AS Psychology - Brain Scanning Techniques

1. How do fMRI scanners work?

• The person is injected with a radioactive tracer, after 30 mins to 2 hours the person is scanned and the scanner picks up the positrons, given off by the decaying tracer, reacting with the electrons that form gamma rays
• Patients are put into a large scanner that sends a strong magnetic field through their head which causes the nuclei in the hydrogen molecules to spin a particular way which is picked up by the scanner
• The person lies on a platform and gets moved through the scanner