Allan Jones: A map of the brain

Blog Archive » Measuring Innate Functional Brain Connectivity Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a method for safely measuring brain activity, has been around for about 15 years. Within the last 10 of those years a revolutionary, if mysterious, method has been developing using the technology. This method, resting state functional connectivity (rs-fcMRI), has recently gained popularity for its putative ability to measure how brain regions interact innately (outside of any particular task context). Being able to measuring innate functional brain connectivity would allow us to know if a set of regions active during a particular task is, in fact, well connected enough generally to be considered a network. We could then predict what brain regions are likely to be active together in the future. Rs-fcMRI uses correlations of very slow fluctuations in fMRI signals (< 0.1 Hz) when participants are at rest to determine how regions are connected. Why monkeys? What could be the origin of the correlated slow fluctuations underlying rs-fcMRI? Why?

Human Connectome Project