In the past, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has only been useful in studying the brain function of adults. This has not been because doctors weren't interested in what the fMRI could tell them about the developing brains of children. Rather, it has been because the developing brain's fMRI signal in children has not been understood. New research has made some headway into understanding this area so that doctors may be able to make use of fMRI technology on children's brains in the future.
Neuroscientific researchers at MIT determed that the fMRI signal changes during the early part of life. They have now been able to make corrections to the technology to adapt to those changes so that the technology can be used on younger subjects. The hope is that this will allow doctors to use the fMRI to better understand childhood development. This could also make it an important tool in the future for better understanding psychological disease in the brains of children. (Learn more about the MIT study here.)
While we're on the subject of the fMRI ... it's a procedure which has been mentioned here in the past and you might be wondering how it differs from a technology that we cover more often: the MRI. There's a great description of the difference between the two located here. It sums up that the major difference is that the MRI is used to capture an image of the brain's structure while the fMRI is used to capture an image of the brain's function.
Question of the Day: What is your opinion on the importance of scanning technology for children?
