Functional phantom for fMRI: a feasibility study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reveals changes in blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal after considerable processing. This paper describes the implementation and testing of an fMRI phantom where electric current applied to a thin wire within a proton-rich medium substituted BOLD distortion of the magnetic field; the scanner detects these two distortions as practically identical signal changes. The magnitude of the change depended on the current strength. The phantom has a number of possible applications. Signal changes across sessions, days, instruments and individuals could be monitored. Placing the phantom close to a subject during an fMRI experiment could allow differentiating sensitivity changes in the scanner due to instrumentation from changes in the subject's state and performance during the experiment. The spatial extent of brain activations and effects of various changes in the chain of image formation could be analyzed using current-induced "activations". Furthermore, the phantom could expedite fMRI sequence development by reducing the need to scan human subjects, who introduce uncertainty to the signal. Thus, this fMRI phantom could be useful for both cognitive fMRI studies and scanner calibration.