I Brain activation during executed (EM) and imagined movements (IM) of the right and left hand was studied in 10 healthy right-handed subjects using functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI). Low electromyographic (EMG) activity of the musculi ºexor digitorum superªcialis and high vividness of the imagined movements were trained prior to image acquisition. Regional cerebral activation was measured by fMRI during EM and IM and compared to resting conditions. Anatomically selected regions of interest (ROIs) were marked interactively over the entire brain. In each ROI activated pixels above a t value of 2.45 (p < 0.01) were counted and analyzed. In all subjects the supplementary motor area (SMA), the premotor cortex (PMC), and the primary motor cortex (M1) showed signiªcant activation during both EM and IM; the somatosensory cortex (S1) was signiªcantly activated only during EM. Ipsilateral cerebellar activation was decreased during IM compared to EM. In the cerebellum, IM and EM differed in their foci of maximal activation: Highest ipsilateral activation of the cerebellum was observed in the anterior lobe (Larsell lobule H IV) during EM, whereas a lower maximum was found about 2-cm dorsolateral (Larsell lobule H VII) during IM. The prefrontal and parietal regions revealed no signiªcant changes during both conditions. The results of cortical activity support the hypothesis that motor imagery and motor performance possess similar neural substrates. The differential activation in the cerebellum during EM and IM is in accordance with the assumption that the posterior cerebellum is involved in the inhibition of movement execution during imagination. I

Spatially localized methods in spectroscopy often operate with magnetic field gradients for volume selection. The eddy currents induced by these gradients produce time-dependent shifts of the resonance frequency in the selected volume, which results in a distortion of the spectrum after Fourier transformation. In whole-body systems the complete compensation of eddy currents is a difficult procedure. To avoid this, a correction method is proposed for proton spectroscopy, which uses the signal of prominent water protons as a reference for the water-suppressed signal. The correction is performed in the time domain, dividing the water-suppressed signal by the phase factor of the water signal for each data point. The corrected spectra have a good resolution as shown by phantom measurements and brain and muscle spectra of volunteers.

No abstract

In proton MR spectroscopy (MRS) of the brain, the application of long echo times (TEs) (for example, 135 ms) allows an easy spectral quantitation of the few visible major metabolites. In short-TE spectra, several additional metabolites are visible that may provide useful information. Their spectral evaluation, however, is complicated by the complex spectral pattern of the metabolites and the severe overlap of resonances. The use of prior knowledge can greatly facilitate the evaluation of short-TE brain spectra. Some advanced fitting procedures include prior knowledge of the spectral pattern of single metabolites for the evaluation of in vivo spectra. This prior knowledge can be obtained from simulations of model spectra (1), or by measurement of model spectra from aqueous solutions, whereas the obtained model spectra can be either parameterized (2-4) or directly used as prior knowledge (5).Besides the metabolites, broad resonances from macromolecules contribute to short-TE brain spectra. These resonances have shorter T 1 relaxation times than metabolites, and therefore can be separated by the use of a preceding inversion pulse for metabolite suppression (6,7), as shown in Fig.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to determine the activation of the amygdala while seven social phobics and five healthy controls were exposed to slides of neutral faces as well as aversive odor stimuli. The amygdala was selectively activated in the social phobics during presentation of the face stimuli. The data show for the first time that the amygdala is active in human phobics when they are exposed to potentially fear-relevant stimuli. Further research is needed to determine the extent to which overactivation of the amygdala precedes or is a consequence of phobia.