Peter Jan Koopmans1, Stephan Orzada2,3, Markus Barth1,2, David Gordon Norris1,2
1Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands; 2Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Essen, Germany; 3Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany
Spin-echo has been claimed as superior to gradient-echo in terms of high resolution fMRI at high fields due to reduced sensitivity to pial vein contributions. This study shows that when distortions and blurring are kept to a minimum, the pial vein contribution is spatially separable from the intracortical GE-BOLD response. Patterns of laminar activation in human V1 are demonstrated at 7 Tesla. GE allows for high resolution (laminar) functional imaging with a high sensitivity, combined with a lower SAR than SE methods, and is as such the method of choice for human high field laminar imaging.