Kenneth A. Weber II1,
2, Yufen Chen1, Xue Wang1, Todd B. Parrish1
1Department
of Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States; 2Interdepartmental
Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States
Spinal cord fMRI has lagged behind brain fMRI due to technical difficulties including magnetic susceptibilities at bone-tissue interfaces, the small dimensions of the spinal cord, and physiological noise. Gradient echo EPI (GE EPI) based BOLD fMRI is sensitive to differences in magnetic field susceptibilities at bone-tissue interfaces, which results in signal loss and image distortion. This study investigates steady state free precession, proton density spin-echo EPI, and short TE half-Fourier single-shot turbo spin-echo sequences for functional neuroimaging in the motor cortex to determine their potential for spinal cord fMRI. These data were compared to conventional GE EPI based BOLD fMRI.