fMRI: a very critical review (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, January 14, 2015, 01:16 (3396 days ago) @ David Turell

Not worth much yet:-http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029390.600-hidden-depths-brain-science-is-drowning-in-uncertainty.html?full=true#.VLWxFWA5C1s-"After the furore died down, many fMRI researchers realised that the critiques were essentially right. Voodoo correlations and double-dipping appear to be less common now, and the idea that you can map complex personality traits to a few specific regions like the amygdalae is increasingly considered to be "a pipe dream", says cognitive neuroscientist Tal Yarkoni, also at the University of Texas at Austin. Personality traits are now thought to be associated "with lots of different brain regions interacting in complex ways", he says.-"But as researchers patched up those holes in their methods, other equally serious concerns began to emerge. Last year, for instance, a jaw-dropping study from the University of Michigan demonstrated that an fMRI experiment could be analysed in nearly 7000 ways - and the results could vary hugely. With so much flexibility, neuroimagers can unintentionally (or indeed deliberately) analyse their experiments in a way that yields the most favourable results. One tongue-in-cheek report showed that even a dead salmon's brain could appear to be "thinking" inside a scanner if the wrong techniques were used."