Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Over the last 20 years, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has matured from an infant technology used by a select few researchers to the dominant research modality in modern cognitive neuroscience. While the inclusion of fMRI theory and technique in neuroscience education is undisputed in value, no text has thus far emerged as sufficiently comprehensive yet accessible to students. This is due, in part, to the fundamentally interdisciplinary nature of fMRI.While many authors could compose a text on the physics of fMRI, the relationship between thought and neuroanatomy, or experimental design and data management, Huettel, Song, and McCarthy have endeavored to give birth to a single work that introduces each of the aforementioned subjects specifically as they relate to fMRI. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging fills a previously vacant niche in the educational armamentarium of students and professors of cognitive neuroscience. This highly readable book flows like an introductory college textbook in that it presumes very little knowledge on the part of the reader. Unlike so many other texts discussing fMRI, it warmly welcomes students from a variety of educational backgrounds. For example, elementary terms such as ion, neuron, central nervous system, and standard deviation are defined as they are first mentioned, effectively bringing even the most novice student up to speed. The book progresses logically fromMR scanners and signals to the connection between neuronal and hemodynamic activity to experimental design and statistical analyses while walking the reader through the relevant aspects of physiology and physics along the way. The “thought experiment” questions peppered throughout the book make reading each chapter feel almost interactive and aid in retention of the material. The full-color illustrations, which appear on nearly every page, impart life and add tangibly to the student’s comprehension of the text. While Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging does not qualify its reader as capable of designing and executing groundbreaking experimentation with fMRI, it was not written for that purpose. In fact, it achieves its intended goal very effectively: It lays the requisite groundwork for further study and gives the student a baseline familiarity with all of the terms and subjects likely to be necessary for a deeper understanding of fMRI. This text allows the reader to take their first step into the rapidly expanding field of cognitive neuroscience research enabled by fMRI and does so in a painless and all-inclusive fashion.