Advanced applications of MRI in human brain science

Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain is now generally indispensable to state of art clinical medicine. Robust, high resolution imaging systems are currently available worldwide. The availability of MRI has, in little more than a decade, revolutionized the certainty and efficiency of clinical diagnosis and management. As a dividend of this revolution, clinicians and radiologists who are expert in the many and varied applications of MRI methods are able to relate this expertise to a confident mastery of the topographic anatomy of the brain as revealed in magnetic resonance images. Whereas the yield to clinical objectives has been massive, the clinician as yet draws upon a relatively limited sampling of the potential informational harvest from this technology which in theory could further enrich both clinical concerns and those of fundamental neuroscience. Here we will review early explorations into these other offerings with the expectation that the coming decade will see them established comfortably with current uses. We will also consider potential offerings of the extended applications of brain MRI to the characterization and insights into biological origins of certain obscure developmental disorders.