Imaging of the human nervous system has traditionally attracted clinicians
interested specifi cally in the fi elds of neurology, neurosurgery and radiology.
However, interest has suddenly widened to include neurophysiologists, computer
scientists, biophysicists and developers of biomedical technology. Several factors
are responsible for this phenomenon. We believe that the most important is the
development of magnetic resonance imaging (MR).
Angiography and ventriculography visualized brain cavities and computer
tomography offered uni-dimensional views of structures. With MR, however,
structures came to life. Suddenly patients could walk out of the machine with an
atlas-like image of their brain. This advance revived the interest in correlating
morphology with function.