Mapping of Midbrain Nuclei Connectivity Networks using Time-Domain Phase-REgularized Parallel (T-PREP) Reconstruction of High-Resolution fMRI

Nan-Kuei Chen¹

Mapping of intrinsic connectivity networks is widely applied to imaging different patient populations. However, conventional fMRI protocols used in ICN mapping only provide data at a relatively low spatial-resolution. Although low-resolution ICN mapping may be sufficient to detect disruptions of major large-scale networks, it cannot measure the networks comprising nodes that are smaller in size, such as the midbrain nuclei. To address this limitation, here we report a novel time-domain phase-regularized parallel (T-PREP) reconstruction algorithm, retaining the fidelity of BOLD time-course profiles derived from under-sampled fMRI data, so that midbrain connectivity ICNs can be reliably measured from high-resolution resting-state fMRI.