Carolina
Arboleda1,2, Cristin Andrs Tejos1,2, Sergio Uribe,
2,3, Francisco Zamorano4, Francisco Aboitiz4,
Pablo Irarrazaval1,2
1Electrical
Engineering Department, Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile, Santiago,
Chile; 2Biomedical Imaging Center, Pontificia Universidad Catlica
de Chile, Santiago, Chile; 3Radiology Department, Pontificia
Universidad Catlica de Chile, Santiago, Chile; 4Cognitive
Neuroscience Laboratory, Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile, Santiago,
Chile
An
fMRI setup for stimuli presentation, should include a coupling circuit to
connect the MR-scanner output pulse to the computer that presents the stimuli
(scanner trigger detector, STD), and a Response-Detection Pad (RDP) which
needs to be placed inside the scanner and, thus, can not contain any
ferromagnetic materials. Currently, there are several RDC and STD
commercially available, but their cost is significantly high (~3,000 USD +
shipment). Here, we propose a cheap (~155 USD + shipment) setup that includes
a fiber optic RDP and a photo coupler-based STD, and is compatible with
current scanners and fMRI software.