Human Functional Imaging at 9.4 T: Spin Echo & Gradient Echo EPI

Juliane Budde¹, G. Shajan¹, Maxim Zaitsev², Klaus Scheffler¹, Rolf Pohmann¹

Functional images with a finger tapping task were acquired using spin echo and gradient echo EPI sequences at 9.4 T with isotropic resolution of 1 mm. Resulting activation was registered onto high-resolution anatomic images. A mask of veins was identified; activated voxels were divided into venous and non-venous, and averaged over subjects, voxels, and blocks. Activation levels were 6.1 5.4 % in non-venous and 9.1 5.7 % in venous locations. Time courses for the spin echo EPI are very similar and show an activation level of 3.9 7.2 % outside and 4.2 7.0 % inside veins.