Matthew Man Hin Cheung1,2,
Joe S. Cheng1,2, Iris Y. Zhou1,2, Kevin C. Chan1,2,
Condon Lau1,2, Ed X. Wu1,2
1Laboratory of
Biomedical Imaging & Signal Processing, the University of Hong Kong,
Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China, People's Republic of; 2Department
of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, the University of Hong Kong,
Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China, People's Republic of
The inferior colliculus (IC) is an important auditory relay center for ascending pathways and the central nucleus of IC receives input from lower auditory centers and projects to the medial geniculate body in a strictly tonotopic manner. In this study, a novel approach was proposed to map the tonotopic organization in IC with fMRI by using (1) periodic frequency-modulated auditory stimulus with linearly sweeping frequency; and (2) distortion-free balanced steady state free precession (bSSFP) sequence. Tonotopic mapping in IC by fMRI was here demonstrated successfully for the first time in animals or humans.
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