High Resolution BOLD-FMRI of the Auditory System in Rats

xin Yu¹, Artem Goloshevsky¹, Stephen Dodd¹, Afonso Silva¹, Alan Koretsky¹

There is growing interest in using MRI to study plasticity in the rodent brain. The auditory system has been important for studies of sensory plasticity. Previously, experience-dependent plasticity changes in the auditory midbrain were characterized with activation induced manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI). However, cortical reorganization could not be mapped with MEMRI. In this work, the auditory cortex and midbrain were mapped with BOLD-fMRI in rats anesthetized with propofol. 3D EPI images with 200 micron isotropic resolution was obtained in reasonable times. This work will enable analysis of interaction between the auditory midbrain and cortex under conditions where plasticity occurs.