fMRI experiments in research need a special paradigm to give stimulus to detect brain function of interest. This is typically accomplished by presenting a subject with a task to give stimulus to the brain. The tasks are used in neuropsychology, fMRI tasks are accurately organized in time. This is necessary because a clearly defined pattern of events (i.e. the sequence in time) is required in order to search the fMRI datasets for that particular pattern. To generate input function, one has to devise a task which contains at least two different conditions in order to create a pattern. These two states are generated using a special paradigm used to generate a sequence of conditions like resting and non-resting state.

Our brain is activated based on the input received from external world by five senses mainly. These five senses include hearing, vision, smell, touch, and taste. Paradigms in fMRI are normally designed to monitor the brains functions and activated area.