Multiecho Cardiac-Gated fMRI Enhances Activation Detection in Simultaneous Brain-Spinal Cord Imaging

Motivation: Spinal cord fMRI is crucial for understanding brain-spinal cord connectivity in pain and motor processing but suffers from low signal-to-noise ratio and motion artifacts. Improved methods are needed to accurately detect spinal cord activation. Goal(s): This study investigates whether multiecho cardiac-gated fMRI improves activation detection compared to single-echo in simultaneous brain-spinal cord imaging. Approach: Using multiecho and single-echo cardiac-gated fMRI on healthy volunteers, we compared BOLD activation sensitivity in brain and spinal cord regions. Results: Multiecho cardiac-gating showed superior activation detection across regions, with higher sensitivity and effective reduction of physiological noise in the spinal cord. Impact: This study demonstrates that multiecho cardiac-gated fMRI enhances spinal cord activation detection, enabling more precise brain-spinal cord connectivity mapping. This advancement could refine clinical assessments of pain and motor disorders, driving further exploration of physiological noise reduction techniques in neuroimaging.