When magnetic resonance imaging came into common use in the 1980s, it made the human brain visible in ways it had never been before. For the first time, we could see the soft brain tissue of a living subject, at a level of detail that could be observed previously only in autopsies. For doctors trying to help patients whose brains were damaged or diseased, MRI provided an invaluable snapshot of their condition. By the 1990s, researchers had begun to measure changes in brain regions by using “functional” MRI. The technique...

Source: Wall Street Journal April 05, 2019 14:48 UTC