Aalto University School of Science and Technology, Espoo, Finland.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2012 Apr;24(4):775-7. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00193. Epub 2012 Jan 20.
A central aim in cognitive neuroscience is to explain how neural activity gives rise to perception and behavior; the causal link of paramount interest is thus from brain to behavior. Functional neuroimaging studies, however, tend to provide information in the opposite direction by informing us how manipulation of behavior may affect neural activity. Although this may provide valuable insights into neuronal properties, one cannot use such evidence to make inferences about the behavioral significance of the observed activations; if A causes B, it does not necessarily follow that B causes A. In contrast, brain stimulation techniques enable us to directly modulate brain activity as the source of behavior and thus establish causal links.
认知神经科学的一个主要目标是解释神经活动如何产生感知和行为；因此，最感兴趣的因果关系是从大脑到行为。然而，功能神经影像学研究往往通过告诉我们行为的操纵如何影响神经活动，从而提供相反方向的信息。虽然这可能为神经元特性提供有价值的见解，但人们不能使用这种证据来推断观察到的激活的行为意义；如果 A 导致 B，并不一定意味着 B 导致 A。相比之下，脑刺激技术使我们能够直接调节大脑活动作为行为的来源，从而建立因果关系。
