Selene
da Rocha Amaral1, Sue Francis1, Penny Gowland1,
Nestor Caticha2
1Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Centre,
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Notts, United Kingdom; 2Institute
of Physics, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
We
have applied a Bayesian non-parametric multiscale technique, the iterated
Multigrid Priors method, to map the digits of the hand in primary
somatosensory cortex for 1mm isotropic spatial resolution data. It is data
driven and makes no assumption about the local hemodynamic response as a
function of time or space. It was able to detect an orderly pattern of
response phases on the posterior bank of the central sulcus (postcentral
gyrus) suggesting that the method can also be extended for retinotopic
mapping studies of visual cortex. We
also showed variations in HRs across digits through local posterior spatial
averages.