RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Activation of the sensorimotor cortex at 1.0 T: comparison of echo-planar and gradient-echo imaging.
JF American Journal of Neuroradiology
JO Am. J. Neuroradiol.
FD American Society of Neuroradiology
SP 1099
OP 1104
VO 19
IS 6
A1 B F van der Kallen
A1 L J van Erning
A1 M W van Zuijlen
A1 H Merx
A1 H O Thijssen
YR 1998
UL http://www.ajnr.org/content/19/6/1099.abstract
AB PURPOSE The increasing demand for the clinical application of functional MR imaging raises the question of whether this technique can be routinely performed on 1.0-T MR scanners. To this end, we assessed the feasibility of functional MR imaging at 1.0 T.METHODS Healthy volunteers were scanned during the performance of a motor task. Functional data were acquired with echo-planar imaging (EPI) and with gradient-echo (GRE) and dual-echo GRE sequences. The signal intensity variations of the EPI and GRE sequences were compared, and the influence of inflow and blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) effects on the signal variations was assessed with the dual-echo GRE sequences.RESULTS In 11 of the 12 subjects we found activation in the primary motor cortex with both the GRE and EPI sequences. Active voxels had a significantly higher mean percentage of signal changes with the EPI sequence than with the GRE sequence (EPI: 1% to 6.1%, mean 2.4%; GRE: 1% to 4.5%, mean 1.9%). The EPI sequence was less sensitive to motion artifacts and enabled imaging of a larger brain volume in a shorter time. With a dual-echo sequence we found an increasing contribution of inflow effect with an increasing percentage of signal changes.CONCLUSION Functional MR imaging of the sensorimotor cortex can be routinely performed at 1.0 T.