[extropy-chat] Clear Pictures of How We Think

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Wired News: Sometimes we are forced to make a decision but we feel
ourselves to be pulled in opposite directions by reason and emotion.
Thanks to an innovation that has transformed the study of the mind,
scientists are now able to see precisely what happens in the brain in
situations like this. For the first time in history we are getting
close to answering the question of whether the heart rules the head.
The progress is due to functional magnetic-resonance imaging, or fMRI.
This technique allows the measurement of the level of oxygen in the
blood, and tells scientists which parts of the brain are most active.
It can show, for example, the parts of the brain that operate when we
fall in love and when we have food cravings. It has even recently
revealed the differences in the brains of Democrats and Republicans.
Before fMRI, information about the parts of the brain involved in
different tasks could only be gathered by studying people who had
suffered brain damage from trauma or stroke, and seeing how their
brain function changed. Now, the brains of healthy people can be
scanned as they are given different tasks.
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,65775,00.html