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This is what I got from this article: Researchers looked at MRI scans of people listening to a Podcast on their daily commute. The researchers don't know what a

This is what I got from this article: Researchers looked at MRI scans of people listening to a Podcast on their daily commute. The researchers don't know what any of it means.

revelation 10y ago
Functional MRI scans are the equivalent of looking at what transistors are switching in a chip at any given moment, only more useless since the brain is much more generalized. "Oh! Cache is lighting up!"
- Balgair 10y ago
  http://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ http://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ It's from 2009, so things have improved, but still.
  - ddt_Osprey 10y ago
    You know what? I bet the differentiation in the exposure to light (via different pictures), combined with ever-so-slightly-still-electrolytically-active neuro-pathways, produced those results. Dead salmon, though they may be, light-sensitive organs the eyes still are. And provided that the salmon were probably preserved on ice, much of the carcasses probably remained fairly chemically stable, so while the electron pumps in the electron transport chains of the multi-polar neurons were deactivated, I bet the whole pipeline from salmon's visual cortex to its eyeball probably was still slightly capable of transmitting photo-sensitivity. Then, it probably came down to the fMRI imaging software being so fine-tuned as to notice that differentiation, and amplify it into statistical significance!
    - Balgair 10y ago
      If that is true, then fMRI studies of V1 in humans are totally screwed. You show them anything, and the unconscious effects overwhelm the stats software and you get 'hits'. As the article goes into, you better be damn careful with your controls and your p values if you want to actually do anything useful in fMRI. If you want to just publish papers, it seems like a great field, but there seems to be better ways to just make a paycheck.

This is what I got from this article: Researchers looked at MRI scans of people listening to a Podcast on their daily commute. The researchers don't know what any of it means.

revelation 10y ago

Functional MRI scans are the equivalent of looking at what transistors are switching in a chip at any given moment, only more useless since the brain is much more generalized. "Oh! Cache is lighting up!"

Balgair 10y ago
http://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ http://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ It's from 2009, so things have improved, but still.
- ddt_Osprey 10y ago
  You know what? I bet the differentiation in the exposure to light (via different pictures), combined with ever-so-slightly-still-electrolytically-active neuro-pathways, produced those results. Dead salmon, though they may be, light-sensitive organs the eyes still are. And provided that the salmon were probably preserved on ice, much of the carcasses probably remained fairly chemically stable, so while the electron pumps in the electron transport chains of the multi-polar neurons were deactivated, I bet the whole pipeline from salmon's visual cortex to its eyeball probably was still slightly capable of transmitting photo-sensitivity. Then, it probably came down to the fMRI imaging software being so fine-tuned as to notice that differentiation, and amplify it into statistical significance!
  - Balgair 10y ago
    If that is true, then fMRI studies of V1 in humans are totally screwed. You show them anything, and the unconscious effects overwhelm the stats software and you get 'hits'. As the article goes into, you better be damn careful with your controls and your p values if you want to actually do anything useful in fMRI. If you want to just publish papers, it seems like a great field, but there seems to be better ways to just make a paycheck.