The authors begin by noting that, in addition to the more or less established trends of cognitive modelling and neurolinguistics or behavioural experimentation, a more recent orientation in research on interpreting (IR) as a complex cognitive process is functional neuroimaging. Then, they describe brain imaging methods – electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and near-infrared spectroscopy – and provide selected examples of their use in language processing and interpreting research, accompanied with brief evaluations of their applicability to IR. Finally, the authors describe what they believe is the first published study of speech shadowing and professional simultaneous interpreting using PET.