scholarly journals Development of a functional magnetic resonance imaging simulator for modeling realistic rigid-body motion artifacts

2006 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 364-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Drobnjak ◽  
David Gavaghan ◽  
Endre Süli ◽  
Joe Pitt-Francis ◽  
Mark Jenkinson
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Rigid Body ◽  
Rigid Body Motion ◽  
Motion Artifacts ◽  
Body Motion ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging

scholarly journals Gradual Restraint Habituation for Awake Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Combined With a Sparse Imaging Paradigm Reduces Motion Artifacts and Stress Levels in Rodents

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Russo ◽  
Xavier Helluy ◽  
Mehdi Behroozi ◽  
Denise Manahan-Vaughan
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Acoustic Stimulation ◽  
Motion Artifacts ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
Stress Levels ◽  
Awake Rats

Functional magnetic resonance imaging, as a non-invasive technique, offers unique opportunities to assess brain function and connectivity under a broad range of applications, ranging from passive sensory stimulation to high-level cognitive abilities, in awake animals. This approach is confounded, however, by the fact that physical restraint and loud unpredictable acoustic noise must inevitably accompany fMRI recordings. These factors induce marked stress in rodents, and stress-related elevations of corticosterone levels are known to alter information processing and cognition in the rodent. Here, we propose a habituation strategy that spans specific stages of adaptation to restraint, MRI noise, and confinement stress in awake rats and circumvents the need for surgical head restraint. This habituation protocol results in stress levels during awake fMRI that do not differ from pre-handling levels and enables stable image acquisition with very low motion artifacts. For this, rats were gradually trained over a period of three weeks and eighteen training sessions. Stress levels were assessed by analysis of fecal corticosterone metabolite levels and breathing rates. We observed significant drops in stress levels to below pre-handling levels at the end of the habituation procedure. During fMRI in awake rats, after the conclusion of habituation and using a non-invasive head-fixation device, breathing was stable and head motion artifacts were minimal. A task-based fMRI experiment, using acoustic stimulation, conducted 2 days after the end of habituation, resulted in precise whole brain mapping of BOLD signals in the brain, with clear delineation of the expected auditory-related structures. The active discrimination by the animals of the acoustic stimuli from the backdrop of scanner noise was corroborated by significant increases in BOLD signals in the thalamus and reticular formation. Taken together, these data show that effective habituation to awake fMRI can be achieved by gradual and incremental acclimatization to the experimental conditions. Subsequent BOLD recordings, even during superimposed acoustic stimulation, reflect low stress-levels, low motion and a corresponding high-quality image acquisition. Furthermore, BOLD signals obtained during fMRI indicate that effective habituation facilitates selective attention to sensory stimuli that can in turn support the discrimination of cognitive processes in the absence of stress confounds.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Measures of Blood Flow Patterns in the Human Auditory Cortex in Response to Sound

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 538-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean C. Huckins ◽  
Christopher W. Turner ◽  
Karen A. Doherty ◽  
Michael M. Fonte ◽  
Nikolaus M. Szeverenyi
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Blood Flow ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Complex Stimuli ◽  
Scanning Session ◽  
Auditory Research

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) holds exciting potential as a research and clinical tool for exploring the human auditory system. This noninvasive technique allows the measurement of discrete changes in cerebral cortical blood flow in response to sensory stimuli, allowing determination of precise neuroanatomical locations of the underlying brain parenchymal activity. Application of fMRI in auditory research, however, has been limited. One problem is that fMRI utilizing echo-planar imaging technology (EPI) generates intense noise that could potentially affect the results of auditory experiments. Also, issues relating to the reliability of fMRI for listeners with normal hearing need to be resolved before this technique can be used to study listeners with hearing loss. This preliminary study examines the feasibility of using fMRI in auditory research by performing a simple set of experiments to test the reliability of scanning parameters that use a high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio unlike that presently reported in the literature. We used consonant-vowel (CV) speech stimuli to investigate whether or not we could observe reproducible and consistent changes in cortical blood flow in listeners during a single scanning session, across more than one scanning session, and in more than one listener. In addition, we wanted to determine if there were differences between CV speech and nonspeech complex stimuli across listeners. Our study shows reproducibility within and across listeners for CV speech stimuli. Results were reproducible for CV speech stimuli within fMRI scanning sessions for 5 out of 9 listeners and were reproducible for 6 out of 8 listeners across fMRI scanning sessions. Results of nonspeech complex stimuli across listeners showed activity in 4 out of 9 individuals tested.

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