In order to study the Basal Ganglia in relation to cortical areas, the used fMRI protocol has to be carefully adjusted with respect to its region of interest and the necessary signal under-sampling. We performed a study at a field strength of 7 Tesla investigating the dependence of the detected signal on the MR parameters employed.
Columnar structures in the human visual cortex are studied using high-resolution fMRI methods in order to localize the actual source of neural processing more precisely.
We used high-resolution fMRI and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to explore how attentional modulation of working memory affects laminar specific representations in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).
DeepcomplexMRI deep learnig reconstruction has been modified to process multi-echo MRI images. First results for different undersampling strategies suggest that performance is comparable to modern iterative algorithms like ENLIVE while taking only about 5 minutes to reconstruct a full 3D 1mm³/voxel resolved head image stack.
We performed laminar fMRI during a delayed match-to-sample task and varied working memory load and the requirement for a motor response. We found layer specific univariate and multivariate effects.
A recent fMRI study showed layer-specific responses in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during a working memory task. We attempted to replicate the original findings using newly acquired data and a fully automated analysis.
We work on improving reliability of quantitative parametric maps by correcting for rigid head motion and B0-fluctuations measured during acquisition at 7T as well as by employing general function approximators to correct for artifacts of unknown origin at 3T.
In this project, we studied cortical myelin in living humans at the spatial scale of cortical columns using high-resolution quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods at 7 T.
We linked the effective transverse relaxation rate R2* with dopaminergic cell densities and iron concentrations in nigrosome 1 by combining 3D quantitative iron histology, post mortem ultra-high resolution MRI, tissue deironing, and analytical modeling approaches.
We investigate the relationship between quantitative MRI (qMRI) at different cortical depths and cell counts, gene expression and white matter connections in the brain in order to provide novel biomarkers for tracking neurodegenerative diseases.