Understanding MRI: What is functional MRI (fMRI)?

This video is the first in our ‘Understanding MRI’ series and shows you how functional MRI works by guiding you through a simple experiment in our lab. We show you how our brain reacts to tasks, and how we use MRI to see this reaction.

[loxleymoon]

Thank-you for a clear explanation. This little video is better than an entire journal trying to explain the basics.

[AnjaliKumari-kbwb]

Thank you for the very clear, short and to the point explanation.

[Sue-fzui]

I found this explanation really easy to understand. Thank you.

[crimsonswan]

Thank you! The simple explanation and the visuals really helped me understand this! As it is more of the "basics", noone really explains how it works in depth as you did. Thank you again!

[williamjayaraj]

Thank you for the wonderful message on fMRI.

[EmilyAnderson-kq]

Watched this video as part of a dyslexia certification program and it is really cool. great video!

[AdawiahDurbas]

Thank u so much
It's much clear
Our teachers should show us things like that

[ruitaomeng]

much more helpful than the 1.2k upvoted one, thanks

[larissacury]

Amazing, thank you!! Is there a video detailing MRI too?

[Stinger-rqgy]

MRI signal is more stronger with blood flowing to that region.
Thanks🎉

[ajmarr]

How the fmri fails to explain the brain
In general, naming areas of the brain that light up during different behavioral and affective states, from lassitude to anxiety to just thinking, doesn’t really explain anything because it makes no testable predictions. However, a saving grace is that even intelligent audiences think that it does explain something after all. Indeed, it has been noted that college students more readily accept explanations attended by superfluous or irrelevant information on the brain because of the lay belief that citing activated parts of the brain is the best explanation for mental phenomena. This is akin to knowing anatomically which parts of the body are in motion, but not knowing how these parts work intrinsically and work together to achieve locomotion. These process level distinctions are important but often subtle and require a bit more explanation and fine grain analysis than the mere observation that the shin bone is connected to the ankle bone, or for that matter that the anterior cingulate cortex is connected to the neocortex. The overwhelming reliance on fmri and similar brain scans marginalizes the subtler processes that account for behavior that cannot be measured by the procedure, such as the interconnectedness of neural networks and neurochemical activity in the brain, and the fact that activation of certain areas of the brain can be manifested by widely different affective outcomes. For example, activation of the amygdala can reflect “anxiety” about a particular candidate, but amygdala activation can also be caused by arousal and positive emotions.
Overall, the fmri has its uses, but must be qualified by what it actually observes and measures, which is localized brain activity measured indirectly by oxygen content in cranial blood flow and not by measuring any real-time, chemical or electrical neural activity. To infer from fmri more fine-grained neural processes leaps past what the technique can actually do, and must be supplemented by a more granular analysis of brain activity that is often absent in fmri studies. Without that it descends to mere neuro-babble, a philosophical blight that doesn’t need a brain scan to understand.

From: Galileo’s Lament and the collapse of the social sciences on scribd

[carocuno]

How do you know it oxygen? What other devices were used to calculate this?

[sudhapriyashrivastava]

does fmri gives more structural detailing of brain than mri?

[rds]

is it true that you can't have fMRI if you have any metal in your body?