Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Abstract

Machine learning is a growing topic in computer science. The growing phenomenon that is machine learning keeps showing its usefulness in a large amount of scenarios, from advertising to research. Terabytes of data are stored every day on our computers and on computers in use by large businesses, research groups, hospitals, etc. These data serves many purposes from medical data used in diagnosis, or consumer data from online shopping to ensure that the consumer demand is fulfilled. However, with the large amount of data that are produced, the applications of the data can stretch far beyond that. Looking at data from one patient can be used to diagnose the patient, looking at several patient data set can be used to find patterns in the collections of patients and help prevent a disease in the future. However, working with large amount of data are no simple task, and extracting the important features in the data can be just as difficult. This is where the concept of machine learning plays a large part today. In the field of neural imaging, the applications that machine learning provide regarding finding patterns and correlations can be very useful. A fMRI project can create substantial amounts of data and finding patterns in these data efficiently in new ways can lead the way for findings granting better understanding on how the brain, and we, work.