Neuroimaging

Neuropsychology looks into the brain and what brain damage can be caused by studying the relationship between the brain and the functions. Beaumont (1996) said that neuropsychology is the study of the relationship between the brain and mental life. By bringing ideas from neurology and cognitive psychology it allows analysis of an individual’s abilities and cognitive skills. Neuroimaging has techniques which is able to measure the brain through different scans and images. There are many different techniques used in neuropsychology/neuroimaging that help further our understanding of the brain and how it works, however they all have their faults as well as the positives that they carry. This essay will focus on fMRI, TMS and ECG techniques.

Functional

These responses would come from the person’s sensory and motor activation, visual imagery tasks and language tasks. Although the fMRI technique uses the same equipment as a MRI scan, it records new information compared to the MRI which leads to the fMRI been the most popular choice. There are two main ways in which the experiment can be carried out, one being the block test which involves the patient carrying out a test then has a rest and repeats this a number of times. However the patient can easily get bored with this and this can cause restlessness. The other is an event-related design and although this is better for the patient as it causes less boredom it can take much longer to carry out. There are many benefits of using an fMRI technique one of these being that while we are studying the live brain it can create a special resolution of one to two millimeters which has been said to be the best resolution that any technique can produce along with the temporal resolution which is said to be as little as 1 second. This has allowed for our knowledge of the brain to be expanded which has led to some discoveries which has advanced our research. Cohen and Bookheimer