Oliver Hinds1, Aaron Hess2, M.
Dylan Tisdall3, Todd Thompson1, Hans Breiter3,
Andr van der Kouwe3
1A. A. Martinos Imaging Center at the
McGovern Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA,
United States; 2Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town,
South Africa; 3A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging,
Department of Radiology, MGH, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United
States
If
the BOLD response to EPI acoustic noise changes over the time course of a
standard fMRI experiment, both Type I and Type II errors can be made in fMRI
group analysis. We used a pulse sequence based on single-voxel functional
spectroscopy to silently measure the BOLD response induced by EPI-like
scanner noise over about 40 minutes. No significant habituation or
facilitation with respect to the scanner noise was found over that time. This
result eliminates a possible confound for auditory and speech neuroimaging
studies, especially those involving learning.