Semi-Fast Functional MR

Lead: Jay Rueckl Status: Developing Analyses

 

We have acquired a small amount of pilot data using "Semi-Fast" functional MRI acquisitions. The movie above shows real-time BOLD data from a single subject sampled at .1 Hz - every 100 milliseconds. It is commonly assumed that at these time scales, changes in the BOLD signal reflect scanner noise and physiological processes, as opposed to cognitive processes. Here, the cardiac cycle is easily visible in the movie; and cardiac and respiratory frequencies are apparent in the frequency spectra. However, dynamic systems analysis techniques such as fractal and multifractal analysis may reveal high-frequency characteristics that inform us about the structure of the linguistic processing system.