PETALUTE fMRI in the mouse brain

Motivation: GRE-BOLD fMRI suffers from artifacts and poor spatial localization of signal. PETALUTE combines ultra short TE contrast and flexible rosette k-space sampling could address these issues. Goal(s): To evaluate PETALUTE-fMRI contrast in animals in a Bruker 9.4T preclinical scanner. Approach: A visual stimulation paradigm was used to obtain fMRI t-maps and time courses from petalUTE image volumes. Data were retrospectively reconstructed with variable undersampling factors to evaluate potential for undersampling. Results: Robust visual stimulation evoked fMRI contrast was observed using PETALUTE in both the first and second echo images. Contrast was present with retrospective reconstruction of 333, 111 and 37 petals. Impact: We demonstrate robust fMRI contrast using an ultra short TE sequence with rosette spatial encoding (PETALUTE).