Fred Tam1, Dmitri Matenine2, Vadim Bachmutsky3, Simon J. Graham1,4
1Rotman Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 2Faculte des Sciences, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; 3Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; 4Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Functional MRI of recovering stroke patients requires behavioural monitoring to enable proper imaging and interpretation of neural signals resulting from uncontrolled movements and unintended motions during motor tasks. A video-based monitoring system comprising MRI-safe hardware and flexible recording and motion tracking software was developed. The system was tested with an uncontrolled mouth movement task. Using the recorded movements for fMRI analysis, activation was detected in sensorimotor and motor planning-related cortices. The system has potential to improve individualized fMRI analysis of brain activity associated with complex movements that are not specifically prescribed.
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