A holy grail of neuroimaging is direct mapping of neural activity, as the BOLD contrast used by fMRI is both spatially and temporally separated from active cells. Changes in membrane conductivity are actually a more promising contrast to use for imaging neural currents than other suggested methods such as neural current MRI, since membrane conductivity images are not prone to cancellation effects. We are developing of high field Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography (MREIT) techniques and models for this purpose, including full-field electromagnetic models of neural complexes that include active membrane behavior.
