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fMRI pp 25–36Cite as

The Electrophysiological Background of the fMRI Signal

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Abstract

The ability to non-invasively study the architecture and function of the human brain constitutes one of the most exciting cornerstones for modern medicine, psychology and neuroscience. Current in vivo imaging techniques not only provide clinically essential information and allow new forms of treatment but also reveal insights into the mechanisms behind brain function and malfunction. This supremacy of modern imaging rests on its ability to study the structural properties of the nervous system simultaneously with the functional changes related to neuronal activity. As a result, imaging allows us to combine information about the spatial organization and connectivity of the nervous system with information about the underlying neuronal processes and provides the only means to link perception and cognition with the neural substrates in the human brain. Functional imaging techniques build on the interconnections of cerebral blood flow (CBF), the brain’s energy demand and the neuronal activity (for reviews on this topic, see Heeger and Ress 2002; Logothetis 2002; Logothetis and Wandell 2004; Lauritzen 2005). Indeed, elaborate mechanisms exist to couple changes in CBF and blood oxygenation to the maintenance and restoration of ionic gradients and the synthesis, transport and reuptake of neurotransmitters. More than 125 years ago, Angelo Mosso had already realized that there must be a relation between energy demand and CBF when he observed increasing brain pulsations in a patient with a permanent skull defect performing a mental task (Mosso 1881). Similar observations on the coupling of blood flow to neuronal activity (from experiments on animals) led Roy and Sherrington to make the insightful statement that “… the chemical products of cerebral metabolism contained in the lymph that bathes the walls of the arterioles of the brain can cause variations of the caliber of the cerebral vessels: that is, in this reaction, the brain possesses an intrinsic mechanism by which its vascular supply can be varied locally in correspondence with local variations of functional activity” (Roy and Sherrington 1890).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Physiology of Cognitive Processes, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstrasse 38, Tübingen, 72076, Germany

    Christoph Kayser & Nikos K. Logothetis

Authors
  1. Christoph Kayser
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  2. Nikos K. Logothetis
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Correspondence to Christoph Kayser .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. MRI, Bahnhofplatz 3, Zürich, 8001, Switzerland

    Stephan Ulmer

  2. Inst. Neuroradiologie, Universitätsklinikum Schleswig-Holstein, Arnold-Heller-Str. 2, Kiel, 24105, Germany

    Olav Jansen

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Kayser, C., Logothetis, N.K. (2013). The Electrophysiological Background of the fMRI Signal. In: Ulmer, S., Jansen, O. (eds) fMRI. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34342-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34342-1_4

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