Neuroscientists, racing to map the structure and function of the human brain, hope clinical and commercial interest in their work will grow as they gather new information.

Can brain imaging do for neurology what the human genome project is doing for therapeutics and diagnostics? Thanks in part to new imaging technologies, research on how the brain works is flourishing. But because treatments lag diagnostics, the commercialopportunities are unclear. So far, the biggest opportunities for the capital equipment makers which dominate the imaging industry seem to be in developing upgrades to drive continued demand for existing scanners.