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Why does fMRI start with a lowercase f? As it stands for functional in functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The fMRI Wikipedia page has a history section, but it does not explain why a lowercase f was used, nor when the term was first used.

Is there any other example?

Nemexia
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    This is interesting and I don't think it'll be easy to find a good answer. I'm editing to add some research to see if we can get this reopened. – Laurel Oct 23 '17 at 20:16
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    Well, first there was plain MRI. If "FMRI" were used the heritage would not be obvious, but with "fMRI" the fact that it's a modification on "MRI" is more evident. – Hot Licks Oct 23 '17 at 22:09
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    There is also (f)MRI - https://sites.google.com/site/mritutorial/functional-mri-tutorials/tutorial-i-overview-of-fmri-analysis/overview – Nigel J Oct 23 '17 at 23:29
  • This Nuffield article refers to FMRI throughout https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/divisions/fmrib/what-is-fmri/introduction-to-fmri – Nigel J Oct 23 '17 at 23:37
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    Here's what I found so far: Timeline: 1991 - fMRI technique first used; 1992 - the term "functional MRI" is used; 1993 - FMRI and fMRI both used. Also of interest is fNIR... – Laurel Oct 24 '17 at 03:35
  • @NigelJ As an fMRI researcher, I can tell you that usage is not common, and I think rather the author of that piece meant for "(f)MRI" to mean "fMRI and MRI," akin to how you might say "horse(s)." – Azor Ahai -him- Oct 24 '17 at 16:38
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    I would conjecture the convention may have been inspired by other scientific nomenclature: for example, "mRNA," messenger RNA, discovered in the 1960s according to a quick Google search predates fMRI by decades. – Azor Ahai -him- Oct 24 '17 at 16:56
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    An MRI scan appears to be taken first as a reference. Then fMRI are taken sequentially and overlaid on the reference. Is the nomenclature something to do with the overlaying of one on to another ? – Nigel J Oct 24 '17 at 19:02
  • This is all about readability and meaning, and answered quite well here: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/110858/capitalization-of-biological-abbreviations-at-the-beginning-of-a-sentence – Gary Oct 25 '17 at 00:26
  • @Gary: No, I don't think so. That question is asking what to do when an abbreviation like fMRI comes at the beginning of a sentence; this one is asking why fMRI starts with a lowercase f to begin with. I could imagine if an answer there happened to answer this question as an aside, but as it happens, none there does. – ruakh Oct 25 '17 at 01:04
  • @ruakh Yes but the answer, also answers this question. The reason you leave the initial letter of the acronym in lowercase at the start of a sentence, is the very same reason it is lowercase in the middle of a sentence, to elicit meaning. – Gary Oct 25 '17 at 01:15
  • I think it has something to do with the fact that functional is a qualifier, i.e., a type of MRI, just like kilowatt(kW) or mitochondrial RNA (mRNA). – AffableAmbler Oct 25 '17 at 16:57
  • Massanger RNA.. – Nemexia Oct 25 '17 at 20:59
  • @AffableAmbler: Kilowatt is abbreviated kW because k- is the standard abbreviation for kilo-. By contrast, megawatt is abbreviated MW because M- is the standard abbreviation for mega-. – ruakh Oct 27 '17 at 01:53
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    This question has nothing to do with how to capitalize "fMRI" at the start of a sentence, nor do any of the answers on the linked page address the history of the term "fMRI." I've voted to reopen. – Azor Ahai -him- Sep 10 '18 at 21:02
  • @Azor Ahai: I agree with you regarding the nonduplicate nature of this question and the earlier question about how to start a sentence that begins with a lowercase letter followed by capital letters. I have voted to reopen. – Sven Yargs Sep 10 '18 at 22:30

2 Answers2

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I think the reason is that fMRI really stands for "functional MRI" rather than for "functional magnetic resonance imaging". That may sound like a distinction without a difference (since MRI stands for "magnetic resonance imaging"), but acronyms and initialisms tend to take on a life of their own. (For example, we wouldn't say *"a magnetic resonance imaging", but "an MRI" is well-attested in reference to an individual scan or an individual machine.) Analogous cases, as noted in comments above and in the question that Gary links to, include mRNA ("messenger RNA") and hPSC ("human PSC").

That said, most similar abbreviations actually don't take this approach. Usually the added letter isn't set off at all (such that a neonatal ICU is a NICU and a hash-based MAC is an HMAC); occasionally it's set off with a hyphen (such that transfer DNA is T-DNA and Broadband ISDN is B-ISDN). I don't think there's any specific factor that leads to one approach or another, other than the personal preference of the people introducing the terms.

ruakh
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CAT scans were followed by positron emission tomography or PET scans, which measured the decay of radioactive chemicals in brain tissue, and also MRI, which detected magnetic force. But all of these early images were static. The “movies” of brain function only became possible with confirmation of the link between blood flow and brain activity. This opened the possibility of using MRI to study more than just brain structure. With this connection, the active functioning of the brain could be predicted. Hence the lower case “f” added to MRI.

Walter Freeman
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