1. Impact of B0$$ {\mathrm{B}}_0 $$ field imperfections correction on BOLD sensitivity in 3D‐SPARKLING fMRI data.
- Author
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Amor, Zaineb, Le Ster, Caroline, GR, Chaithya, Daval‐Frérot, Guillaume, Boulant, Nicolas, Mauconduit, Franck, Thirion, Bertrand, Ciuciu, Philippe, and Vignaud, Alexandre
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FUNCTIONAL magnetic resonance imaging ,FALSE discovery rate ,IMPERFECTION ,OXYGEN in the blood ,SIGNAL-to-noise ratio - Abstract
Purpose: Static and dynamic B0$$ {\mathrm{B}}_0 $$ field imperfections are detrimental to functional MRI (fMRI) applications, especially at ultra‐high magnetic fields (UHF). In this work, a field camera is used to assess the benefits of retrospectively correcting B0$$ {\mathrm{B}}_0 $$ field perturbations on Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) sensitivity in non‐Cartesian three‐dimensional (3D)‐SPARKLING fMRI acquisitions. Methods: fMRI data were acquired at 1 mm3$$ {}^3 $$ and for a 2.4s‐TR while concurrently monitoring in real‐time field perturbations using a Skope Clip‐on field camera in a novel experimental setting involving a shorter TR than the required minimal TR of the field probes. Measurements of the dynamic field deviations were used along with a static ΔB0$$ \Delta {\mathrm{B}}_0 $$ map to retrospectively correct static and dynamic field imperfections, respectively. In order to evaluate the impact of such a correction on fMRI volumes, a comparative study was conducted on healthy volunteers. Results: Correction of B0$$ {\mathrm{B}}_0 $$ deviations improved image quality and yielded between 20% and 30% increase in median temporal signal‐to‐noise ratio (tSNR).Using fMRI data collected during a retinotopic mapping experiment, we demonstrated a significant increase in sensitivity to the BOLD contrast and improved accuracy of the BOLD phase maps: 44% (resp., 159%) more activated voxels were retrieved when using a significance control level based on a p‐value of 0.001 without correcting for multiple comparisons (resp., 0.05 with a false discovery rate correction). Conclusion: 3D‐SPARKLING fMRI hugely benefits from static and dynamic B0$$ {\mathrm{B}}_0 $$ imperfections correction. However, the proposed experimental protocol is flexible enough to be deployed on a large spectrum of encoding schemes, including arbitrary non‐Cartesian readouts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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