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  • TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

Brain imaging: fMRI advances make scans sharper and faster

Researchers are finding ways to improve one of neuroscientists’ favourite tools: functional magnetic resonance imaging.
  1. Diana Kwon

    1. Diana Kwon is a freelance science journalist based in Berlin.

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fMRI scan of a 39 year old man with a malignant tumour in the left hemisphere of the brain.

A top-down fMRI scan of the brain shows neuronal activity (red and yellow) in the left hemisphere’s motor cortex as the person moves a hand. Credit: Zephyr/Science Photo Library

Last October, the neuroimaging community was abuzz with excitement. Researchers in South Korea seemed to have overcome one of the biggest limitations of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a popular method for studying the human brain1.

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Nature 617, 640-642 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01616-7

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