Functional neuroimaging as a tool to supplement cognitive, affective and social functioning assessment and psychotherapy

Abstract

The most critical need in the field of clinical psychology is unifying the firmly grounded theoretical principles with the real-time clinical practice and modern day neuroimaging advances. The present paper purports at determining the applicability of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a tool to supplement the cognitive and affective assessment, social functioning, psychotherapy, and rehabilitation through a rigorous review of the literature. fNIRS is used to measure cortical activation by recording changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin. Given the advantages and wide applicability of neuroimaging techniques, fNIRS can be effectively employed to assess real-time affective, perceptual, visual, and motor and language functioning of adults as well as infants. Summarily, fNIRS is a potential measure for comprehensive assessment of both healthy and pathological cortical working.

Keywords

• Affective
• cognitive
• functional near-infrared spectroscopy
• psychotherapy
• social functioning