Looking Inside the Brain

The Power of Neuroimaging

Denis Le Bihan, Teresa Lavender Fagan

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780691176079, 9780691160610
• eBook ISBN: 9781400852161
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Cognitive Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

The remarkable story of how today's brain scanning techniques were developed, told by one of the field's pioneers

It is now possible to witness human brain activity while we are talking, reading, or thinking, thanks to revolutionary neuroimaging techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). These groundbreaking advances have opened infinite fields of investigation—into such areas as musical perception, brain development in utero, and faulty brain connections leading to psychiatric disorders—and have raised unprecedented ethical issues. In Looking Inside the Brain, one of the leading pioneers of the field, Denis Le Bihan, offers an engaging account of the sophisticated interdisciplinary research in physics, neuroscience, and medicine that have led to the remarkable neuroimaging methods that give us a detailed look into the human brain.

Introducing neurological anatomy and physiology, Le Bihan walks readers through the historical evolution of imaging technology—from the x-ray and CT scan to the PET scan and MRI—and he explains how neuroimaging uncovers afflictions like stroke or cancer and the workings of higher-order brain activities, such as language skills. Le Bihan also takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey through NeuroSpin, his state-of-the-art neuroimaging laboratory, and goes over the cutting-edge scanning devices currently being developed. Considering what we see when we look at brain images, Le Bihan weighs what might be revealed about our thoughts and unconscious, and discusses how far this technology might go in the future.

Beautifully illustrated in color, Looking Inside the Brain presents the trailblazing story of the scanning techniques that provide keys to previously unimagined knowledge of our brains and our selves.

INDEX

abaci, 63–64

acetylcholine, 29, 119

alcohol, effects of on the brain, 35, 99

Alzheimer’s disease, 36, 99, 125

American Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), 30

amino acids, 13, 111

amusia, 66

amygdala, the, and recognition of social emotions, 73–74

anesthetic agents, effect of on cerebral circulation, 148

aneurysm, 8

angioma, 8

anisotropy, of diffusion, 93–95, 102, 103, 118; processing of, 95–96

aphasia, 5, 68

apoptosis, 128

aquaporin, 116–117

atoms, 1, 2, 11; controversies concerning atomic theory and heat production, 85; Einstein’s proof of the existence of, 85. See also ions

autism, 73, 99, 101

axons, 29, 118; density of, 103; as lines of delay, 100; spines of, 119

beta-galactosidase, 128

birds, experiments concerning the singing of, 127–128

blind persons: and the construction of visual mental images from sonorous stimuli, 60–61; and the functional specificity of the visual cortex, 60; primary visual brain regions of activated by reading Braille, 60

blood, 133; the blood-brain barrier, 129–130; circulation of, 40, 51; color of, 46; imaging of real-time variations in oxygenation of blood in the brain, 47–48; thermoregulatory role of, 123

BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent), 48; BOLD fMRI, 50, 53, 55, 104, 107–108, 122, 123, 126

Boltzmann equations, 132, 133

brain, the, 1–3; aging and the evolution of, 31, 149; anomalies in the anatomical structure of, 34–35; anterior cingulate cortex of, 74, 76; areas of the brain related to or controlling emotions, 73–75; auditory regions of, 36; average weight of, 4; basal ganglia of, 29; basic anatomy of, 4; the blood-brain barrier, 129–130; brainstem of, 4, 29; and the calcarine fissure, 25, 56; corpus callosum of, 99, 103; construction of during pregnancy, 25–28; dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of, 76; embryonic stage of, 26; and the fissure of Rolando (the motor control region of the brain), 25, 52; frontal lobes of, 25, 53, 54, 72; frontopolar cortex, 78; fusiform gyrus of, 75; genetic programming of, 33–35; the lateral geniculate body of, 56; malformation in cerebral anatomy, 34; medial prefrontal cortex, 7...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One: Elementary Particles
• Two: The Magnetic Brain
• Three: Seeing the Brain Think
• Four: The Magnetic Brain in Action
• Five: The Brain Probed Through Water Molecules
• Six: Water: Molecule Of The Mind?
• Seven: The Crystal Brain
• References
• Figure Credits
• Index