Kimberly Brewer1,2, Lindsay Cherpak1,2,
Tynan Stevens1,2, Ryan D'Arcy1,3, Chris Bowen1,4,
Steven Beyea1,4
1Institute for Biodiagnostics
(Atlantic), National Research Council of Canada, Halifax, Nova Scotia,
Canada; 2Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; 3Psychology and Radiology, Dalhousie
University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; 4Physics and Atmospheric
Science, Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Canada
When
studying brain function, both the sensitivity
and specificity of a technique are
essential for improving accuracy. Most fMRI studies use sequences with T2
weighting to maximize BOLD sensitivity, but T2-weighted sequences
are more specific to true BOLD activation within parenchymal tissue
compared to activation in draining veins. Using the ASE Spiral technique
three images with matched T2-weighting, and varying T2-weighting
can be acquired in a single excitation. In this work, we analyzed ASE Spiral
images obtained during visual checkerboard stimulus using a
Receiver-Operator-Characteristic (ROC)-based analysis, to study changes in
specificity as a function of varying relaxation weighting.