Searching the Brain for the Mind
By Eva Emerson
In his quest to understand both the biological and psychosocial bases
of crime, violence and mental illness, USC College Psychologist Adrian
Raine has peered into the brains of murderers, thieves, schizophrenics
and people “just a bit odd”—those with personality disorders.
Over the last 15 years, Raine has taken advantage of an array of brain
imaging techniques, from EEG to fMRI. EEG, or electroencephalogram, is
a method first introduced in 1929 that measures electrical activity on
the scalp, giving researchers a rough idea of where activity is taking
place. fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging , is today’s most
cutting-edge brain scanner. Using powerful magnets, fMRI scanners offer
scientists the most detailed view yet of both the brain’s activity and
the precise location of that activity.
Raine’s own brain imaging studies have revealed links between
abnormalities in the physical structure and activity of the brain and
behavioral problems, discoveries helping to move scientists closer to
understanding both brain and mind.Yet even Raine, the Robert G. Wright
Professor of Psychology, has been taken off guard by the increasing
pace of new discoveries made using fMRI and related brain imaging
techniques over the past few years.
“There’s been an exponential gain in our knowledge about the brain,”
says Raine. “I’ve seen a dramatic change in the quantity and quality of
work in this field. Brain imaging studies, and their implications, are
generating enormous excitement, beyond academic circles, in the general
public.” Construction is already underway on the building that will house USC’s
own fMRI in the new Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience
Imaging Center.
“This is the most exciting thing to happen in the department in the
last 10 years,” says dyslexia researcher Franklin Manis, a professor of
psychology and one of the more than 30 USC researchers already engaged
in fMRI imaging studies.
There’s no doubt that greater access to fMRI technology will mark a new
era of brain research at the College, says Irving Biederman, the Harold
W. Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and a professor of psychology in
the College, who was a leader in the effort to build an imaging center
on campus.
Studies at the imaging center are expected to raise entirely new
questions about the connection between the human brain—the physical
organ studied at molecular, cellular and systems levels—and the mind,
defined as the behavioral or psychological “product” of the brain’s
activities and interactions with the environment, says Biederman, a
leading scholar of visual perception.
Psychology researchers will be among the first to take advantage of the
scanner in the new center. Investigators will use the tool to scan the
brains of study participants working on specific activities—such as
looking at a beautiful painting or reading—providing a moving picture
of what parts of the brain are involved in each task.
The fMRI records the physiological workings of the human brain by
capturing snapshots of blood flow in active areas in the brain.
Computers combine the activity information with the detailed anatomical
brain scans of traditional magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, creating
a clear image of a living, human brain as it works.
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