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Angelo Mosso
Angelo Mosso measured pulsation in the Human Cortex in patients with skull defects. He noticed pulsation increased as patients performed mathematical tasks (Mosso 1894). -
Kety's Group
Kety's group performed an autoradiographic measurement of blood flow using inert diffusible tracers. However, neuronal activity would be better linked to metabolisms, as CBF is susceptible to systemic factors, and serves regions of the brain, energy metabolism is characteristic of individual cells therefore, a better resolution of neuronal activity would be to use radioactive glucose (Landau et al. 1955). -
David Ingvar
David Ingvar performed scintillation detection, which used a helmet placed over the subject’s head. Proving blood flow changed regionally according to the induced change in brain activity. However it was limited in its ability to measure other indicators of brain function such as glucose, or oxygen (Ingvar and Risberg 1965). -
Godfrey Hounsfield
Godfrey Hounsfield introduced X-ray computed tomography (CT scan). Generating a 3D image from 2D slices. This only proved to show the anatomy and not the physiology (Hounsfield 1973). -
Michel E. Phelps
PET invented by Michel E. Phelps (Ter-Pogossian et al. 1975). PET tomography allowed for in vivo autoradiographs of the brain and was the first functional brain technology. PET was first done with FDG18F-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) and measured glucose metabolism in the brain. This was the first proper image of energy metabolism in humans.