rawbacks of MRI scans include their much higher cost, and patient discomfort with the procedure. The MRI scanner subjects the patient to such powerful electromagnets that the scan room must be shielded. The patient must be enclosed in a metal tube-like device for the duration of the scan, sometimes as long as thirty minutes, which can be uncomfortable and impractical for ill patients

In 1970, a physician and researcher named Raymond Damadian noticed that malignant (cancerous) tissue gave off different signals than normal body tissue. He applied for a patent for the first MRI scanning device, which was in use clinically by the early 1980s.

however, X-rays are capable of damaging cells and initiating changes that can lead to cancer. This danger of excessive exposure to X-rays was not fully appreciated for many years after their widespread use

Functional imaging techniques allow researchers to learn about the brain activity during various tasks by creating images based on the electrical activity or the absorption of various substances that occurs while a subject is engaging in a task.

As a result of this personality change, he was fired and could no longer hold a steady job

each one filled with a chemical solution that allowed the hearts to continue to beat.

ocrates (460-377 B.C.E.) , who believed that it was the brain and not the heart where the locus of the mind resided. He wrote: "It ought to be generally known that the source of our pleasure, merriment, laughter, and amusement, as of our grief, pain, anxiety, and tears is none other than the brain. It is specially the organ which enables us to think, see, and hear......It is the brain too which is the seat of madness and delirium, of the fears and fright

believed that one's mind resided in the heart

Free will vs. determinism is an issue that is far from being resolved and remains controversial even among scientists, including biological psychologists.

Because all behavior is controlled by the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), biopsychologists seek to understand how the brain functions in order to understand behavior and mental activitie