Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

The fMRI program at the Yale MRRC has three themes, all aimed at increasing the utility and interpretability of fMRI as a reliable tool in experimental neuroscience for quantitative studies of brain structure and function. Although the main emphasis of the program is towards development of NMR methods, other methods (e.g. electrophysiological and optical) are being cultivated as well.

1. A major focus of the program is quantitative characterization of biophysical and neurophysiologic events that contribute to the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI contrast. The focus here is to use multi-modal approaches (e.g. electrophysiological and optical techniques along with NMR methods) in rodent brain to probe the variety of events over a range of spatial and temporal scales to fully characterize the stimulation-induced dynamics of the fMRI signal.

2. A longstanding strength of the fMRI program has been development of animal models for fMRI studies at high magnetic field. Three sensory models have been developed for neurophysiologic studies of the rodent brain (i.e. forepaw, whisker, olfaction) and the current interest is to extend the BOLD spatial resolution to study neuronal architecture in mouse brain.

3. A direct necessity for quantitative characterization of the BOLD signal is to appropriately model oxygen transport from blood to brain. Since the fMRI community has prematurely embraced untested models which do not support trends observed in vivo, a major focus here is to obtain multi-modal data (over a range of spatial and temporal scales) so as to provide reliable inputs for a range of steady-state and dynamic models of oxygen transport.

Researchers :
Fahmeed Hyder
Ikuhiro Kida
Fuqiang Xu
James Schafer
Robert G. Shulman
Paul Maciejewski
Arien Smith
Natasja Maandag
Hubert Trubel
Peter Herman
Hal Blumenfeld