Yesterday, Nikos Logothetis gave a great talk at the annual keynote lecture for the Copenhagen University Research Priority Area "Body and Mind". In the lecture, Logothetis touched upon several issues on the workings of the brain – from his perspective. But at the later Master-class where it was possible to have a one-to-one discussion with him, there was little doubt about Logothetis' view about how to understand the workings of the brain and mind. And especially how to study it with neuroimaging techniques.
BOLD fMRI, he claims, can tell us something about where in the brain something is happening. But other than that, it can tell us very little about what happens in that region. In other words, Logothetis is not fascinated by the current "blobology" (AKA neo-phrenology) that is seen in much of today's neuroimaging research papers. Logothetis argues that in order to say anything intelligible about brain function, we need to go beyond the current focus on where in the brain something is happening. We need to move towards integrating multiple imaging modalities in order to get a better picture of neural processes. Logothetis himself suggested and talked mostly about EEG and deep electrodes, and MEG, in combination with BOLD fMRI. But at the master class Logothetis also discussed the use of multiple MRI modalities such as the combination of perfusion MRI (Arterial Spin Labeing) and BOLD fMRI. But BOLD alone? No way!
To the right you can see the key slide from my talk at the Master class, positing the problem of combining measurements of perfusion and atrophy to BOLD fMRI measures, as co-variates. In ageing studies, we can see BOLD fMRI changes, but there is a question whether the well-known changes in brain perfusion and atrophy plays a role in chaning the BOLD signal. That was my question to Logothetis. Click on the image to see the full details.
Oh, and did I mention that Logothetis gives little for the current neo-phrenological thoughts about a 1:1 match between a cognitive function and a brain area? The brain doesn't work that way…
-Thomas
Do you have any other information about doing EGG-MEG and fMRI together ? Some link or study using both ? I’d like to maybe doing something like that on langague.
Thx
Do you have any other information about doing EGG-MEG and fMRI together ? Some link or study using both ? I’d like to maybe doing something like that on langague.
Thx.
Sorry for the second comments
Hi Ben,
I’m not sure whether it’s possible at all to do EEG, MEG and fMRI all simultaneously, if that’s what you are suggesting. Logothetis uses both intracranial and extracranial EEG together with fMRI simultaneously. But MEG and fMRI? I don’t think that’s possible. I need to look into it.
For studies using EEG and fMRI there is an increasing literature. I’d suggest looking at Helmut Laufs’ work, who uses EEG-fMRI combined to look at EEG power spectra and “where” in the brain the generators are. There’s an article in PNAS a couple of years ago. here is a hubmed for Laufs:
http://www.hubmed.org/search.cgi?q=laufs+eeg+fmri&x=0&y=0 Some good articles there.
Language processing is a good approach, because it’s useful both to look for spatial and temporal aspects in detail. And the temporal distribution of these processes, e.g. in speech perception, have been documented exhaustively.
Best,
Thomas
What about the fMRI in lie detectoin? Was the future of that discussed?
Not with Logothetis, no.
I’d say he is more into studying the mechanisms behind the BOLD fMRI and how neurons work/communicate.
-Thomas
[…] This is not as simple as it may sound. Genes simply do not merely encode how a cell is to look like or function. Genes only react to the environment in which they are situated. The development of, say, a hippocampal cell is not encoded in the genome per se; it stems from the influence of the local environment of that part of the brain, and how the brain cell (at the developmental stage actually more like a stem cell) migrates and connects to the network that will develop into the hippocampus. Neuroscience is certainly sorting out the nitty-gritty details on this, with the fantastic work by people such as Pasco Rakic. IMHO, even neuroimaging cannot escape this turn: we must move from the "blobology" of fMRI, PET and all other neuroimaging methods (this even applies to the clever diffusion fMRI, as described recently), and towards a better understanding of what goes on within these blobs. Just as I briefly mentioned in my post about Nikos Logothetis. […]