The blind, the lame, and the poor signals of brain function—A Comment on Sirotin and Das (2009)

NeuroImage 50 (2010) 622–625Contents lists available at ScienceDirectNeuroImagejournal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ynimgComments and ControversiesThe blind, the lame, and the poor signals of brain function—A Comment onSirotin and Das (2009)a,b, c,d⁎Andreas Kleinschmidt , Notger G. Müllera INSERM Unité 562, 91190 Gif sur Yvette, Franceb CEA, DSV, I2BM, NeuroSpin, 91190 Gif sur Yvette, Francec Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke-University, 39120 Magdeburg, Germanyd German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases, 39120 Magdeburg, Germanyarticle info abstractArticle history: Last year, a study appeared that questioned the generally held assumption of a generic coupling betweenReceived 23 November 2009 electrical and hemodynamic signs of neural activity (Sirotin and Das, 2009). Although the findings of thatRevised 16 December 2009 study can barely surprise the specialists in the field, it has caused a considerable confusion in theAccepted 16 2009nonspecialist community due to the unwarranted claim of having discovered a “hitherto unknown signal.”Available online 4 January 2010According to this claim, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) would pick up not only signals thatreflect electrical brain activity but also purely hemodynamic signals that are not linked to neural activity.Keywords:Here, we show that that study's failure to obtain significant electrophysiological responses to task structureFunctional magnetic resonance ...