Sensory evoked fMRI paradigms in awake mice

Mouse fMRI has become increasingly popular in the small animal imaging field. However, compared to the more commonly used rat fMRI, it is challenging for mouse fMRI to obtain robust and specific functional imaging results. In the meantime, in other neuroscience modalities such as optical imaging, functional recording in the awake mice is common and becoming standard. Therefore, in the current study we developed comprehensive setups and analysis pipeline for multi-sensory fMRI paradigms in the awake mice. Customized setups of somatosensory (whisker), auditory and olfactory stimulation were developed for use in the cryogenic coil in the awake mouse fMRI setting. After carefully evaluating head motion and motion artefacts, the nuisance regression approach was optimized for reducing the confounding effect of motion. The high temporal resolution data (TR = 0.35 s) revealed fast temporal dynamics (time-to-peak ~2 s) of evoked BOLD responses in most brain regions. Using the derived awake mouse specific hemodynamic response functions, high spatial resolution data revealed robust, specific and consistent cortical and subcortical activations in response to somatosensory, auditory and olfactory stimulations, respectively. Overall, we present comprehensive methods for acquiring and analyzing sensory evoked awake mouse fMRI data. The establishment of multi-sensory paradigms in awake mouse fMRI provides valuable tools for examining spatiotemporal characteristics and neural mechanisms of BOLD signals in the future.