http://www.nitrc.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=8063 <table border="0" width="100%"><tr><td align="left"/><td align="right"><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&amp;cmd=Link&amp;LinkName=pubmed_pubmed&amp;from_uid=29208571">Related Articles</a></td></tr></table> <p><b>Using multi-echo simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) EPI to improve functional MRI of the subcortical nuclei of the basal ganglia at ultra-high field (7T).</b></p> <p>Neuroimage. 2017 Dec 02;:</p> <p>Authors: Puckett AM, Bollmann S, Poser BA, Palmer J, Barth M, Cunnington R</p> <p>Abstract<br/> The nuclei of the basal ganglia pose a special problem for functional MRI, especially at ultra-high field, because T2* variations between different regions result in suboptimal BOLD sensitivity when using gradient-echo echo-planar imaging (EPI). Specifically, the iron-rich lentiform nucleus of the basal ganglia, including the putamen and globus pallidus, suffers from substantial signal loss when imaging is performed using conventional single-echo EPI with echo times (TE) optimized for the cortex. Multi-echo EPI acquires several echoes at different echo times for every imaging slice, allowing images to be reconstructed with a weighting of echo times that is optimized individually for each voxel according to the underlying tissue or T2* properties. Here we show that multi-echo simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) EPI can improve functional activation of iron-rich subcortical regions while maintaining sensitivity within cortical areas. Functional imaging during a motor task known to elicit strong activations in the cortex and the subcortex (basal ganglia) was performed to compare the performance of multi-echo SMS EPI to single-echo SMS EPI. Notably within both the caudate nucleus and putamen of the basal ganglia, multi-echo SMS EPI yielded higher tSNR (an average 84% increase) and CNR (an average 58% increase), an approximate 3-fold increase in supra-threshold voxels, and higher t-values (an average 39% increase). The degree of improvement in the group level t-statistics was negatively correlated to the underlying T2* of the voxels, such that the shorter the T2*, as in the iron-rich nuclei of the basal ganglia, the higher the improvement of t-values in the activated region.<br/> </p><p>PMID: 29208571 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]</p> en-us Copyright 2000-2026 NITRC OSI Sat, 02 May 2026 13:37:57 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss NITRC RSS generator