early life stress and behavioral outcomes. We identified 8 studies that report (...) associations between DNA methylation and brain structure/functions in infants, school age children and adolescents faced with early life stress condition. Results showed that several genes were investigated and different neuroimaging techniques were performed. Statistical model used ranged from correlational to more complex moderated mediation models. Most of the studies considered DNA methylation and neural correlates as mediators in the relationship between early life stress and behavioral phenotypes. Understanding what role DNA methylation and neural correlates play in interaction with early life stress and behavioral outcomes is crucial to promote theory-driven studies as the future direction of this research fields. (shrink)

Car driving is supported by perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills trained through continuous daily practice. One of the skills that characterize experienced drivers is to detect changes in the driving environment and then flexibly switch their driving modes in response to the changes. Previous functional neuroimaging studies on motor control investigated the mechanisms underlying behaviors adaptive to changes in control properties or parameters of experimental devices such as a computer mouse or a joystick. The switching of multiple internal models (...) mainly engages adaptive behaviors and underlies the interplay between the cerebellum and frontoparietal network regions as the neural process. However, it remains unclear whether the neural mechanisms identified in previous motor control studies also underlie practical driving behaviors. In the current study, we measure functional magnetic resonance imaging activities while participants control a realistic driving simulator inside the MRI scanner. Here, the accelerator sensitivity of a virtual car is abruptly changed, requiring participants to respond to this change flexibly to maintain stable driving. We first compare brain activities before and after the sensitivity change. As a result, sensorimotor areas, including the left cerebellum, increase their activities after the sensitivity change. Moreover, after the change, activity significantly increases in the inferior parietal lobe and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, parts of the FPN regions. By contrast, the posterior cingulate cortex, a part of the default mode network, deactivates after the sensitivity change. Our results suggest that the neural bases found in previous experimental studies can serve as the foundation of adaptive driving behaviors. At the same time, this study also highlights the unique contribution of non-motor regions to addressing the high cognitive demands of driving. (shrink)

Functional neuroimaging (NI) technologies like Positron Emission Tomography and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) have revolutionized neuroscience, and provide crucial tools to link cognitive psychology and traditional neuroscientific models. A growing discipline of 'neurophilosophy' brings fMRI evidence to bear on traditional philosophical issues such as weakness of will, moral psychology, rational choice, social interaction, free will, and consciousness. NI has also attracted critical attention from psychologists and from philosophers of science. I review debates over the evidential status of fMRI, (...) including the differences between brain scans and ordinary images, the legitimacy of forward inference and reverse inference, and deductive versus probabilistic accounts of NI evidence. I conclude with a discussion of fMRI as exploratory rather than confirmatory evidence, linking this debate to the growing literature on cognitive ontology. (shrink)

This art-science interaction evokes two ‘neuroimages’. However, the term ‘neuroimage’ does not refer, as usual, to images that emerge from scientific practices that seek to gain insight into the structural and functional properties of brains. Rather, it is meant that the images considered have as their theme neurotechnologies: specifically, those that concern the control of neuroprostheses, and neuroprostheses themselves. The first neuroimage appears in a biosignal sensing cap catalogue, and the second appears in the science fiction film Blade Runner 2049. (...) While neither neuroimage is actually included in the piece, each is described to the reader before being speculatively analysed, and therefore becomes a ‘mental’ image in the mind’s eye, calling upon the ancient art of ekphrasis. (shrink)

When does neuroimaging constitute a sufficiently developed technology to be put into use in the work of determining whether or not a defendant is guilty of crime? This question constitutes the starting point of the present paper. First, it is suggested that an overall answer is provided by what is referred to as the “ideal comparative view.” Secondly, it is—on the ground of this view—argued that the answer as to whether neuroimaging technology should be applied presupposes penal theoretical (...) considerations. Thirdly, it is argued that the retributivist theory of punishment is not well-suited for delivering the sort of theoretical guidance that is required for assessing the desirability of using neuroimaging in the work of the criminal court. (shrink)

Abstract When new methods of generating information about individuals leave the confined space of research application the possibility of morally dubious application arises. The current propagation of neuroscientific diagnostics leads to new possibilities of misuse and accordingly new needs for the protection of individual privacy emerge. While most current privacy discussion focuses on sensationalist applications which aim/claim to gather information about psychological traits or even the content of thoughts, the more sober but much more realistic endeavour to gather health data (...) from research or medical imaging studies is widely neglected. I will try to answer the question if and in how far data from neuroscientific imaging technologies require special protection. Two developments form the background of the ethical discussion: the increased diagnostic power of neuroimaging techniques and the wider distribution of this technology beyond specialized medical offices and clinics. The first development is likely to broaden the scope of data, which are considered relevant for health care and related decisions. The latter is likely to widen the scope of persons who might have access to diagnostic results without at the time taking the role of a doctor towards the person diagnosed. I will argue that neuroimaging data are currently primarily medical data and that the associated standards of consent and confidentiality are worth protecting. Even nonmedical applications of neuroimaging technology inherit too much of the diagnostic power for which they were originally invented, for it to be advisable to drop the accompanying consent and confidentiality requirements. (shrink)

The subtraction and covariance paradigms are two analytic techniques used with functional neuroimaging data. The first assumes that a brain region participating in a task should show altered neural activity (relative to a control task). The second assumes that tasks are mediated by networks of interacting regions.Images of mindattempts to link results from the subtraction paradigm with a network interpretation that could have been more explicitly done using the covariance paradigm.

When the language-dominant hemisphere is damaged by a focal lesion, the brain may reorganize the language network through functional and structural changes known as adaptive plasticity. Adaptive plasticity is documented for triggers including ischemic, tumoral, and epileptic focal lesions, with effects in clinical practice. Many questions remain regarding language plasticity. Different lesions may induce different patterns of reorganization depending on pathologic features, location in the brain, and timing of onset. Neuroimaging provides insights into language plasticity due to its non-invasiveness, (...) ability to image the whole brain, and large-scale implementation. This review provides an overview of language plasticity on MRI with insights for patient care. First, we describe the structural and functional language network as depicted by neuroimaging. Second, we explore language reorganization triggered by stroke, brain tumors, and epileptic lesions and analyze applications in clinical diagnosis and treatment planning. By comparing different focal lesions, we investigate determinants of language plasticity including lesion location and timing of onset, longitudinal evolution of reorganization, and the relationship between structural and functional changes. (shrink)