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Abstract #3272

Simultaneous fMRI-DTI Using the Navigated Diffusion Sequence

A. Alhamud1, F. Robertson1, D. Donaldson1, Andr J. W. van der Kouwe2, Ernesta M. Meintjes1

1Human Biology, MRC/UCT Medical Imaging Research Unit, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa; 2Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States


Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a promising technique to map white matter tracts, while fMRI is a technique to measure brain activity. Recent studies have combined data from separate fMRI and DTI acquisitions to improve accuracy of seed regions for fiber tracking. It remains unclear whether brain activation during DTI acquisition itself may affect DTI data. The present study exploits the navigated diffusion sequence, which has recently been introduced for real time motion correction, to perform simultaneous fMRI-DTI by using the navigators in the navigated diffusion sequence to acquire BOLD data.