the.com/neuroimaging
Taking the brain's photo while pretending it holds still for thinking.
means A set of techniques — like MRI, CT, and PET scans — used to produce images of the structure or activity of the brain.
from A straightforward modern compound: 'neuro-' comes from the Greek 'neuron,' meaning sinew or nerve, and 'imaging' comes from Latin 'imago,' meaning likeness or image. The word itself is a 20th-century coinage, born alongside the technology — MRI, CT, and PET scanning — that finally let doctors and scientists see the living brain without opening the skull.
- blood not thought
- fMRI tracks oxygenated blood, not neurons firing directly
- lag time
- blood response lags actual brain activity by seconds
- false positive problem
- dead salmon once showed brain activity from statistical error
- resolution tradeoff
- sharper images mean slower scans, motion ruins everything