fMRI with whole-brain coverage, 75-ms temporal resolution and high SNR by combining HiHi reshuffling and multiband imaging

Increasing the temporal resolution of the blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response is usually accompanied by a decrease in repetition time and therefore also a reduction of the magnetic resonance (MR) signal due to incomplete T1 relaxation and thus a loss of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). A previous data reordering method can achieve higher temporal sampling rate without the loss of SNR but at the cost of increased scan time. In this proof-of-principle work, we show that combining HiHi reshuffling with multiband acceleration allows us to measure the in vivo BOLD response with a 75-ms sampling rate that is decoupled from the acquisition repetition time (here 1.5 s and hence higher SNR) while covering the entire forebrain with 60 2-mm slices in a similar to 35-min scan. We provide single-voxel time-courses of the BOLD responses in the primary visual and primary motor cortices in three fMRI experiments on a 7 T scanner - 1 male (scanned twice on different days for test-retest reproducibility) and 1 female participant.

Automated summary

By combining HiHi reshuffling with multiband acceleration, we can measure the in vivo BOLD response at a 75-ms sampling rate, decoupled from the acquisition repetition time (1.5 s) and with higher signal-to-noise ratio. This enables coverage of the entire forebrain with 60 2-mm slices in approximately 35 minutes.