1Sir
Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre , University of Nottingham,
Nottingham, United Kingdom; 2Physiology, University of Gothenburg,
Gteborg, Sweden; 3Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre,
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom; 4Cognitive
Neuroscience, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
We successfully performed microstimulation of single afferents in the environment of an ultra-high field (7T) MR scanner and collected high resolution fMRI data depicting the response to intraneural microstimulation. fMRI data were acquired for increasing current amplitudes during microstimulation of four different afferents in two subjects. Robust responses were found for all units, consistent with the activation pattern seen on applying vibrotactile stimulation to the receptive fields of the microstimulated units. Activation was not found for microstimulation at sub-sensation thresholds. High-resolution fMRI allowed the discrimination of the responses of microstimulation to single afferents located in the palm and middle finger.