Exploring Brain Functional Anatomy with Positron Tomography

Exploring Brain Functional Anatomy with Positron Tomography Chairman: R. Porter 1991 Positron emission tomography (PET) is an essentially non-invasive technique for measuring localized functional activity in the brain and elsewhere in the body in a quantitative manner with good topographical resolution. PET is an area of burgeoning research activity in which advances in camera design and in data acquisition and analysis have allowed repeated, rapid measurements of cerebral blood flow to be made down to a resolution of 6 mm or better. This symposium is, to our knowledge, the first to be published on the application of PET to the mapping of human cerebral cortical function. It includes chapters on aspects of the technology of PET and on its use clinically and in basic research into brain function. Other chapters describe the use of the technique to study the human somatosensory system and motor system, the human visual system (with the first direct evidence for separate colour and motion centres and pathways in the visual cortex), and higher-order processes such as attention, memory, intention, learning and language in humans. Chapters on the use of PET to study frontal lobe function in relation to psychiatric disease, and brain injury and recovery from it, illustrate the application of this imaging method to the clinical field. The fully edited discussions between neurologists, physiologists, neuroanatomists, psychiatrists, physicists, statisticians and other experts serve to highlight problems in the current protocols and to identify future directions in the exploitation of positron tomography both in basic neuroscience research and in medicine. Other Ciba Foundation Symposia: No. 132 Motor areas of the cerebral cortex Chairman: R. Porter 1987 ISBN 0 471 91098 8 No. 138 Plasticity of the neuromuscular system Chairman: A. J. Buller 1988 ISBN 0 471 91902 0 No. 152 The biology of nicotine dependence Chairman: L. L. Iversen 1990 ISBN 0 471 92688 4