Evaluation of Multi-Band EPI in Resting State and Task fMRI Studies

Wanyong Shin¹, Erik B. Beall¹, Mark J. Lowe¹

To accelerate 2D EPI, various methods have been proposed. One such promising method, simultaneous excitation of multiple slices using multi-band (MB) radio-frequency (RF) excitation, has caught the attention of many researchers because the number of excited slice simultaneously, (the MB factor), accelerates the acquisitions possible temporal resolution by the MB factor. While the MB technique is expected to be beneficial for resting state and task fMRI studies, it has not be thoroughly evaluated yet. We hypothesize that the kernel size choice will produce non-negligible effect on MB-accelerated EPI image reconstruction, altering the result of rs-fMRI and task-fMRI. In this study, we evaluate rs-fMRI and fMRI analysis, and investigate the kernel size sensitivity of MB reconstruction in the simulation. Finally, we demonstrate rs-fMRI and fMRI analysis using MB EPI scans.