Talk:Neuroimaging

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jw701.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:09, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Article too complex

This article is too complex, IMHO. It needs heavy copy-editing, some restructuring and, of course, wikification. As it is, it reads too much like a scientific paper, not an encyclopedia article, I can understand everything by carefully reading the text, but skimming through the article left me as confused as before opening it. Paranoid 09:09, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agree with User:paranoid. Also some small things (which I can help to correct), like inconsistent terminology (CT/CAT). I don't know ehich of this is the more common term in English, unfortunately.

In the large picture the article is rather long and the main article and the introduction have some overlap. IMHO the Practical Achievements and Implications sections should better be located in a separate article, name to be determined. Or perhaps simply doing a dedicated Functional Brain Imaging article, where all the nice research stuff may go, and in plain old Brain Imaging we can expand on the most used techniques CAT and MRI and their typical use in neurosurgery?

I don't want to rush to any action just now and would like to hear from the contributors.

Pjacobi 09:06, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I tend to think the second approach is better (with some modifications). The Brain imaging needs to give the general picture, but touch all aspects - history, methods, practical results as of today and future prospects. Confusingly, there is a bit of history in the introduction, later in history and then in recent breakthroughs. I think these sections need to be combined into one History with parts of the text moved into a next section Methods (or techniques). Then the Practical results section should go (it's not yet worth creating a separate articles for the bullet list of 5 items, IMHO) and finally the Implications... or Future prospects. Wherether there is too much technical details, that information can be moved into the corresponding articles (or removed if it already has this info).Paranoid 15:11, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this article needs work, but Wikipedia needed a starting point for such an article, and I think the natural evolutionary modifications will improve this first shot greatly. -- Brinticus 12:25, 4 August 2004

I split off most of the article into History of brain imaging. Perhaps there are some things in there that should have remained in the main article- I'm not sure, since it's still such a long article, but now it's not quite so daunting. Sayeth 19:44, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

References

This article is now bottom-heavy. Surely, just a couple of references would be enough? JFW | T@lk 16:24, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sure. I've done it now. Sayeth 19:06, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Image request

It might be nice to have a graph showing the relative spatial and temporal resolution of each technique. I saw a similar graph in a presentation once, where the spatial and temporal resolution were the X and Y axes, and each technique was a blob which stretched over the graph. --NeuronExMachina 09:46, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Rename/Merger

I'm proposing this article be renamed to Neuroimaging. This phrase is more technically correct. A google search for the EXACT phrase '"brain imaging"' yields ~1.5 million hits, whereas 'neuroimaging' offers ~2 million. Semiconscious (talk · home) 08:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge from

A new article was recently created: Brain mapping. I've suggested that article be merged into neuroimaging as a subsection. If someone thinks "mapping" is distinct enough from "imaging" however, I will remove the notice. Cheers! Semiconscious • talk 21:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I think "mapping" is more indicative of ascertaining the regional distribution of receptor systems (e.g. PET and SPECT binding of [11C] raclopride and [123I] IBZM to probe D2 receptors in vivo), while "imaging" is more indicative of acquiring absolute images of structure (e.g. MRI in vivo). I agree with the reply below that they are distinct, although I think this probably comes down more to my personal preference for the use of the terms rather than any sort of standardized terminology. --ARCrawford 14:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Brain Mapping and Neuroimaging are related, but definetely distinct!

Despite the fact that the phrases "brain mapping" and "neuroimaging" frequently go together these are very distinct and deserve their individual domains, albeit with links to each other. Neuroimaging pertains to the protocols and techniques for acquirering and pre-rpcessing (e.g., skull stripping, tissue classification, region-of-interest delineation, etc.) Brain Mapping, on the other hand, refers to the computational techniques and tools for modeling, mapping and statistics on integrated brain structure and function. We need to make this distrinction. Neither of these two areas is a sub-field of the other, hence I'd recommend separation.

I would be happy to have them separate or list brain mapping and functional neuroimaging as sub-sections. I don't think there is a clear reason to go either way. -kslays 20:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Brain Mapping and Neuroimaging are definitely distinct!

Concurring with user kslay, the field of Brain Mapping is the science of associating brain structure and function and of mapping the physical cartography of the brain. Neuroimaging is a set of methods to visualize the neurons or their activity at a variety of scales, and may have no direct relationship to brain mapping. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkSCohen (talk • contribs) 01:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Electromagnetic brain animation

This newish article is being proposed for deletion. Can some experts weigh in on whether this technique is notable or not? Scarykitty 05:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Not sure how to even respond to the "notable or not" comment. Electromagnetic brain animation has been making its way through the biotechnology/neuroscience academic gauntlet coming up on 15 years now. At this stage of the game it would be rare indeed for any serious academia to not be well aware of EBA and its seminal potential for the mental health field. As a current example; at least two of the most respected governmental science agencies in the United States have signed 'nondisclosure' contracts with the Behavior Research Institute so that they might be allowed in depth access to the total process and methodology of EBA. Basically speaking, 'transcranial magnetic stimulation' is the forerunner of 'electromagnetic brain animation'. A decent analogy could be TMS as an X-Ray machine and EBA as Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

It's not something that we wish to do at the moment, however, if others wanted to add EBA to Wikipedia it would probably take less than a day to gather adequate data, verify and write out a decent explanatory narration.

Lisa Perales President Educating Diverse Learners, LLC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.102.166.32 (talk) 23:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Single-cell recording

Isn't single-cell recording also a neuroimaging technique? Lova Falk 09:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
And, now that I think of it, Electroencephalography? Lova Falk 18:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, they're certainly taught as "experimental methods", but I've never heard them referred to as "imaging" techniques. I'd argue they're absolutely perfect examples of the distinction between brain mapping and imaging.--MilFlyboy (talk) 05:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Merging again

There are multiple pages with related content. Brain mapping is discussed above. Functional neuroimaging and functional imaging are two other articles. These topics could be distinct in principle, i would suggest to merge these articles until each subsection grows sufficiently large to merit its own article, then we could add them into one category. Kpmiyapuram (talk) 17:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed the merge proposal with brain mapping from Sept 2007. Both subjects are notable enough to have it's own Wikipedia entry. There are several books over the years that list brain mapping in the booktitle. This is proof enough that brain mapping is a notable concept. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 18:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

For the same reason I removed the merge proposal with Functional neuroimaging -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 19:01, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

EEG

Why isn't there a subsection on electroencephalograms on this page? 193.203.134.198 (talk) 18:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Dan

Kinda pushes the definition of imaging, doesn't it? Is seismography geoimagery? :-p --MilFlyboy (talk) 05:33, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It can be! And often is! Far more than EEGs ever do for the brain. SBHarris 19:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Based on the definition provided at the start of this article I would suggest that the EEG can be regarded as a neuroimaging technique; it provides information regarding the functioning of the brain. Also, although the raw data does not provide an image of the brain and its functioning per se, it does provide visual information regarding its functioning. Also, many modern computer computer programs that display this information can and do provide a colour coded image of the brain, displaying varying levels of activity. Dan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.128.68 (talk) 19:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

That's an artifically-generated image. You could be missing one hemisphere of your brain, and it would still give you an "image" for the missing half, marked as "low activity." But that's not really what we normally mean by "imaging". I could as easily attach temperature sensors to your body and "image" you by putting numbers up as colors on a computer generated figure. Wow, one of your legs is really cool and blue! You say it's artificial? Wups. Or that it's missing completely, so the tech just left those sensors dangling? But wait, I still see the image of it on my screen like Kirlian photography! That kind of thing would never happen with data from a CT scanner. SBHarris 04:55, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think citing potential downfalls due to potential mistakes made by the operater is a valid arguement. Also, what exactly do you mean by an artificially generated image. Every technique uses computer programs to take the information from the hardware and generate an image of the brain. Neuroimaging techniques are used not only for structural imaging as you are referring, but also functional imaging, which is exactly what an EEG does. Again, referring to the article in question, it seems to me that the EEG satisfies the criteria for a neuroimaging technique; It is a technique to indirectly image the function of the brain. It can be used to diagnose metabolic diseases and also for neurological and cognitive psychology research and building brain-computer interfaces. Increased brain activity causes these areas to 'light up'. Dan 19:21, 25 July 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.251.138 (talk) 16:50, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

What I mean by artificially generated image, is that you get the same brain image whether there's brain there or not. If you take the EEG of anything that shows electrical activity, including a random section of your posterior, your machine will still show you the image of a human brain-- with very bad or funny EEG readings stuck onto it (if you have an EEG machine which will output an image of your butt if you connect to that, please post the make and model). An "imager" is not any machine that shows you an image! SBHarris 04:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The following is the accepted definition of neuroimaging that is used for this article: 'Neuroimaging includes the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure, function/pharmacology of the brain. It is a relatively new discipline within medicine and neuroscience/psychology.' I believe, based on my studies and usage of the technique, that the EEG satisfies these criteria laid out in the aforementioned definition. Consequently the technique should at least be mentioned in this article. This is my point. The discussion above is to a certain extent irrelevant to my point; instead it regards the validity of this definition. Therefore in using this definintion we are accepting that the EEG is in fact a neuroimaging technique. Dan

I think calling EEG an imaging technique is stretching things a bit (what is the spatial resolution of an EEG 'image'?). However, it is often used in a similar context to fMRI, which is also typically overlaid on a reference image. I think there should be an EEG section on this page, but also an explanation of why it is not really imaging. Also, isn't the same true for MEG? (BTW Dan, how about signing up so we can see your edits? It only takes a moment) GyroMagician (talk) 07:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

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Science News resources

• http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/334808/title/The_minds_eye_revealed_ "The mind's eye revealed; New technology uses brain scans to see what a person is watching" by Laura Sanders November 19th, 2011; Vol.180 #11 (p. 12) 97.87.29.188 (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
• previously http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335866/title/First_brain_image_of_a_dream_created "First brain image of a dream created; Feat opens the door to probing the stuff of nocturnal dramas" by Laura Sanders Web edition : Friday, November 4th, 2011 97.87.29.188 (talk) 22:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

History of neuroimaging page

The page History of neuroimaging has a recent breakthroughs section. It contains some methods of neuroimaging that are not listed in this page including near infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and single neuron imaging. Would the whole recent breakthroughs section be better placed in this article or atleast these other methods added? I'd add them myself only this isn't my area of expertise so I'm not sure whats relevant

MitchMcM (talk) 10:21, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

fEITER

should add Functional Electrical Impedance Tomography by Evoke Response (fEITER)

Carpenter, Jennifer (13 June 2011). "Images capture moment brain goes unconscious". BBC News: Science & Environment (UK: BBC). Retrieved 20 February 2013. David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 06:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can see the technique is being used only by one group at Edinburgh, and they only have a couple of minor publications -- but if you would like to add a brief mention, I myself wouldn't have any objection. Looie496 (talk) 06:24, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

DOI Corrections and EROS section

1) Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT) is quantitatively compared to MRI in paper Eggebrecht et al. (NeuroImage 61 2012 1120–1128) and matches at high resolution. The DOI section should be updated to reflect more recent studies.

2) I don't see how EROS is any different from DOT/DOI. There are a lot of names floating around for the same technology. They all describe optical imaging using infrared and frequency modulated light. I suggest the EROS section be merged with DOT and called DOT or "Optical Tomography" to keep everyone happy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.173.129.26 (talk) 18:38, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Brain function map

Back in 2006, "Brain function map" was merged to this article, which was a mistake because this article does not include even one brain function map. Such a map would show a side view of the cortex with function names (NOT anatomical names) on each gyrus, both lateral and medial views. For example "primary visual cortex" on Brodmann area 17, etc. I was not able to find such a brain function map in Wikipedia. All of the anatomical books I checked are focused on anatomy and do not contain brain function maps, which are distinct from "brain mapping" and deserve a separate article. Greensburger (talk) 04:06, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Rollback

I have removed this from the article, as it is promotional and reads like a press release, and because we are not a crystal ball (WP:NOT):

"It will be more temporally precise than fMRI and more spatially precise than EEG. It might be as safe as ultrasound. Expect human trials for FDA safety-tests to start in circa 2019. The R&D work for ABI was funded by the BRAIN Initiative." --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:37, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

References

Addition of New Section

Hi everyone,

As part of my advanced writing class we were asked to improve part of a wikipedia article, and since Neuroimaging was one of the top-importance articles with a start-class rating for the Neuroscience WikiProject I chose it as my article to work on. The section "Comparison of imaging types" came to my attention because it was so short and also had a claim about gamma rays that was marked dubious. A quick google search found no real basis to this statement and most sites actually stated that gamma rays were the most dangerous compared to alpha and beta. I decided to work on a new section to replace this section, "Advantages and Concerns of Neuroimaging Methods" as my contribution. This section discuss safety concerns of different methods and also discusses advantages that certain neuroimaging methods may have over one another.

This is my first contribution to wikipedia so feedback, suggestions, and revisions are welcome and appreciated. Thank you!

Jw701 (talk) 17:59, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I think the section takes a very narrow view of some of the techniques and their applications. For eg, fMRI has better temporal resolution than PET but the latter has practical implications where fMRI isn't helpful- eg evaluation of dementia, tremor, epilepsy localization. fMRI is itself limited by the low temporal resolution. There have also been concerns regarding validity of the statistics used by some common programs used to analyze the raw data and construct images. Also it would be ideal to have a subheading on MRI which is far more commonly used in clinical practice compared to PET and fMRI. Doctalks (talk) 17:28, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Optoacoustic imaging

will try to add a section on this especially from the company open water, and from the NIH brain initiative.