From Photography to fMRI Epistemic Functions of Images in Medical Research on Hysteria

• Main Author: Muhr, Paula (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Bielefeld transcript Verlag 2022
• Series: Image 209
• Subjects: Photography & photographs; Media studies; History of medicine; Theory of art; Hysteria; Functional Neurological Disorder; Neuroimaging; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI); Photography; Medical Research; Visual Studies; Gender; Medicine; History of Medicine; Gender Studies; Fine Arts
• Online Access: OAPEN Library: download the publication; OAPEN Library: description of the publication

Hysteria, a mysterious disease known since antiquity, is said to have ceased to exist. Challenging this commonly held view, this is the first cross-disciplinary study to examine the current functional neuroimaging research into hysteria and compare it to the nineteenth-century image-based research into the same disorder. Paula Muhr's central argument is that, both in the nineteenth-century and the current neurobiological research on hysteria, images have enabled researchers to generate new medical insights. Through detailed case studies, Muhr traces how different images, from photography to functional brain scans, have reshaped the historically situated medical understanding of this disorder that defies the mind-body dualism.