A self assembled real time fMRI system

Real time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI) allows capturing and analyzing the image of brain activity instantly by measuring the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal. Based on rtfMRI, it could provide on-line feedback of human subjects to learn self-regulation of physiological processes, which had shown significant and potential applications in many conducted researches. With the recent advances in computational power and algorithms, constructing rtfMRI system with high efficiency was available which had not been limited by time-consuming data analysis. In this study, we developed the rtfMRI system utilizing custom-made computer and integrated commercial on-line analysis software: Turbo-BrainVoyager as the critical part of the software system. We chose motor imagery task with real time feedback by instructing subjects to regulate his BOLD activity of supplement motor area (SMA) as confirmatory experiment. This online feedback results and the post processed activation results showed that the subject had a good ability of self-control of SMA. It demonstrated that the rtfMRI system could operate effectively.