Question

Brain imaging research discussed in the text Focus on Neuroscience box titled "Seeing Faces and Places in the Mind's Eye" reveals that when a person is imagining faces and places:

a) The brain is inactive
b) There is no neural activity
c) The same brain regions are activated as when perceiving actual faces and places
d) The brain relies solely on the auditory cortex

Answer 1

The same brain regions are activated when imagining faces and places as when actually perceiving them, and this can be observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which shows that a significant portion of the brain is active during visual tasks.

Step-by-step explanation:

When a person is imagining faces and places, the same brain regions are activated as when perceiving actual faces and places. This is because tasks such as imagining or perceiving visual stimuli require activity in the visual sensory areas, integrating areas, and motor regions responsible for moving the eyes and pressing a button, for instance. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies demonstrate that a significant portion of the brain is active during such tasks, suggesting that around 80 percent of the brain may be using energy based on blood flow to the tissue. Notably, during an fMRI, changes in tissue in time with an experimental condition or event are measured, which differs from the standard MRI technique.