Magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Research in neuroscience has slowly been trying to bridge the gap between understanding the difference between the brain and the mind. In this process, many of the concepts in cognitive psychology and psychiatry are being rewritten as development and application of new technologies further our understanding of the brain. The goal is to answer many of the questions that cognitive psychologists and psychiatrists have been seeking to understand. A particularly productive field of research has involved medical imaging that utilizes techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; as reviewed in this textbook (Posner and Raichele 1997)) or positron emission tomogrophy (PET) (Friston 1997). Both techniques purport to measure neuronal activation; however, both only measure specific properties of the brain: blood flow in fMRI and glucose uptake with PET. The relationship between these measures and actual neuronal activity is a major assumption that is generally unquestioned. A growing number of scientists, psychiatrists, and philosophers are nonethesless beginning to question this assumption