Chapter 13

Self-assessment Questions

1. What advantages are provided by extending previous studies using non-human animals to humans, using fMRI?
2. What is translational medicine?
3. What are functional connectivity maps?
4. How can data from a resting state (i.e., null-task condition) be useful for creating functional connectivity maps?
5. How can fMRI be used to create models brain function that go beyond simple connectivity?
6. Why has fMRI made the study of in vivo brain function practical for more researchers, even though it has enormous capital costs?
7. What are some of the ways that fMRI studies have contributed to the investigation of attention?
8. How has post hoc trial sorting been applied to the study of memory using fMRI?
9. What is domain specificity?
10. What is implied when a task is described as “having high ecological validity”?
11. What is a meta-analysis?
12. Why have researchers used fMRI to study brain function in non-human primates? Why not just use single-unit electrophysiological recordings?
13. What challenges are introduced when scanning non-human primates using fMRI?
14. How could fMRI be used to study the neural correlates of consciousness?
15. What does a fMRI activation map, taken literally, represent? Why do such maps not necessarily provide information about localization of function?
16. In what ways are measures of the statistical significance of fMRI data limited in their ability to indicate neuronal activity?
17. How can fMRI experiments be improved so that they provide better information about cognitive processes?