Brain imaging techniques

In the last decade, functional brain imaging techniques ranging from fMRI to PET to EEG have added to understanding the mechanisms involved in cognitive, affective, and motoric processes. More recently, as demonstrated by papers in a variety of neuroscience journals, the hypnotic experience and its modulation of critical human processes such as pain have added hypnotic procedures to the experimental techniques available for the neuroscience community. For this interplay to be manifested, it is critical that readers understand brain imaging procedures and the types of questions they can and cannot answer. In this spirit, the present article is an overview of the major brain imaging techniques available to a researcher interested in hypnosis.