High Temporospatial-Resolution fMRI in a Focused Brain Volume with (k, t)-Space Undersampling and Temporal Priors

Motivation: Three-dimension reduced field-of-view imaging with (k, t)-space undersampling (k-t 3D-rFOVI) can be used for high temporospatial-resolution fMRI acquisition in a focused brain volume. Goal(s): This study aims at developing an image reconstruction method for k-t 3D-rFOVI to improve the fMRI data quality. Approach: Timing information about stimulation tasks was integrated into image reconstruction of k-t 3D-rFOVI. Simulation and human fMRI experiments with a 6-fold acceleration factor were conducted to demonstrate the performance of the reconstruction method. Results: The proposed reconstruction method substantially increased the sensitivity of k-t 3D-rFOVI in detecting fMRI activations and the accuracy in recovering the time course of fMRI signals. Impact: By incorporating stimulus timing information into image reconstruction, high-quality fMRI data can be obtained using k-t 3D-rFOVI with high temporal (480 ms) and spatial (1.5 mm) resolutions over a reduced field-of-view.