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Simultaneous fMRI and Electrophysiology in the Rodent Brain
Published on: August 19, 2010
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Simultaneous cortex-wide fluorescence Ca2+ imaging and whole-brain fMRI
Evelyn M R Lake1, Xinxin Ge2, Xilin Shen3
1Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA. evelyn.lake@yale.edu.
Nature Methods
|November 3, 2020
Summary
This study introduces a novel method combining optical and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for simultaneous brain activity measurement. The findings demonstrate that calcium signals accurately predict blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals in mice.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Biomedical Engineering
- Optical Imaging
Background:
- Understanding brain function necessitates integrating multiple imaging techniques with complementary strengths.
- Current methods often provide limited scope or require separate acquisitions, hindering comprehensive analysis.
- Bridging the gap between cellular activity and systemic hemodynamic responses remains a key challenge.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a novel approach for concurrent widefield optical and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
- To simultaneously acquire whole-brain blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) and whole-cortex calcium-sensitive fluorescent measures of neural activity.
- To establish the predictive relationship between optical calcium signals and BOLD signals across the murine cortex.
Main Methods:
- Implementation of a multimodal imaging system integrating widefield optical imaging with fMRI.
- Utilizing a transgenic murine model expressing calcium-sensitive fluorescent indicators.
- Development of a predictive model, optimizing a gamma-variant transfer function, to link calcium activity to BOLD signals.
- Analysis of regional variations in the relationship between optical and BOLD connectivity.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated that calcium signals reliably predict the BOLD signal in a murine model.
- Identified consistent predictive relationships across the cortex, particularly at low frequencies (0.009-0.08 Hz).
- Revealed that the correlation between optical and BOLD connectivity strengths varies significantly by brain region.
Conclusions:
- The developed multimodal imaging approach successfully links cell-type-specific optical activity measurements to BOLD signals.
- This technique offers a powerful tool for investigating the relationship between neural activity and hemodynamic responses.
- The findings provide a foundation for applying this integrated approach to better understand human brain function using established fMRI methods.
