Cortical Boundaries Revealed by T1 Mapping: Comparison with FMRI in Awake Marmosets

Junjie V. Liu¹, Nicholas A. Bock¹, Yoshiyuki Hirano¹, Afonso C. Silva¹

We studied spatial variations in T1 across cortical gray matter, specifically the primary (SI) and secondary (SII) somatosensory cortices, using a new T1-mapping method based on inversion recovery. SI was distinguished from abutting cortical areas by its significantly lower T1 values. The anatomical SI-SII boundary demarcated from T1 map matched the functional SI-SII boundary, which was defined by the gap between two clusters of functional MRI responses to electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves. Thus, cortical architecture revealed by T1 mapping can corroborate the fMRI brain mapping results.