Elsmarieke
van de Giessen1, Paul F.C. Groot2, Jan Booij1,
Wim van den Brink3, Dick J. Veltman3, Aart J. Nederveen2
1Nuclear Medicine, Academic Medical Center,
Amsterdam, Netherlands; 2Radiology, Academic Medical Center,
Amsterdam, Netherlands; 3Amsterdam Institute for Addiction
Research, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands
This
study is the first, to our knowledge, that tests the feasibility of fMRI on
an open MRI system, with a magnetic field strength of 1.0 T, and compares the
results with fMRI on a state-of-the-art 3.0 T MRI scanner. The optimal echo
time for fMRI on an open 1.0 T MRI system was found to be around 70 ms.
Results show that fMRI on an open 1.0 T MRI scanner is feasible for studies
that are designed to analyze data at a group level, though not optimal for
studies on single subjects.