Sewer pipe, wire, epoxy, and finger tapping: the start of fMRI at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

ABSTRACT: In 1991, the Biophysics Research Institute at the Medical College of Wisconsin was among the first groups to develop functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Our story is unique on a few levels: We didn't have knowledge of the ability to image human brain activation with MRI using blood oxygenation dependent (BOLD) contrast until early August of 1991 when we attended the Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (SMRM) meeting in San Francisco, yet we produced our first BOLD-based maps of motor cortex activation about a month later. The effort started with two graduate students, Eric Wong and myself. Only a few days prior to that extremely important SMRM meeting, we had developed human echo planar imaging (EPI) capability in-house. Wong designed, built, and interfaced a head gradient

SUBMITTER: Bandettini PA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3303998 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature