The potential of MR-Encephalography for BCI/Neurofeedback applications with high temporal resolution

Publication date: Available online 23 March 2019Source: NeuroImageAuthor(s): Michael Lührs, Bruno Riemenschneider, Judith Eck, Amaia Benitez Andonegui, Benedikt A. Poser, Armin Heinecke, Florian Krause, Fabrizio Esposito, Bettina Sorger, Juergen Hennig, Rainer GoebelAbstractReal-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) enables the update of various brain-activity measures during an ongoing experiment as soon as a new brain volume is acquired. However, the recorded Blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal also contains physiological artifacts such as breathing and heartbeat, which potentially cause misleading false positive effects especially problematic in brain computer interface (BCI) and neurofeedback (NF) setups. The low temporal resolution of echo planar imaging (EPI) sequences (which is in the range of seconds) prevents a proper separation of these artifacts from the BOLD signal. MR-Encephalography (MREG) has been shown to provide the high temporal resolution required to unalias and correct for physiological fluctuations and leads to increased specificity and sensitivity for mapping task-based activation and functional connectivity as well as for detecting dynamic changes in connectivity over time. By comparing a simultaneous multislice echo planar imaging (SMS-EPI) sequence and an MREG sequence using the same nominal spatial resolution in an offline analysis for three different experimental fMRI paradigms (perception of house and face stimuli, motor imag...
Source: NeuroImage - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research