In this thread, I'd like to start collecting important papers that revie the state of fMRI in it's various technical and application aspects. o this end, Stephen Strother brought to my attention the following paper by Peter Bandettini:

Bandettini P. Functional MRI today. Int J Psychophysiol. 2007 Feb;63(2):138-45. Epub 2006 Jul 13.

Abstract:
Most brain imaging researchers would agree with the assertion that functional MRI (fMRI) is progressing. Since fMRI began in 1991, the number of people, papers, and abstracts related to fMRI has been increasing; the technology and methodology has shown advances in robustness and sophistication; the physiology of the signal is better understood; and, even though it hasn't yet made significant headway into the clinical setting, applications are widening. Questions that stem from this optimistic and perhaps overly general set of observations include those that ask what the ultimate theoretical and practical limits of fMRI are and how close are we to approaching these limits. In this commentary, I attempt to provide a snapshot of fMRI as it exists at the end of 2005, and to give a clear impression that not only are we progressing by "dotting the i's and crossing the t's" but that fundamental changes in fMRI methodology and processing are being put forth as the field matures.

The following is a recent and quite thorough review of image registration techniques,with a focus on brain functional localization:

Brain Functional Localization: A Survey of Image Registration Techniques. 2007. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. A. Gholipour, N. Kehtarnavaz, R. Briggs, M. Devous, K. Gopinath. 26(4): 427-451

Abstract

Functional localization is a concept which involves the application of a sequence of geometrical and statistical image processing operations in order to define the location of brain activity or to produce functional/parametric maps with respect to the brain structure or anatomy. Considering that functional brain images do not normally convey detailed structural information and, thus, do not present an anatomically specific localization of functional activity, various image registration techniques are introduced in the literature for the purpose of mapping functional activity into an anatomical image or a brain atlas. The problems addressed by these techniques differ depending on the application and the type of analysis, i.e., single-subject versus group analysis. Functional to anatomical brain image registration is the core part of functional localization in most applications and is accompanied by intersubject and subject-to-atlas registration for group analysis studies. Cortical surface registration and automatic brain labeling are some of the other tools towards establishing a fully automatic functional localization procedure. While several previous survey papers have reviewed and classified general-purpose medical image registration techniques, this paper provides an overview of brain functional localization along with a survey and classification of the image registration techniques related to this problem.

This is not a review of techniques, but a nice guideline for reporting standards:

Guidelines for reporting an fMRI study.

Poldrack RA, Fletcher PC, Henson RN, Worsley KJ, Brett M, Nichols TE.

In this editorial, we outline a set of guidelines for the reporting of methods and results in functional magnetic resonance imaging studies and provide a checklist to assist authors in preparing manuscripts that meet these guidelines. - Neuroimage (2008) vol. 40 (2) pp. 409-14

http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eu...

It appears that this paper is in the public domain! and is freely downloadable from the website listed. For completness, I also places this document into the NITRC Documentation folder:

http://www.nitrc.org/docman/index.php?gr...