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Functional neuroimaging (FNI) techniques, such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), gain access to the activity of the brain through changes in blood flow and metabolism that accompany, with remarkable fidelity, regional changes in the activity of the brain. While the temporal resolution of these techniques falls far below that of the electrophysiological techniques, they do offer full 3D coverage of the human brain at subcentimeter resolution. This chapter focuses on fMRI BOLD imaging, which is now the dominant FNI technique.

Functional neuroimaging techniques, e.g. positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and neurophysiological methods, e.g. electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalograpy (MEG), are used widely in cognitive and clinical neuroscience. A common aim is to understand brain function along two dimensions: functional specialization and functional integration. Functional specialization assumes that AQ1 distinct brain regions are specialized for certain aspects of information processing, but allows for the possibility that this specialization is anatomically segregated across multiple regions. Most current functional neuroimaging experiments have adopted this view and interpret the areas that are activated by a certain task component as the elements of a distributed system. However, this characterization does not address how the locally specialized areas are bound together by context-dependent interactions among these areas, i.e. the functional integration within the system. This chapter reviews established techniques for characterizing functional integration on the basis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data.

The decades since Luria's seminal work in neuropsychology have brought tremendous advances in the understanding of prefrontal cortex (PFC) function. This chapter reviews meta-analytic, functional neuroimaging, and other neuropsychological and neuroscience data in order to discuss the putative functions of a set of PFC regions involved in cognition, motivation, and emotion. It is argued that PFC function is best understood by looking at the involvement of specific regions across a wide range of tasks, rather than restricting interpretations of function to specific task domains (e.g. working memory, task switching, etc.). In this light, processing in PFC is proposed to be roughly hierarchical, with posterior PFC regions being involved in motor response selection while more anterior regions carry out a set of specific higher-order processes commonly associated with working- and long-term memory tasks. Finally, orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial PFC are involved in specific aspects of emotion processing.

This chapter examines data from human amnesic patients, data from electrophysiological recordings in humans, and data from functional neuroimaging studies to address the question: What does the human hippocampus do? Among the conclusions reached is that along with the adjacent cortical structures in the parahippocampal gyrus, the human hippocampal region is critically involved in memory for facts and events (explicit or declarative memory). The hippocampal region and the adjacent cortex are not involved in immediate or working memory process and are not involved in a wide range of implicit or nondeclarative long-term memory process (although they may be used in working memory or implicit tasks that evoke declarative processes).

This chapter reviews functional neuroimaging studies of memory in young adults, older adults, and patients with dementia that have used the traditional univariate subtraction approach. It shows how examination of functional connectivity can be useful in identifying between-group differences not possible with univariate approaches. It focuses on changes involving prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus because these areas are thought by some to be particularly vulnerable to aging, and much of the neuroimaging literature on memory has focused on these regions.

The results of functional neuroimaging studies of autobiographical memory can inform our understanding of the neural correlates of recollection in several ways. First, autobiographical memory typically involves an integration of episodic and semantic memories, and thus, the extent of recollection during autobiographical memory retrieval varies depending on the relative contribution of these two forms of memory. Second, autobiographical memory construction involves a protracted retrieval time that allows for the examination of the multiple retrieval processes mediating recollection. Third, properties that might modulate recollection processes, such as emotion, vividness, and remoteness are more easily examined at the upper boundary in autobiographical memory. This chapter focuses on these three domains where functional neuroimaging studies of autobiographical memory can make unique contributions to our understanding of the complex nature of recollection. Before turning to these domains, the main functional neuroimaging methods for investigating autobiographical memory are first reviewed, which differ primarily in their ability to elicit recollection.

This chapter presents a balanced perspective on the relationship between functional information processing and neurobiological approaches to the understanding of human learning and memory. It argues that neurobiological information, including information from functional neuroimaging, is essential in informing functional theory, but that functional theory is in turn essential to increasing the specificity of theorizing concerning how representations and processes of learning and memory relate to their neurobiological substrates.

This chapter discusses how different functional neuroimaging methods can be employed to study the functional organization and neural bases of cognitive functions such as language. It also looks at the practical and conceptual limitations of these methods, and uses the term ‘functional neuroimaging’ as a generic term to cover all of the methods that are currently available for the non-invasive measurement of brain activity in human subjects. The term does not refer solely to those methods that are based on haemodynamic variables.

This chapter explores the role of brain development in the development of recollection. The discussion has three main goals. First, it reviews the basic neurobiology of physical brain development, including primary events in prenatal and early postnatal brain development, as well as developmental processes that continue into later childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Second, it considers animal studies and human neuroimaging studies, addressing the structural development of regions previously associated with mature memory functions. Finally, it reviews the relatively small but burgeoning literature using functional neuroimaging methods to examine developmental changes in the functioning of brain systems underlying memory across childhood and adolescence.

One of the great successes of functional neuroimaging as a method has been to generate theories concerning the cognitive functions supported by rostral PFC (approximating Brodmann Area 10). But these ideas have developed largely without regard to the existing data available from human lesion studies, which should have provided valuable constraints on theorising. These data are outlined here, augmented by a meta-analysis of the work of Donald T. Stuss and colleagues. Rostral PFC lesions do not typically cause widespread cognitive deficits. But they often do cause marked deficits in a range of cognitive abilities which have hitherto received little attention from cognitive scientists. These include (but are not restricted to) prospective memory, multitasking, “metacognitive” control, and social behaviour. It is argued that functional neuroimaging practitioners of functional neuroimaging might wish to consider these data when interpreting, post-hoc, findings of haemodynamic change in rostral PFC.

Episodic memory is prone to errors and distortions that can have important consequences for the law. This chapter considers research that has used functional neuroimaging techniques in an attempt to elucidate the nature and basis of true, false, and imaginary memories. The first section of the chapter discusses evidence showing that functional neuroimaging techniques can distinguish between true and false memories under controlled laboratory conditions. The second section focuses on a related and recently emerging line of work that compares the neural underpinnings of actual episodic memories of past experiences with imagined experiences (episodic simulation) of events that might occur in the future. The third and concluding section of the chapter discusses issues that arise when attempting to generalize results from the laboratory to everyday contexts, along with the possible implications of neuroimaging research on true, false, and imaginary memories for the legal system.

This chapter builds on the work in neuroethics of Northoff (2006) to examine the utility of advances in neuroimaging to facilitate informed consent and patient decision-making. It presents the results of an empirical study of practitioners' views on the potential application of functional neuroimaging for the clinical care of mental illness. This is one arm of a larger study of stakeholder views — practitioners, adult patients, and parents of minor patients. Before these results are presented, the chapter first reviews the conditions under which informed consent is thought to be valid, why the decision making capacity of psychiatric patients may at times be considered compromised, and what questions this raises about these patients' consent to or refusal of treatment.

This chapter focuses on the contribution and goals of functional neuroimaging. It presents a detailed discussion on the goals of functional neuroimaging, including neuroanatomical localization of cognitive processes, testing current theories of cognition, and neural models. The chapter reviews the work of functional neuroimaging in cognitive science and looks into its progress, and, finally, addresses questions related to functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuroimaging studies.

This chapter discusses the relative importance of imaging technologies and the need to integrate information from multiple methods. It deals with several classes of computational techniques that allow the integration of data from magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to improve the accuracy and reliability of functional neuroimaging by MEG. The chapter analyses the integrated application of two powerful paradigms for functional neuroimaging, exploiting the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses of each. Furthermore, it illustrates that because of the ambiguity associated with the neural electromagnetic inverse problem, a number of investigators have pursued the strategy of using fMRI to define the locations of activation while using MEG or EEG to estimate time-courses. Finally, the chapter mentions the need to expand the arsenal of methods available to the neuroscientist or physician for understanding the architecture and dynamic function of the human brain.

The term “neuroimaging” includes the use of various technologies to either directly or indirectly image the structure or function of the brain and its response to normal and abnormal processes. Structural neuroimaging attempts to noninvasively visualize gross pathology in the brain and can be used for the diagnosis of gross (large-scale) intracranial diseases, such as tumors. The most common structural imaging techniques are X-ray, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Functional neuroimaging techniques are primarily based on regional cerebral blood flow, regional cerebral metabolic rate of glucose consumption, or neuroreceptor signaling. They are most commonly used to quantify neuroreceptor status, diagnose diseases that cause metabolic derangement, and study the neurobiology and cognitive psychology associated with various neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, such as major depression. The most common functional neuroimaging techniques are positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission tomography (SPECT), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Standardized neuropsychological tests are often ineloquent to the real-life deficits endured by patients with damage to the frontal lobes. The Strategy Application Test was designed to mimic real life situations in which the most adaptive response is neither dictated by the examiner nor transparent in the test materials. While patients with frontal lesions are impaired on this test, so are patients with diffuse injury. Diffuse injury causes deficits on “frontal” or executive function tasks by disrupting integrated brain function. Traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, ischemic white matter disease, unsuccessful aging, dementia, and psychiatric conditions that cause diffuse injury account for a large proportion of functional disability due to brain disease. Structural and functional neuroimaging research on traumatic brain injury demonstrates the widespread neuropathology of diffuse injury, the effects of which can be revealed through analysis of activation patterns and functional connectivity, providing adjunctive information to behavioral testing and supporting patients’ claims of increased mental effort on cognitive tasks, even when their performance appears normal.

Positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, magnetoencephalography, and other complementary techniques provide cognitive neuroscience a unique methodological array of functional neuroimaging instruments that make it possible to decipher the internal logic of the brain. Functional imaging is ideally suited to probe the neuronal correlates of language, depending on methodological and spatiotemporal constraints of the technique used. This chapter provides a methodological background of functional neuroimaging as well as its advantages and disadvantages when applied to cognitive research. It describes methodological limitations and caveats, along with the history of neuroimaging in language research. It then considers the logic of brain operations, core networks and recruited cortical fields in language generation, and whether cortical macro-networks in language include only Broca’s and Wernicke’s area.

Functional brain imaging has been widely used to describe regional abnormalities in cerebral blood flow and metabolism in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients scanned in the rest state with PET, SPECT, or perfusion MRI techniques. This general brain mapping approach has also been used to identify PD-related functional changes occurring at the network level. This chapter summarizes recent advances in the use of disease-related spatial covariance patterns (metabolic brain networks) to study disease progression and to identify robust imaging biomarkers with which to assess therapeutic outcome in PD patients. Specific attention is given to clinical applications of network-based techniques in the study of dopaminergic pharmacotherapy and stereotaxic surgical interventions for the disorder.

Chapter 4 and 5 focused on studies of amnesia in humans and on the effects of hippocampal damage in animals. This chapter presents complementary evidence from other, related approaches. These approaches involve monitoring the ongoing operation of the human hippocampus and related brain structures during memory performance, providing a virtual ‘window’ into the inner workings of the normal brain. This is accomplished at two levels of analysis: by using functional neuroimaging methods in normal humans and by recording the activity patterns of single neurons in animals.

This introduction outlines the differences between the neuroscience of ethics and the ethics of neuroscience and describes how the 8 chapters in the book address theoretical and practical issues. It points out that the book is written for an interdisciplinary audience. It also briefly describes the conception of the brain-mind relation that serves as a theoretical foundation for the book and explains its anti-reductionist approach. After some cautionary notes on the limits of neuroimaging, it provides a brief summary of the book’s chapters.