User:GyroMagician/RT fMRI

Realtime fMRI
Realtime fMRI attempts to acquire and process brain activation data while a scan is in progress. A biofeedback loop can then be created by presenting the subject with their own brain activation patterns while they are being scanned. Using this technique, it has been investigated whether patients can use awareness of localized brain activation patterns to decrease symptoms of social anxiety disorder and chronic pain, with some reported success. Other research groups have used the method in proof-of-concept applications to train subjects to control a game of pong using only their brain.

To date, only BOLD fMRI has been used in real-time applications, which delays the signal by approximately 2-5 seconds due to the physiological delay of the hemodynamic response. In the future, other methods of fMRI which do not rely on a secondary messenger like blood flow may reduce the delay and allow more immediate signal generation.