Method for determining the reliability of fMRI parameters
AssigneeMCW Research Foundation, Inc.
InventorsBharat B. Biswal, Paul A. Taylor, John L. Ulmer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An EPI pulse sequence is performed by an MRI system which acquires images of the brain over a time interval during which the subject performs a function or is stimulated in a pattern. An fMRI parameter is calculated for each voxel which indicates those regions of the brain that are active during the study. The same acquired NMR data is employed in a jackknife method for recalculating the fMRI parameter many times and from the distribution of the recalculated values a confidence level indicator is produced. Low confidence level indicators are used to exclude regions which are otherwise indicated as active.
Claims5
A method for producing a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) of a subject's brain using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the steps comprising:
- a) operating the MRI system to perform a series of pulse sequences that acquire a series of NMR k-space data arrays over a period of time, during which the subject's brain is caused to function in a preselected temporal pattern;
- b) producing a time course MRI image data set of time domain voxel vectors from the series of k-space arrays, in which each time domain voxel vector is a set of data which indicates the NMR signal during said period of time from a region of the brain;
- c) calculating an fMRI parameter from data in each time domain voxel vector;
- d) calculating a confidence level indicator for each voxel vector using a technique in which the fMRI parameter is recalculated a plurality of times with different truncated subsets of data in the voxel vector;
- e) producing the fMRI image using the calculated fMRI parameters and their corresponding confidence level indicators.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.