fMRI and Granger Causality Modeling Combined to Study Brain Functional Connectivity Under Anesthesia

Benito de Celis Alonso¹, Elke Metzger¹, Marina Sergejeva¹, Andreas Hess¹

We used Granger Causality Modeling (GCM) combined with fMRI BOLD data to explain the effects of different anesthetic regimes on brain function. Results show large BOLD responses to Trapanal when compared with the three other anesthetic regimes. GCM results show that Trapanal, Isofluorane and Rompun/Ketanest block connectivity outputs from Medial Thalamus. There is a low correlation between BOLD and GCM results. We hypothesize this is due to long TR times used during fMRI acquisition.