Abstract #2815

Wu P, Huang T, Wu M, Chung H, Chou M, Chen C

Blood Oxygenation Sensitive Steady State (BOSS) fMRI is suitable for detecting small functional changes in blood oxygenation, which however also leads to native sensitivity to field instability during consecutive scans. In this study, we proposed a frequency stabilization scheme based on finite impulse response (FIR) filtering to achieve substantially reduced frequency drifts. As compared with manufacturer-supplied frequency stabilization scheme, FIR filtering further improved detection of functional signals, such that experimental reproducibility of BOSS fMRI was greatly increased. Applications to visual fMRI at sub-millimeter spatial resolution show activations with good registration on the cortex.