FMRIs

• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRIs)

  A technique for measuring changes in brain activity while a person performs a task. It does this by measuring changes in blood flow in particular areas of the brain which indicates increased neural activity in those areas. If a particular area of the brain becomes more active, there is an increased demand for oxygen in that area. The brain responds to this extra demand by increasing blood flow. As a result of these changes, researchers are able to produce maps showing which areas of the brain are involved in a particular mental activity.
• fMRI is non-invasive, nor does it expose the brain to potentially harmful radiation, as is the case with some other scanning techniques used in the study of the brain.
• fMRI offers a more objective and reliable measure of psychological processes than is possible with verbal reports. It is useful as a way of investigating psychological phenomena that people would be in capable of verbally reporting.
• Because fMRI measures changes in blood flow in the brain, it is not directly measuring neural activity. This means it is not a truly quantitative measure of neural activity.
• Critics argue that fMRI overlooks the networked nature of the brain activity, as it only focuses on localised activity in the brain. They claim that it is communication among the different regions that is most critical to mental function.