Abstract #2803

Liu H, Kuan W, Wai Y, Wan Y, Chen H

This study aimed to evaluate the influence to BOLD signal and noise in motor areas while a movement task was cued with different modalities (goggle, headphone and leg-tapping by experimenter). Five healthy volunteers participated in the study. Greater activation extent was found with leg-tapping, comparing to the other conditions (p=0.004 when comparing with the headphone condition). The results agreed with the slightly decreased SNR when goggle or headphone was used. The study suggests that even when MRI-compatible apparatuses were used for fMRI experiments, researches may still need to consider the possible lessening of SNR and sensitivity.