Brain imaging technology

The Biological and the Cognitive Approaches employ technology like brain scanning to understand the brain and behaviour. This article, New Imaging Method Allows Scientists to Identify Specific Mental States from Science Daily reports on research on the brain that utilises FMRI to identify particular biological signatures of specific mental states.

New clues to the mystery of brain function, obtained through research by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine, suggest that distinct mental states can be distinguished based on unique patterns of activity in coordinated “networks” within the brain. These networks consist of brain regions that are synchronously communicating with one another. The Stanford team is using this network approach to develop diagnostic tests in Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders in which network function is disrupted.

This study can be cited on any question about techniques used to study the brain in relation to behaviour.