PSYC4230 - Introduction to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research

This course provides a hands-on introduction to Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research. fMRI is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that allows one to track brain activity more or less in real time as a subject completes a cognitive task. MRI is a recent technology and fMRI is an even more recent use of that technology. While it has traditionally been used to establish functional localization (i.e., mapping what brain regions are involved in what tasks), fMRI can also be used to answer important questions such as how the brain goes about solving these tasks (i.e.,what are the computations the brain performs). fMRI has been used widely in the field of cognitive neuroscience, but it has also been applied in fields such as economics, marketing, sociology, and information systems to name a few.
In this course, we will first cover the basics of MR physics in order to establish how fMRI works. We will then discuss considerations for fMRI experimental design. We will collect some fMRI data. We will spend the bulk of the course working on fMRI data analysis. By the end of this course, you should have the basic skills needed to collect and analyze an fMRI dataset.