Thermal stimulus task fMRI in the cervical spinal cord at 7 Tesla.

ABSTRACT: Although functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is widely applied in the brain, fMRI of the spinal cord is more technically demanding. Proximity to the vertebral column and lungs results in strong spatial inhomogeneity and temporal fluctuations in B₀ . Increasing field strength enables higher spatial resolution and improved sensitivity to blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal, but amplifies the effects of B₀ inhomogeneity. In this work, we present the first task fMRI in the spinal cord at 7 T. Further, we compare the performance of single-shot and multi-shot 2D echo-planar imaging (EPI) protocols, which differ in sensitivity to spatial and temporal B₀ inhomogeneity. The cervical spinal cords of 11 healthy volunteers were scanned at 7 T using

SUBMITTER: Seifert AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10877664 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature