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Abstract #3418

Normalisation of BOLD FMRI Data Between Different Baseline Conditions Using Hyperoxia

Daniel Bulte1, Molly Bright1,2, Peter Jezzard1

1FMRIB Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom; 2National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, United States


The fact that BOLD FMRI is highly sensitive to resting blood flow levels is a significant limitation in the clinical application of the technique. As many commonly ingested substances can cause significant changes in CBF, correcting for this confound would be a distinct advantage in comparing between subjects, sessions or pharmacological conditions. In this study subjects were imaged during visual stimulation pre and post- caffeine consumption. Short epochs of hyperoxia were used to normalise between these 2 conditions. Despite changes in BOLD response on the order of 10-40%, the normalisation effectively reduced the baseline vascular confounds.