Anyone who has been subject to a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan knows its limitations: the claustrophobia-inducing tunnel, the machine gun rattle, the instruction not to move – none of which is conducive to relaxation. For confused patients and newborn babies, MRI scans are not possible, and researchers who study movement or hearing are severely restricted in what they can test. Now, an alternative noninvasive brain-imaging technique called optical topography (OT) is illuminating areas of brain function previously considered inaccessible and exploding some myths about brain development at the same time.