ABSTRACT
A general issue in the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data is the relationship between the neurobiological hypothesis one posits and the statistical models adopted to test that hypothesis. One key distinction is between functional specialization and integration. Briefly, fMRI was originally used to provide functional maps showing which regions are specialized for specific functions, a classic example being the study by Zeki et al. (1) who identified
V4 and V5 as being specialized for the processing of color and motion, respectively. More recently, these analyses have been augmented by functional integration studies, which describe how functionally specialized areas interact and how these interactions depend on changes of context. A recent example is the study by Buchel et al. (2) who found that the success with which a subject learned an object-location association task was correlated with the coupling between regions in the dorsal and ventral visual streams (3). In this chapter, we will address the design and analysis of neuroimaging studies from these two distinct perspectives but note that they have to be combined for a full understanding of brain mapping results.
