Evaluation of Multiband EPI Acquisitions for Resting State fMRI.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and particularly resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI) is widely used to investigate resting state brain networks (RSNs) on the systems level. Echo planar imaging (EPI) is the state-of-the-art imaging technique for most fMRI studies. Therefore, improvements of EPI...

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Main Authors: Christine Preibisch, J Gabriel Castrillón G, Martin Bührer, Valentin Riedl
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2015-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4574400?pdf=render
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author Christine Preibisch
J Gabriel Castrillón G
Martin Bührer
Valentin Riedl
author_facet Christine Preibisch
J Gabriel Castrillón G
Martin Bührer
Valentin Riedl
author_sort Christine Preibisch
collection DOAJ
description Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and particularly resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI) is widely used to investigate resting state brain networks (RSNs) on the systems level. Echo planar imaging (EPI) is the state-of-the-art imaging technique for most fMRI studies. Therefore, improvements of EPI might lead to increased sensitivity for a large amount of studies performed every day. A number of developments to shorten acquisition time have been recently proposed and the multiband technique, allowing the simultaneous acquisition of multiple slices yielding an equivalent reduction of measurement time, is the most promising among them. While the prospect to significantly reduce acquisition time by means of high multiband acceleration factors (M) appears tempting, signal quality parameters and the sensitivity to detect common RSNs with increasing M-factor have only been partially investigated up to now. In this study, we therefore acquired rs-fMRI data from 20 healthy volunteers to systematically investigate signal characteristics and sensitivity for brain network activity in datasets with increasing M-factor, M = 2 - 4. Combined with an inplane, sensitivity encoding (SENSE), acceleration factor, S = 2, we applied a maximal acceleration factor of 8 (S2×M4). Our results suggest that an M-factor of 2 (total acceleration of 4) only causes negligible SNR decrease but reveals common RSN with increased sensitivity and stability. Further M-factor increase produced random artifacts as revealed by signal quality measures that may affect interpretation of RSNs under common scanning conditions. Given appropriate hardware, a mb-EPI sequence with a total acceleration of 4 significantly reduces overall scanning time and clearly increases sensitivity to detect common RSNs. Together, our results suggest mb-EPI at moderate acceleration factors as a novel standard for fMRI that might increase our understanding of network dynamics in healthy and diseased brains.
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spelling doaj.art-295fc7f561994642b0840016276a4f292022-12-22T02:24:04ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032015-01-01109e013696110.1371/journal.pone.0136961Evaluation of Multiband EPI Acquisitions for Resting State fMRI.Christine PreibischJ Gabriel Castrillón GMartin BührerValentin RiedlFunctional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and particularly resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI) is widely used to investigate resting state brain networks (RSNs) on the systems level. Echo planar imaging (EPI) is the state-of-the-art imaging technique for most fMRI studies. Therefore, improvements of EPI might lead to increased sensitivity for a large amount of studies performed every day. A number of developments to shorten acquisition time have been recently proposed and the multiband technique, allowing the simultaneous acquisition of multiple slices yielding an equivalent reduction of measurement time, is the most promising among them. While the prospect to significantly reduce acquisition time by means of high multiband acceleration factors (M) appears tempting, signal quality parameters and the sensitivity to detect common RSNs with increasing M-factor have only been partially investigated up to now. In this study, we therefore acquired rs-fMRI data from 20 healthy volunteers to systematically investigate signal characteristics and sensitivity for brain network activity in datasets with increasing M-factor, M = 2 - 4. Combined with an inplane, sensitivity encoding (SENSE), acceleration factor, S = 2, we applied a maximal acceleration factor of 8 (S2×M4). Our results suggest that an M-factor of 2 (total acceleration of 4) only causes negligible SNR decrease but reveals common RSN with increased sensitivity and stability. Further M-factor increase produced random artifacts as revealed by signal quality measures that may affect interpretation of RSNs under common scanning conditions. Given appropriate hardware, a mb-EPI sequence with a total acceleration of 4 significantly reduces overall scanning time and clearly increases sensitivity to detect common RSNs. Together, our results suggest mb-EPI at moderate acceleration factors as a novel standard for fMRI that might increase our understanding of network dynamics in healthy and diseased brains.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4574400?pdf=render
spellingShingle Christine Preibisch
J Gabriel Castrillón G
Martin Bührer
Valentin Riedl
Evaluation of Multiband EPI Acquisitions for Resting State fMRI.
PLoS ONE
title Evaluation of Multiband EPI Acquisitions for Resting State fMRI.
title_full Evaluation of Multiband EPI Acquisitions for Resting State fMRI.
title_fullStr Evaluation of Multiband EPI Acquisitions for Resting State fMRI.
title_full_unstemmed Evaluation of Multiband EPI Acquisitions for Resting State fMRI.
title_short Evaluation of Multiband EPI Acquisitions for Resting State fMRI.
title_sort evaluation of multiband epi acquisitions for resting state fmri
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4574400?pdf=render
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AT martinbuhrer evaluationofmultibandepiacquisitionsforrestingstatefmri
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