Laurentius Huber1, Dimo Ivanov2, Sean Marrett1, Puja Panwar1, Kamil Uludag2, Peter A Bandettini1, and Benedikt A Poser2
1Section of Functional Imaging Methods, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, United States, 2MBIC, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
Cerebral blood volume (CBV) fMRI has the potential
to overcome known limitations of BOLD fMRI with respect to spatial specificity
and quantifiability of mapping brain activity. To overcome the coverage
limitations of conventional CBV mapping with VASO, a novel VASO method with
3D-EPI readout was developed. This new approach is compared to BOLD fMRI and
VASO with simultaneous multi-slice EPI readout. We provide evidence for a high
sensitivity and improved specificity of 3D-EPI VASO compared to conventional
BOLD fMRI. We conclude that because of its superior resolution in
slice-direction, 3D-EPI VASO may play an important role in high-resolution
fMRI.
