Functional MRI at 1.5 Tesla: A Comparison of the Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent Signal and Electrophysiology

How well does the functional MRI (fMRI) signal reflect underlying electrophysiology? Despite the ubiquity of the technique, this question has yet to be adequately answered. Therefore, we have compared cortical maps generated based on the indirect blood oxygenation level-dependent signal of fMRI with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2000-08, Vol.97 (17), p.9718-9723
Main Authors: Disbrow, Elizabeth A., Slutsky, Daniel A., Timothy P. L. Roberts, Krubitzer, Leah A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anesthesia
Anesthetics
Animals
Biological Sciences
Biology
Brain Mapping - methods
Centroids
Cerebrovascular Circulation
Comparative studies
Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
Electrodes
Electrophysiology
Face
Face - physiology
Hand - physiology
Humans
Macaca mulatta - physiology
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Microelectrodes
Monkeys
Monkeys & apes
Neurology
Oxygen - blood
Reproducibility of Results
Somatosensory Cortex - blood supply
Somatosensory Cortex - physiology
Tissue oxygenation
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Summary:How well does the functional MRI (fMRI) signal reflect underlying electrophysiology? Despite the ubiquity of the technique, this question has yet to be adequately answered. Therefore, we have compared cortical maps generated based on the indirect blood oxygenation level-dependent signal of fMRI with maps from microelectrode recording techniques, which directly measure neural activity. Identical somatosensory stimuli were used in both sets of experiments in the same anesthetized macaque monkeys. Our results demonstrate that fMRI can be used to determine the topographic organization of cortical fields with 55% concordance to electrophysiological maps. The variance in the location of fMRI activation was greatest in the plane perpendicular to local vessels. An appreciation of the limitations of fMRI improves our ability to use it effectively to study cortical organization.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.170205497