Functional Connectivity MRI May Diagnose Diseases, Disorders
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that a brain scan could be a promising diagnostic tool to distinguish people with healthy brain networks from people with brain diseases or disorders.
Senior study author Steven Petersen, PhD, the James S. McDonnell Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in Neurology and a professor of neurosurgery, of biomedical engineering, of psychological and brain sciences, and of radiology, and colleagues used functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI), which maps how brain regions interact, to reliably detect fundamental differences in how individual brains are wired. Petersen says this technique is a step toward realizing the clinical promise of fcMRI. The findings were published in Neuron.
