Imaging the human brain at work was revolutionized by the discovery of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the early 1990s. Prior to this, functional brain mapping was limited to a handful of medical centers capable of conducting positron emission tomography (PET) scans of regional cerebral blood flow. With the discovery of the endogenous blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) contrast method in 1992, fMRI “democratized” the field by expanding the number of medical centers capable of functional brain imaging. Today, over a thousand peer-reviewed fMRI articles are published each year, many in high profile scientific journals that receive additional attention by the popular press. This explosion of scientific research is relatively easy to understand: fMRI can be conducted on the majority of the 6,600 MRI scanners installed in the US alone, the technique is completely noninvasive since it does not require injection of MRI contrast agents or radiopharmaceuticals, and, as an added benefit, fMRI provides a unique combination of high spatial and temporal resolution. Not surprisingly, fMRI is the imaging technique of choice for mapping cognitive and emotional systems in the healthy brain. More recently, fMRI has been applied to clinical populations to identify the brain mechanisms governing recovery of function from stroke and head trauma, detect early brain changes in neurodegenerative conditions, and measure the effects of psychoactive medications on neurodevelopmental disorders, as examples. fMRI provides a complementary method for testing neuropsychological models of brain function derived from other methods (lesion, electrophysiology).

One should not conclude from the above discussion, however, that fMRI is “easy.” For a neuropsychologist to conduct a methodologically sound fMRI experiment, it is critical to have a fundamental understanding of the physics and physiology that underlie the functional MR signal, as well as training in image processing, experimental design, and statistic analyses that are specifically tailored to fMRI experimentation. A variety of introductory courses offered by leading fMRI research centers have been available to neuropsychologists since the mid-1990s. Up until now, what has been lacking is an integrated textbook on fMRI that is geared to the needs of the non-physicist. With the publication of Huettel, Song and McCarthy's textbook last year, this void has been filled.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging is written in the form of an undergraduate textbook. Clearly written and entertaining in its presentation, there are abundant and well-designed color illustrations, boxes that expand in greater detail issues introduced in the text, “thought questions” designed to test the student's understanding, and a highly detailed glossary of terms presented as a side bar in the text as well as in the appendix. Each chapter is followed by suggested readings and a bibliography of primary source references. An attached CD suggests various lab exercises and provides imaging data sets from an fMRI experiment. The authors have designed the textbook for individuals with little or no prior experience in functional imaging. As a result, the textbook is appropriate for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. The book is also valuable to faculty members who are interested in expanding their investigative methods to include fMRI. The authors have gone to great strides to clarify difficult concepts without sacrificing content. As an example, the introduction to MR physics includes equations but with sufficient verbal explanations that even the most mathematically challenged would not complain.

The 15 chapters follow a logical progression across topic areas. The first chapter provides a useful history and overview of fMRI. This is followed by a thorough and lucid presentation on MR scanner hardware and MR physics (chapters 2–5). Most importantly, the reader is introduced to the sources of potential artifacts associated with fMRI (e.g., geometric distortions and signal losses due to magnetic field inhomogeneities) that can influence interpretations of the data. Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to the hemodynamic basis for the BOLD signal. Chapters 8 and 9 examine the spatial/temporal resolution and signal to noise (SNR) issues in fMRI, respectively. Chapter 10 is devoted to preprocessing issues, with comprehensive discussions of how to judge the quality of the collected imaging data, including discussions of head motion, system noise, physiological noise, and scanner drift.

Experimental design and statistical analysis issues are covered in considerable detail in chapters 11 and 12. In addition to describing the differences between block and event-related designs, there are nice discussions of the relationship between behavioral variability and the fMRI response, the use of reaction time as a covariate in image analysis procedures, and a comparison of the relative strengths of voxel wise analyses versus region of interest approaches. The discussion of spatial normalization is pretty much limited to the Talairach method, but alternative techniques (flat mapping) are also presented. Chapter 13 addresses various applications of fMRI, including a brief discussion of fMRI in the study of patient populations. Most of this chapter, however, provides summaries of basic cognitive neuroscience fMRI studies conducted in healthy individuals in the areas of attention, memory, and executive function. Chapter 14 discusses advanced fMRI procedures for improving spatial and temporal resolution. The final chapter (15) integrates fMRI with other brain mapping tools, including transcranial magnetic stimulation, direct cortical stimulation, brain lesions, electroencephalography, and magnetoencephalography. The authors make a convincing case that our knowledge of the human brain function must come from a convergence of methods, since all techniques have their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Of course no textbook is without some limitations. Some chapters introduce concepts and define terms more than once. While it is conceivable that this redundancy may have been intentional, I suspect that this may have been the result of one author not being familiar with the text written by another. A discussion of the pharmacological effects on the BOLD signal transduction is not included nor is the use of fMRI to identify the localization of sites of action of short half-life CNS drugs. The discussion on experimental designs does not consider the use of free-form designs in which a continuous behavioral or physiological measure (e.g., galvanic skin response) is correlated in real-time with the fMRI signal. The book could also benefit from expanded coverage of the applications of fMRI to clinical populations. I suspect that many of these relatively minor problems will be addressed in the next edition.

In short, this book represents an essential read for any neuropsychologist considering the use of fMRI as a tool for measuring brain function. My congratulations go out to the authors for providing the field with such an outstanding contribution.