PET Scans

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MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and PET (Positron Emission Typography) scans are two brain imaging technologies which can be used to investigate the relationship between biological factors and behavior by examining the human brain. Brain imaging technologies are used at the biological level of analysis as they are useful in neuropsychology, because they can be used to study the activity of the brain. Brain imaging technologies do not always show a cause-and-effect relationship, however they can prove correlations between brain activity and behavior. In this essay, MRI and PET scans will be evaluated, making an appraisal by weighing up strengths and limitations with references to studies on the relationship between biological factors and behavior. …show more content…
PET scans monitor the glucose metabolism in the brain by knowing that more glucose metabolism means more brain activity. The requirement is that the patient has to be injected with a radioactive glucose tracer which allows particles to be detected by the PET scanner. The scans produce colored maps of brain activity, where blue indicates areas with the least activity and red the most. A study which uses PET scans to research the results of brain damage on behavior is conducted by Raine et al. (1997). The aim of the experiment was to research whether murderers who declared themselves not guilty because of insanity show evidence of brain abnormalities. The procedure of the study started by injecting a glucose tracer in each participant before they had to perform tasks that was based around target recognition for 32 minutes before going into a PET scan. The findings were that the murderers, NGRIs, had less activity in the pre-frontal cortex, the amygdala and medial temporal …show more content…
Not all the ethics were upheld as there was potential harm when they removed the participants from their medication for an amount of time. The strengths of the study is that there was used many controls to remove other factors which could affect the brain activity and earlier findings are supported while new are being discovered. Limitations in this study are firstly that it does not show that the murderers are not responsible for their crimes and there is no control of the level of violence used in the murder. It is hard to generalize using this study as the number of females compared to males is not equal and the findings only apply to a subgroup of violent offenders, which means that it does not necessarily apply to the rest of the population. When evaluating PET scans, the strengths are that it is has good resolution, makes receptor mapping possible and it can track ongoing activity in the brain. However, it is invasive, very expensive and participants might be allergic to the tracer. The use of PET scans demonstrated a relationship between biological factors of damage to specific brain areas to criminal
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