ABSTRACT
Traditional neuroimaging studies focus on “activation studies” to determine distributed patterns of brain activity that are associated with specific tasks or psychological states. These studies are usually referred to as functional segregation studies (41). In other words, researchers are interested in segregating or partitioning the brain into regions based on their activation while performing certain tasks. However, recently, in order to thoroughly understand brain function, researchers have begun to study the interaction of brain regions, as a great deal of neural processing is performed by an integrated network of several brain regions. This is sometimes referred to as functional integration. The first discussion on segregation and integration of brain function occurred at the International Medical Congress meeting held in London on August 4, 1881. Friedrich Goltz, a German physiologist, argued for the idea that brain function was dependent on related pathways and connections and not on the idea of localization (84). This discussion continues to this day. That is, can phys-
of
iological changes from specific tasks or psychological states be explained more effectively by functional localization, the interregional functional connections (42), or their combination?
