Regional variations in vascular density correlate with resting-state and task-evoked blood oxygen level-dependent signal amplitude.

ABSTRACT: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become one of the primary tools used for noninvasively measuring brain activity in humans. For the most part, the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) contrast is used, which reflects the changes in hemodynamics associated with active brain tissue. The main advantage of the BOLD signal is that it is relatively easy to measure and thus is often used as a proxy for comparing brain function across population groups (i.e., control vs. patient). However, it is particularly weighted toward veins whose structural architecture is known to vary considerably across the brain. This makes it difficult to interpret whether differences in BOLD between cortical areas reflect true differences in neural activity or vascular structure. We therefore investigate

SUBMITTER: Vigneau-Roy N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6869285 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature