Center for Functional MRI In the Department of Radiology

Faculty Research

Richard B. Buxton, Ph.D.

Professor of Radiology

Email: rbuxton@ucsd.edu

Dr. Buxton’s primary research is focused on understanding the connections between neural activity, blood flow and energy metabolism in the human brain. Experimental work combines arterial spin labeling (ASL) methods with blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) methods to estimate changes in brain oxygen metabolism in response to a stimulus or a drug. More theoretical work involves mathematical modeling of the imaging methods, the BOLD effect, and oxygen transport from blood to tissue.


In addition to his research on the brain, Dr. Buxton is an active collaborator with Susan R. Hopkins and G. Kim Prisk in the Pulmonary Imaging Lab, working on the application of ASL methods to measure dynamic blood flow changes in the lung.


Dr. Buxton is based at the Center for Functional MRI, and served as the Center’s founding Director (2000-2007). He has written a textbook on fMRI, now in its second edition, published by Cambridge University Press (2009).

http://cfmriweb.ucsd.edu/rbuxton/

Education and Prior Experience:

Dr. Buxton received his BS (1976) and PhD (1981) degrees in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by a post-doc in biomedical imaging (PET and MRI) at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Book:

Introduction to Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Principles and Techniques 2nd Edition


  • Richard B. Buxton, University of California, San Diego
  • Hardback
  • ISBN:9780521899956
  • Publication Date: August 2009

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has become a standard tool for mapping the working brain's activation patterns, both in health and in disease. It is an interdisciplinary field and crosses the borders of neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, radiology, mathematics, physics and engineering. Developments in techniques, procedures and our understanding of this field are expanding rapidly. In this second edition of Introduction to Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Richard Buxton – a leading authority on fMRI – provides an invaluable guide to how fMRI works, from introducing the basic ideas and principles to the underlying physics and physiology. He covers the relationship between fMRI and other imaging techniques and includes a guide to the statistical analysis of fMRI data. This book will be useful both to the experienced investigator and the researcher with no previous knowledge of the field.

Cambridge University Press
[Book Site]

Buxton Publications