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Using human brain lesions to infer function: a relic from a past era in the fMRI age?

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 5, pages 812–819 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Recent technological advances, such as functional imaging techniques, allow neuroscientists to measure and localize brain activity in healthy individuals. These techniques avoid many of the limitations of the traditional method for inferring brain function, which relies on examining patients with brain lesions. This has fueled the zeitgeist that the classical lesion method is an inferior and perhaps obsolescent technique. However, although the lesion method has important weaknesses, we argue that it complements the newer activation methods (and their weaknesses). Furthermore, recent developments can address many of the criticisms of the lesion method. Patients with brain lesions provide a unique window into brain function, and this approach will fill an important niche in future research.

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Figure 1: The left hemisphere of Broca's famous patient Leborgne.
Figure 2: Overlay plots.
Figure 3: Improved computerized tomography (CT) imaging has resulted in more accurate mapping of lesion size and location.
Figure 4: The importance of using control groups in lesion studies.
Figure 5: Voxel-based analysis of lesions (VAL) applied to the data described in figure 4.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. We would also like to thank M. Himmelbach for his insightful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK

    Chris Rorden

  2. the Center of Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Hans-Otto Karnath

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Correspondence to Chris Rorden.

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Brain imaging as a diagnostic tool

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Rorden, C., Karnath, HO. Using human brain lesions to infer function: a relic from a past era in the fMRI age?. Nat Rev Neurosci 5, 812–819 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1521

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