Roll up your sleeves; this is a no-nonsense article, in which we will lay out for you all the neuroimaging modalities currently available, with a little explanation on how each works, and a tidbit or two on how it can (or can't) be used in psychiatry.

If you haven't had patients asking you to order them a PET scan to diagnose Alzheimer's disease yet, brace yourself. It's only a matter of time.

Five of the last six covers of the American Journal of Psychiatry have been chock-full of brains.

Dr. Dougherty, it looks like you've now literally "written the book" on neuroimaging in psychiatry (Essentials of Neuroimaging for Clinical Practice, Dougherty, Rauch, and Rosenbaum, eds., Wash D.C.: APPI, 2004). Congratulations! How did you get interested in this field, originally?

In 1977, Raymond Damadian and a team of graduate students put together the first whole-body MRI scanner, which they dubbed the "Indomitable." Damadian volunteered himself as the first guinea pig.