Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 376, Issue 1815, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0040
Keywords
ultra-high field; fMRI; layer dependent; cortical columns; spatial specificity
Categories
Funding
- NIH [R01 MH111447, R21 EY025371, P30 NS076408, P41 EB027061, S10 RR026783]
- University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts
- WM KECK Foundation
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This article discusses the recent achievements and challenges in ultra-high field functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at the mesoscopic scale. As researchers push to smaller voxel sizes in UHF fMRI, acquisition and analysis decisions may degrade spatial accuracy and must be carefully interpreted. Various acquisition techniques can impact contrast-to-noise ratio and spatial specificity, with acquisition blurring potentially increasing effective voxel size by up to 50% in some dimensions.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies with ultra-high field (UHF, 7+ Tesla) technology enable the acquisition of high-resolution images. In this work, we discuss recent achievements in UHF fMRI at the mesoscopic scale, on the order of cortical columns and layers, and examine approaches to addressing common challenges. As researchers push to smaller and smaller voxel sizes, acquisition and analysis decisions have greater potential to degrade spatial accuracy, and UHF fMRI data must be carefully interpreted. We consider the impact of acquisition decisions on the spatial specificity of the MR signal with a representative dataset with 0.8 mm isotropic resolution. We illustrate the trade-offs in contrast with noise ratio and spatial specificity of different acquisition techniques and show that acquisition blurring can increase the effective voxel size by as much as 50% in some dimensions. We further describe how different sources of degradations to spatial resolution in functional data may be characterized. Finally, we emphasize that progress in UHF fMRI depends not only on scientific discovery and technical advancement, but also on informal discussions and documentation of challenges researchers face and overcome in pursuit of their goals. This article is part of the theme issue 'Key relationships between non-invasive functional neuroimaging and the underlying neuronal activity'.
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