Seiji Ogawa

Seiji Ogawa is a Japanese researcher known for discovering the technique that underlies Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). He is regarded as the father of modern functional brain imaging. He determined that the changes in blood oxygen levels cause its magnetic resonance imaging properties to change, allowing a map of blood, and hence, functional, activity in the brain to be created. This map reflected which neurons of the brain responded with electrochemical signals to mental processes. He was the first scientist who demonstrated that the functional brain imaging is dependent on the oxygenation status of the blood, the BOLD effect. The technique was therefore called Blood oxygenation level-dependent or BOLD contrast. Functional MRI (fMRI) has been used to map the visual, auditory and sensory regions and moving toward higher brain functions such as cognitive functions in the brain.