»The book is profound in its breadth and depth, richly footnoted and impressiv in its innovative approach to the operativity of images in medical settings.«

Paula Muhr is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for History of Art and Architecture, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and a visual artist. She studied visual arts, art history, theory of literature, and physics before receiving her PhD in visual studies from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and a postgraduate diploma in fine arts (Meisterschülerin) from the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig. Her transdisciplinary research is at the intersection of visual studies, image theory, media studies, science and technology studies (STS), and history and philosophy of science. She examines knowledge-producing functions of new imaging and visualisation technologies in natural sciences, ranging from neuroscience over medicine to physics.

Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
Acknowledgements 9
Introduction 13
1 Epistemic Functions of Images in Charcot's Neurophysiological Research on Hysteria: Introduction 29
1.1 Nosographic Stage: From Charcot's Early Lectures on Hysteria to Photography-Driven Mapping of the Hysterical Attack 37
1.2 Hypnotic Experiments: Image-Based Search for the Neurophysiological Basis of Hysteria 87
1.3 From Diagnosis to Pathogenesis and Treatment: Visualising Sensorimotor Deficits in Cases of Traumatic Hysterical Paralysis 136
2 From Disappearance to Reappearance of Image-Based Hysteria Research: Introduction 181
2.1 Gradual Dismissal of Images as Epistemic Tools From Hysteria Research 185
2.2 The Putative Disappearance of Somatic Manifestations of Hysteria 219
2.3 The Reappearance of Image-Based Hysteria Research 237
2.4 Current Neurological Reconceptualisation of Hysteria through fMRI Research 257
3 Using fMRI as an Investigation Tool in Hysteria Research: Introduction 275
3.1 Experimental Setup: Creating the Measurability of Hysterical Symptoms 282
3.2 Measurement: Translating the Active Brain into Imaging Data 304
3.3 Preprocessing: Constituting the Analysability of fMRI Data 328
3.4 Statistical Analysis: Articulating the Task-Induced Neural Activity of Interest 345
3.5 Visualising Functional Brain Maps: Ascribing the Symbolic Meaning 373
4 fMRI-Based Exploratory Search for the Neural Basis of Hysterical Symptoms: Introduction 401
4.1 Examining Hysteria's Relationship to Malingering and Hypnosis 406
4.2 Probing the Neural Mechanisms behind the Patients' Subjective Experiences of Their Symptoms 432
4.3 Imaging Hysteria Patients' Aberrant Neural Processing of Experimentally Induced Emotional States 457
4.4 Identifying Symptom-Related Alterations in the Intrinsic Dynamic Organisation of Hysteria Patients' Brains 494
Conclusion 537
Glossary 545
Bibliography 555
Illustration Credits 609