Kyle, what are your thoughts on FMRIs? Ground-breaking research technology, overblown hype, or a thoughtful way of calming patients down by allowing them to listen to oldies while getting routine medical examinations?
Oh, and by the way, I'm moving to L.A. in 2010.
3 comments:
Someone on NPR today said FMRIs have ignited "furious debate" among neuro-psychologists, so, debate away Kyle.
LA Woman. We will need stories & celeb sightings.
fMRI: here is an answer from someone who doesn’t like it much. I still think it is better than nothing, though many find it harmful to science.
PRO ARGUMENTS
•If you want to know about the human brain, study the human brain (rather than rat, monkey, slug, worm, etc)
•Only way to study brain basis of complex human thinking
•Coincides generally well with neural recording data from primate/rodent, so in theory a valid measure of brain activity
CON
•We have little idea what blood flow (the basis of fMRI) even means in terms of brain activity. Data available have dissociated it from neuron activity recently, linking it with other types of cells even, so not clear how to interpret it other than “increased blood flow to X area”
•Risk of phrenology: we now know that functions depend on specific subtypes of neurons, in specific regions, embedded within specific pathways that span many areas. fMRI risks taking a step way back and pointing at whole brain areas as responsible for function X. Frankly I see this as an insurmountable problem. You’ll also see studies that identify stuff like romantic love as being generated from a particular area, which is just silly. So many variables not controlled for in these studies.
•Has come under attack recently due to dubious statistics (lots of news coverage on this). Basically, they pre-select areas on the basis of a priori interest and activation in a task, then run statistics to show these areas stand out amongst others.
•No way of understanding the mechanism of HOW the brain works with fMRI (where signals arise, where they go, and how they are signaled); only which areas are involved. What most neuroscientists care about these days is mechanism.
•Subjects are nearly all undergrads who have to do it for credit, or get money, and who are laying in a machine perfectly still—-raising issues about applicability of the data.
I don't know much but I do know this: if you rearrange the letters it spells "FIRM". What's your stance on that, Kyle?
And Liz, I need deets! Where you going to live? Do you have grand designs on being the Cool Aunt?
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