Application of double voxel functional spectroscopy to event-related cognitive experiments

The hemodynamic response to functional activation can be regarded as the convolution of the neuronal response with an unknown kernel. As such, it introduces an intrinsic blurring that limits the attainable temporal resolution of functional magnetic resonance (fMR) techniques. This study demonstrates that by measurement of displacements in activation onsets between different types of trial, it is nevertheless possible to obtain a subsecond temporal accuracy in fMR. A single trial stimulation paradigm was adopted: a simple search task embedded in a longer period of visual flicker stimulation that produced reliable activations in the primary visual cortex and supplementary motor area. Data were acquired from both of these regions using double voxel functional spectroscopy.