Functional magnetic resonance imaging and synaptic plasticity

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a type of particular MRI scan. It determines the hemodynamic response (change in blood flow) relayed to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or animals. This effect has been extensively exploited in a several research settings sequentially to study regional activation related with several of cognitive processes, language, reward processing, decision making and fear as well as motor and sensory processing. Functional MRI can offer important insights into brain plasticity and reorganization after injury such as trauma or stroke. Changes in neural performance with experience happen with development and learning. For instance, developmental experiment with nonhuman animals has indicated that sensory experience causes changes at the molecular and cellular levels and the cortical map level. Because fMRI can indirect determine the synaptic activity, only those changes in synaptic activity will be measurable via this technique. In this review study we assess the brain plasticity using fMRI methods because neuroimaging of learning and development is one of the most important issues of cognitive neuroscience