Effect of Head Motion on the MRI Visibility of Cortical Layers in Human Primary Visual Cortex

Jessica Schulz¹, Miriam Whnert¹, Robert Trampel¹, Robert Turner¹

There is increased interest in using ultra-high-field brain MRI to map intracortical structures. We simulated the effect on layer structure of small in-plane motions during data sampling, using 200 micron resolution ex vivo brain images. Such motions can easily introduce illusory structures, shown in images and cortical intensity profiles of human primary visual cortex, without and with motion corruption. Our simulations emphasize the crucial importance of appropriate motion correction of high resolution brain data.