New Study Calls the Reliability of Brain Scan Research Into Question

When functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was introduced in the late 1990s, it drew raves for its ability to show brain activity—and concerns that it might be the modern equivalent of phrenology. Now, that debate could spring to life again with revelations that the popular imaging technology could have been flawed for years. As Kate Lunau writes for Motherboard, new research suggests that software used to analyze fMRI results could invalidate up to 40,000 brain activity studies.