Abstract #1095

Does the BOLD Response to EPI-Related Acoustic Noise Change Over an FMRI Experiment?

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.