Full Description
Recent explorations in the neurosciences have been progressing towards an understanding of the relationship between brain struc ture and brain function. Having passed through an era which may be described as one of a localisationist philosophy, in which discrete brain areas were seen to subserve only discrete functions, the perspective of brain-behaviour relationships has advanced in recent years to an appreciation that a more holistic approach is not only heuristically valid, but is also most likely to lead to future advances. The close relationship between the mind and the brain has been appreciated since the time of Hippocrates when he opined 'men ought to know that from nothing else but thence [from the brain] comes joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency and lamentations ... and by this same organ we become mad and delirious and fears and terrors assail us'. In the nineteenth century, particularly in France and Germany, descrip tions of what are now recognised to be independent neurological diseases emerged following empirical clinical observations. Investi gation led to the identification in many cases of underlying struc tural abnormalities which could be linked to pathological changes.
Contents
I: Functional Neuroimaging with Radioactive Tracers.- 1 Principles of Emission Tomography.- 2 Radiopharmaceutical Ligands and Tracers.- 3 SPET Instrumentation: Characteristics and New Developments.- 4 Clinical Use of SPET Imaging in Psychiatric and Neurological Disease.- II: Neuroactivation with SPET.- 5 A Historical and Philosophical Review of Localizing Brain function.- 6 Models of Brain Processing with Respect to Functional Neuroimaging.- 7 Description and Principles of Neuroactivation.- 8 Review of Previous SPET Neuroactivation Studies in Normal Controls.- 9 Activation Protocols in Normal Subjects Using SPET: A Window into Normal Brain function.- 10 Activation Studies in Specific Disease States: Future Applications.- Appendixes: I Area-Specific Activation Tasks.- Appendixes: II A Guide to Performing Neuroactivation Studies.- Selected Bibliography.
