On National Public Radio (NPR), there is a popular quiz show called Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me. A moderator asks questions of contestants who have to choose a correct answer with the help of smart-aleck celebrities. The premise is that we have amassed information but cannot access it right now. The answer is somewhere “in there” if only for want of a bit more time to locate it and respond.
The show's setup is much like our conventional approach to functional neuroimaging where the anticipated information is located in a region of interest and expected to be demonstrated within set time parameters. But as the title of the radio show indicates, sometimes the contestants, and in our research analogy, the injured brain, just doesn't quite know what is expected of it and needs a bit more time to answer in its own fashion. Region of interest? Wait, wait . . . need a minute.