The paper that runs in the latest edition of Neuron concludes that doctors might have more success treating some patients if they examined the way a person’s brain functioned first.
Scan a brain, read a mind?
Brain scans have been used to make basic discoveries about human behavior for decades, but they are not routinely ordered to determine someone’s overall health or course of treatment in the way as blood test are used.
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Brain scans will become another effective tool to help doctors tailor their treatment for individual patients.
“We now commonly take blood tests for a huge variety of disease,” Gazzaniga wrote. “When it comes to human behavior, brain imaging might well serve a similar purpose.”
As the imaging has become highly accurate and highly specific, Gazzaniga adds the “task now is to figure out how the individual variation that is seen relates to a specific person’s behavior. It is an exciting time.”
