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Inferring behavior from functional brain images

Nature Neuroscience volume 1, page 549 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

Most neuroimaging experiments aim to identify brain areas whose activation correlates tightly with an aspect of the subjects' behavioral task. If the logic of neuroimaging is correct, however, it should also be possible to reverse this sequence of operations. Once we understand the function of a given brain area or network of areas, it should be possible to use on-line activation measurements to infer what kind of task the subject was performing. As a first step in this direction, we report here that functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) of motor cortex have sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to accurately predict the subject's manual behavior on a single-trial basis with close to 100% accuracy.

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Figure 1: Single-trial motor behavior can be inferred from fMRI signals.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, GIS << Sciences de la Cognition >> and INSERM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INSERM U.334, Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot, CEA/DRM/DSV,, Orsay cedex, 4 Place du Général Leclerc, 91401, France

    Stanislas Dehaene, Gurvan Le Clec'H, Laurent Cohen, Jean-Baptiste Poline, Pierre-François van de Moortele & Denis Le Bihan

Authors
  1. Stanislas Dehaene
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  2. Gurvan Le Clec'H
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  3. Laurent Cohen
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  4. Jean-Baptiste Poline
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  5. Pierre-François van de Moortele
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  6. Denis Le Bihan
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Correspondence to Stanislas Dehaene.

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Dehaene, S., Le Clec'H, G., Cohen, L. et al. Inferring behavior from functional brain images. Nat Neurosci 1, 549 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/2785

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