Fingerprints of Neuronal Activation

A major line of our research is a more specific understanding of the measured MR signal during brain activation, the variability of this contrast across different cortical and subcortical regions, its dependence on the underlying structure and shape of the microvasculature, and the correlation of this contrast to neuronal activation as a function of spatial and temporal resolution. An important step towards a better understanding of MR signal formation in neuronal tissue will be achieved with multimodal integrated micro devices composed of MR detectors, optical and electrical detectors with a size of only a few hundreds of micrometers. Along these lines, we also try to assess the spatial limit of BOLD fMRI at ultra-high fields, and whether it is possible at all, to reliably detect subunits of the primary cortex such as layers or columns.
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