SE FMRI in Human Bilateral Auditory Cortex Using B1 Shimming

Federico De Martino¹, ², Sebastian Schmitter¹, Kamil Ugurbil¹, Elia Formisano², Essa Yacoub¹, Pierre-Francois van de Moortele¹

We aim at using SE-fMRI to push further the investigation of functional organization in the human auditory cortex. To do so we investigate the use of an RF coil that includes 8 Transceivers (8TCx), allowing for the use of B1 shimming over right and left auditory cortices, as well as 24 Receive only channels (24Rx), providing higher SNR. We demonstrate successful SE-fMRI in bilateral auditory cortex at 7T highlighting significant differences between responses to voice vs. non-voice stimuli in anterior areas of the superior temporal sulcus and gyrus.