Assessing Functional Connectivity Measures at 3T and 7T

Joanne Rachel Hale¹, Matthew Jon Brookes¹, Emma Louise Hall¹, Susan T. Francis¹, Peter Gordon Morris¹

Functional connectivity, implied by inter-region correlation, has been reported in resting state BOLD activity. It is well known that as magnetic field strength is increased, BOLD contrast to noise is improved, implying that a move to high field would benefit functional connectivity measurement. However, fMRI signals are affected by non-neuronal artifacts which increase with field strength making the advantage of 7T questionable. Here, we assess non-neuronal physiological artifacts in 3T and 7T resting state data. Results show that sensorimotor cortex connectivity can be measured accurately and at high spatial resolution at 7T with little contribution from non-neuronal physiological artifact.