Functional magnetic resonance imaging adaptation (FMRIa) is a method of functional magnetic resonance imaging that reads the brain changes occurring in response to long exposure to evocative stimulus.
[1] If Stimulus 1 (S1) excites a certain neuronal population, repeated exposure to S1 will result in subsequently attenuated responses.
However, when S1 is followed by a unique stimulus, S2, the response amplitudes should not be attenuated as a fresh sub-population of neurons is excited.
Using this technique can allow researchers to determine if the same or unique neuronal groups are involved in processing two stimuli.
[2] This technique has been used successfully in examination of the visual system, particularly orientation, motion, and face recognition.