Yi Zhang1,2, Qi Peng2, Timothy Q
Duong1,2
1Research Imaging Institute,
Synopsis:
fMRI of the human retina is challenging because the thin retina is located in
a region of high magnetic susceptibility, is susceptible to eye motion and
high spatial resolution is needed. This study successfully demonstrated a
novel fMRI application to image normal human retinas associated with oxygen
challenge. fMRI utilized an inversion-recovery balanced steady state
precession (IR-bSSFP) acquisition to suppress vitreous signal and to achieve
high spatiotemporal resolution free of image distortion and signal dropout.
This approach has the potential open up new avenues for retinal research and
may have important research and clinical applications.