Purpose: The positive BOLD response can vary across brain regions. Here, the positive BOLD responses of motor regions, including the cerebellum, were investigated by fast fMRI acquisition.
Methods: The participants were asked to perform an event-related finger-tapping task in a 7T MRI scanner during a fast 3D-EPI controlled aliasing in parallel imaging acquisition protocol (CAIPI; TR = 399 ms). The positive BOLD responses of 6 motor regions were extracted and their timings and shapes measured.
Results: Compared with other brain regions, the positive BOLD responses in the cerebellum and secondary somatosensory cortex showed delayed onsets, but no differences were observed for the time to-peak. Additionally, variations of the undershoot and main peak amplitudes were also observed, and undershoot was quasi-absent in the cerebellum.
Conclusion: This study confirms that care should be taken when drawing conclusions about neuronal activity from the BOLD signal, particularly for the cerebellum.
Keywords: BOLD response; cerebellum; fMRI; fast acquisition; hemodynamic response function; motor cortices.
© 2018 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.