Last updated: Mon, Jan 20, 2025
Neuroscientific study of the brain has advanced remarkably since the early 1990s. This section describes the powers and limitations of some of the major techniques that are used in this study. Although we've gained and enormous amount of knowledge during this period, it's important to also recognize that these study techniques have characteristics that highlight certain aspects of brain function while they simultaneously tend to obscure other aspects.> ----------------- They can introduce easily-traced chemical compounds into one end of a group of neurons and see where the compounds eventually show up. (This is done in the brains of live animals, not humans.) Neurosurgeons sometimes operate on the brains of conscious patients. The surgeons precisely position electrodes within the brain and can question the patient about what they experience when a mild electric stimulus is applied to different structures.
For more than twenty years scientists have been able in a sense to watch the brain function. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) equipment can observe how much blood is flowing through different areas of the brain while an experimental subject performs a task or reacts to a stimulus. Since more blood flow is needed by areas that are working harder, these images reveal which areas were engaged while or after the subject performed the task. These images show the average engagement of an area over a period of time, and are far from being able to read the subject's mind, but they can tell which brain areas were most involved in performing a task or appraising a situation.
Within this section...
Brain Imaging (Last updated: Tue, Jan 14, 2025)
EEG and MEG (This page is incomplete.)
Biochemical Methods (This page is incomplete.)
Animal Models in Brain Research (This page is incomplete.)
Knowledge From Brain Lesions and Brain Surgeries (This page is incomplete.)
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The Brain's Architecture and its Role in Pain (Last updated: Mon, Jan 20, 2025)