alt Hacker NewsI'm not a specialist by any means, although I am a patient of an fMRI. One thing I will note is that in the eventual, resultant paperwork from the broad array of tests I had, the fMRI was not noted whatsoever, neither was it discussed with me by any of the numerous neurologists or surgeons involved in my case. I was quite curious as to why it was performed at all, but presumably it was some formality to check a box.
It makes sense they wouldn't look at it, there are very few, if any, well-validated clinical uses for it. However, they might have taken it as a baseline for later comparison, and it is definitely plausible when surgery is involved that visible abnormalities could be seen in fMRI that might not show up in MRI, either now or later.
I don't think there would be much clear guidance for them on how to interpret any such fMRI abnormality on its own, but it might still be something useful for further investigations, and this might especially be the case for surgery. It might also have been done as part of research, if you consented to anything like that?
I am NOT an expert on fMRI in medical contexts, but you can surely get a rough idea of the potential value of fMRI with a quick search: https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=fMRI+surgery+brain&hl=en...