Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications

Using Arterial Spin Labelling to Investigate Spontaneous and Evoked Ongoing Musculoskeletal Pain

This study uses arterial spin labelling to investigate perfusion changes in patients with musculoskeletal pain during arm repositioning, finding increased perfusion in brain regions associated with pain processing.

A short, robust brain activation control task optimised for pharmacological fMRI studies

The paper introduces two short, reliable control tasks for pharmacological fMRI studies to minimize confounding effects and improve task reliability.

Trace-based correction of breathing-induced field fluctuations in T2*-weighted imaging of the spinal cord

This paper introduces a trace-based correction method to reduce breathing-induced ghosting artifacts in spinal cord T2*-weighted imaging, improving quantitative metrics and temporal signal-to-noise ratio.

Identification of negative BOLD responses using windkessel models

The paper identifies five mechanisms of negative BOLD responses and develops a windkessel model to detect, classify, and estimate these mechanisms from fMRI data.

Physiological and pathological brain activation in the anesthetized rat produces hemodynamic-dependent cortical temperature increases that can confound the BOLD fMRI signal.

The paper shows that temperature increases in anesthetized rat brains during activation can confound BOLD fMRI signals by being linked to hemoglobin changes.

Quantifying the effects of head movement on magnetic resonance spectroscopy estimates of gamma-aminobutyric acid

The paper quantifies how head movement affects GABA measurements in magnetic resonance spectroscopy and finds that movement parameters explain significant variance in GABA estimates.

Age differences in head motion and estimates of cortical morphology

The paper replicates prior findings on age-related differences in head motion and cortical morphology estimates using a large dataset, and tests the influence of head motion on fractal dimensionality and gyrification.

Motion and physiological noise effects on amygdala real-time fMRI neurofeedback learning

This study investigates how motion and physiological noise affect amygdala real-time fMRI neurofeedback learning and finds that these factors do not drive self-regulation learning.

Comparison of stimulus-evoked BOLD responses in human and monkey visual cortex

The paper compares BOLD responses in human and monkey visual cortex to single and spaced checkerboard stimuli, finding similar magnitude and shape, and linear summation at 4.5 sec ISI.

Diurnal changes in glutamate/glutamine levels of healthy young adults assessed by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy

This study uses 1H-MRS to show that glutamate + glutamine levels decrease overnight in healthy adults and correlate with sleep slow wave activity.

Prospective Motion correction improves the sensitivity of fMRI pattern decoding

This study shows that prospective motion correction improves multi-voxel pattern decoding in fMRI at higher resolutions.

Combining Multi-Site/Multi-Study MRI Data: Linked-ICA Denoising for Removing Scanner and Site Variability from Multimodal MRI Data

This paper introduces a denoising method for multi-site multimodal MRI data to remove scanner and site variability, improving statistical analysis and data integration.

Time efficient preparation methods for MRI brain scanning in awake young children and factors associated with success

The paper describes a time-efficient preparation method for MRI scans in young children and finds that cognitive abilities predict success better than mock scanner training.

Detecting and harmonizing scanner differences in the ABCD study - annual release 1.0

Scanner manufacturer, model and even the individual machine leave detectable signatures in ABCD resting-state and task fMRI results; ComBat harmonization is reported to remove them.

Simultaneous Estimation of Population Receptive Field and Hemodynamic Parameters from Single Point BOLD Responses using Metropolis-Hastings Sampling

This paper introduces a Bayesian approach using MCMC sampling to estimate population receptive fields and hemodynamic parameters from single-point BOLD responses, showing high performance and validity.

Controlling motion artefact levels in MR images by suspending data acquisition during periods of head motion

This paper presents a framework to suspend MRI data acquisition during predicted head motion to reduce artefacts, achieving improved data quality with minimal scan time increase.

The effect of acquisition resolution on orientation decoding from V1: comparison of 3T and 7T

This study compares decoding performance of visual orientation from 3T and 7T fMRI data, finding that 3T decoding is impaired but can be improved with additional voxel selection at 3mm resolution.

MRI2MRI: A deep convolutional network that accurately transforms between brain MRI contrasts

MRI2MRI transforms between brain MRI contrasts using a deep convolutional network, improving spatial registration across different imaging modalities.

BIC Defacing Algorithm

The paper develops a defacing algorithm for MRI data to anonymize faces while preserving data integrity for subsequent processing.

Cerebral blood flow predicts differential neurotransmitter activity

The paper investigates how cerebral blood flow changes in response to drugs targeting different neurotransmitter systems and finds a reliable spatial link between blood flow changes and receptor densities.

Systematic differences between visually-relevant global and local image statistics of brain MRI and natural scenes

The paper compares global and local image statistics between brain MRI images and natural scenes, finding significant differences that may affect human visual processing and machine analysis of MRI.

Impacts of Simultaneous Multislice Acquisition on Sensitivity and Specificity in fMRI

This study evaluates the impact of simultaneous multislice (SMS) acquisition on fMRI sensitivity and specificity, finding reduced slice leakage with split slice-GRAPPA and noise amplification with moderate acceleration factors.

Data-driven Assessment of Structural Image Quality

The paper develops an automated method to assess structural brain image quality using Euler number and validates its effectiveness in identifying low-quality images and its relationship with cortical thickness and age-related associations.

Intra-voxel incoherent motion magnetic resonance imaging of the living human fetus: the technique and within-subject reproducibility

This paper assesses the within-subject reproducibility of IVIM parameters in fetal organs and placenta using MRI, finding variable reliability across different tissues.

Harmonization of cortical thickness measurements across scanners and sites

ComBat, an empirical Bayes location-and-scale model from genomics, removes additive and multiplicative scanner effects from regional cortical thickness across 11 scanners while preserving age associations.

MRIQC Web-API: Crowdsourcing image quality metrics and expert quality ratings of structural and functional MRI

The paper introduces MRIQC Web-API, a resource for training automatic quality classifiers by crowdsourcing image quality metrics and expert ratings from MRI scans.

Image Processing and Quality Control for the first 10,000 Brain Imaging Datasets from UK Biobank

The paper describes an automated processing and quality control pipeline for brain imaging data from the first 10,000 UK Biobank participants.

MRIQC: Advancing the Automatic Prediction of Image Quality in MRI from Unseen Sites

MRIQC is a tool for predicting MRI image quality that generalizes across sites with 76% accuracy but struggles with site-specific artifacts.

A more accurate account of the effect of k-space sampling and signal decay on the effective spatial resolution in functional MRI

This paper shows that the magnitude PSF does not accurately represent the effects of k-space sampling and signal decay on spatial resolution in fMRI and proposes improved approximations.

Spatial specificity of the functional MRI blood oxygenation response relative to neuronal activity

The paper estimates the spatial specificity of BOLD fMRI responses using ocular dominance columns, finding PSF full-widths at half-maximum of 0.82 mm (SE) and 1.02 mm (GE).