Hilary Putnam, in his 1981 book Reason, Truth, and History, argued against the special case of a brain born in a vat, using a line of argument he drew from Wittgenstein.

* Putnam's discussion of the " brain in a vat " in chapter one of Reason, Truth, and History

He supported Thomas Henry Huxley in an important controversy with Richard Owen about the human brain, and eventually succeeded Owen as Director of the Natural History Museum.

Scientists at the Natural History Museum in London have found that the reduction in brain size of extinct pygmy hippopotamuses in Madagascar compared with their living relatives is greater than the reduction in body size, and similar to the reduction in brain size of H. floresiensis compared with H. erectus.

Tuberculosis can produce brain abscesses that look identical to conventional bacterial abscesses on CT imaging.

Brain imaging involves analyzing activity within the brain while performing various cognitive tasks.

Several brain imaging techniques, such as EEG and fMRI, have been used for physical measures of brain activity in these studies.

Three main techniques are used to visualize the brain and search for AVM: computed tomography ( CT ), magnetic resonance imaging ( MRI ), and cerebral angiography.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging has revealed that, after losing a bet or gamble (" riskloss "), the frontoparietal network of the brain is activated, resulting in more risk-taking behavior.

In the late 1990s, Jaynes's ideas received renewed attention as brain imaging technology confirmed many of his early predictions.

" Rowland discusses that what is exciting about this new field in education is that modern brain imaging techniques now make it possible, in some sense, to watch the brain as it learns.

New medical imaging techniques such as PET and fMRI have allowed researchers to generate pictures showing which areas of a living brain are active at a given time.

The differentiation of speech production into only two large sections of the brain ( i. e. Broca's and Wernicke's areas ), accepted long before the advent of medical imaging techniques, is now considered outdated.

MRI provides good contrast between the different soft tissues of the body, which makes it especially useful in imaging the brain, muscles, the heart, and cancers compared with other medical imaging techniques such as computed tomography ( CT ) or X-rays.

The techniques used by neuroscientists have also expanded enormously, from molecular and cellular studies of individual nerve cells to imaging of sensory and motor tasks in the brain.

Developments in electron microscopy, computers, electronics, functional brain imaging, and most recently genetics and genomics, have all been major drivers of progress.

More recently, psychophysiologists have been equally, or potentially more, interested in the central nervous system, exploring cortical brain potentials such as the many types of event-related potentials ( ERPs ), brain waves, and utilizing advanced technology such as functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fMRI ), MRI, PET, MEG, and other neuroimagery techniques.

Many measures are part of modern psychophysiology including measures of brain activity such as ERPs, brain waves ( electroencephalography, EEG ), fMRI ( functional magnetic resonance imaging ), measures of skin conductance ( skin conductance response, SCR ; galvanic skin response, GSR ), cardiovascular measures ( heart rate, HR ; beats per minute, BPM ; heart rate variability, HRV ; vasomotor activity ), muscle activity ( electromyography, EMG ), changes in pupil diameter with thought and emotion ( pupillometry ) and eye movements, recorded via the electro-oculogram ( EOG ) and direction-of-gaze methods.

It is used heavily in clinical oncology ( medical imaging of tumors and the search for metastases ), and for clinical diagnosis of certain diffuse brain diseases such as those causing various types of dementias.

The development of a number of novel probes for noninvasive, in vivo PET imaging of neuroaggregate in human brain has brought amyloid imaging to the doorstep of clinical use.

In the 1990s, researchers began to use Electroencephalography ( EEG ), Positron Emission Tomography ( PET ) and more recently functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ( fMRI ), which is now the most widely used imaging technique to help localize personality traits in the brain.

A 2007 review recommends an electroencephalogram and brain imaging with CT scan or MRI scan in the work-up.