Resting-state functional connectivity within the lumbar spinal cord

Motivation: Despite the increasing number of resting-state spinal cord fMRI studies, variations in image acquisition and processing methods have hindered the comparability of findings. Goal(s): This study aimed to investigate the effects of sequences parameters and denoising strategies on resting-state fMRI in the lumbar cord. Approach: We conducted resting-state BOLD fMRI in the lumbar cord of 12 healthy participants, computing correlations within the gray and white matter voxel time series. Results: Our findings revealed connectivity between the bilateral dorsal and bilateral ventral gray matter horns. We recommend a minimum echo time of 28 ms. The denoising pipeline efficiently removed respiratory-induced fluctuations. Impact: The lumbar cord exhibits intrinsic BOLD signal fluctuations that correlate between the bilateral dorsal and bilateral ventral gray matter horns. Acquisition and denoising parameters influence the observed correlations. Research is warranted to understand the neurobiological basis underlying the observed connectivity.