Looking at the Mind through the Lens of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Chances and Challenges

Advances in non-invasive brain scanning and imaging technologies over the last ten years have opened up promising new methods of work for researchers. Neuroimaging techniques has enabled scientists to look for the first time into the human brain in vivo, to literally watch it while it works. This has revealed exciting insights into the spatial and temporal changes underlying a broad range of brain functions, including perceptual and motor abilities (e.g. Di Salle et al., 2003; Hlustik et al., 2001), normal and abnormal language processes (e.g. Paulesu et al., 2001; Perani, et al., 2003; Small & Nusbaum, 2004) and higher cognitive processes (for a discussion of neuroimaging results of higher level cognition see Cappa & Grafman, 2004). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (hereafte