Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

• Works by detecting changes in blood flow and oxygenation that occur as a result of neural activity in specific areas of the brain
• When a brain area is more active it consumes more oxygen
• So that it can get this extra oxygen blood flow is directed to the active area
• fMRI produce 3D images showing which parts of the brain are involved in a particular mental process
• This has important implications for our understanding of localisation of function

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

• Measure electrical activity within the brain via electrodes that are fixed to an individual’s scalp using a skull cap
• The scan recording represents the brainwave patterns that are generated from the action of millions of neurons
• This provides an overall account of brain activity
• EEG is used by clinicians as a diagnostic tool
• If the EEG finds unusual arrhythmic patterns of activity (no particular pattern) this may indicate neurological abnormalities such as epilepsy, tumours or disorders of sleep

Event-related potentials (ERP)

• Give an overly general measure of brain activity
• However, within overall EEG data there are neural responses associated with specific sensory cognitive and motor events
• Researchers have found a way of isolating these specific neural responses
• What they did is present a stimulus/task repeatedly
• Any neural activity that is not consistent each time is extraneous brain activity and can be ignored
• Any neural responses that consistently appear are then clearly the response of a specific stimulus/response
• These remaining brainwaves are triggered by specific events are called event-related potentials

Post-mortem examinations

• The analysis of a person’s brain following their death
• In psychological research, individuals whose brains are subject to a post-mortem are likely to be those who have a rare disorder of have displayed behaviour while they are alive that suggests possible underlying brain damage
• Subsequently, when a person dies, the researchers can examine their brains to look for abnormalities that might explain that behaviour and which are not found in control individuals
• i.e., Broca’s work