Meanwhile, scalp electrodes monitored brain activity.
Such targeting might be enabled by the ability to monitor changes in brain activation within localized brain regions in real time.
Brain activation was monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using a mixed-blocked and event-related design to extract both transient and sustained neural responses.
With neurofeedback patients' engagement in mental imagery can be enhanced by monitoring and feeding back the associated brain activation.
During failed inhibition, boys with ADHD under placebo relative to control subjects showed reduced brain activation in performance monitoring areas of dorsomedial and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, thalamus, cingulate, and parietal regions.
The calibration of the hemodynamic model that describes changes in blood flow and blood oxygenation during brain activation is a crucial step for successfully monitoring and possibly predicting brain activity.
The applications include, for example, detection and classification of breast cancer, monitoring of infant brain tissue oxygenation level and functional brain activation studies, for reviews see e.g. [ 3– 5].
In addition, a relatively new brain imaging technique, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), has been demonstrated to be an effective tool for monitoring local changes in cerebral oxygenation and hemodynamics during functional brain activation.
"If further research bears this out, we may ultimately be able to identify specific brain activation biomarkers not only for diagnosing such diseases, but for monitoring the effects of interventions". The study, published online in Cerebral Cortex, was also co-authored by Andrie Rusu, Vrije Univesiteit; Raymond Mar, York University; and Clifford Robbin and Daniel L. Schacter, Harvard University.
