Ultra-Slow Single-Vessel BOLD and CBV-Based fMRI Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Their Correlation with Neuronal Intracellular Calcium Signals.

Neuron. 2018 Jan 26;:

Authors: He Y, Wang M, Chen X, Pohmann R, Polimeni JR, Scheffler K, Rosen BR, Kleinfeld D, Yu X

Abstract
Functional MRI has been used to map brain activity and functional connectivity based on the strength and temporal coherence of neurovascular-coupled hemodynamic signals. Here, single-vessel fMRI reveals vessel-specific correlation patterns in both rodents and humans. In anesthetized rats, fluctuations in the vessel-specific fMRI signal are correlated with the intracellular calcium signal measured in neighboring neurons. Further, the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal from individual venules and the cerebral-blood-volume signal from individual arterioles show correlations at ultra-slow (<0.1 Hz), anesthetic-modulated rhythms. These data support a model that links neuronal activity to intrinsic oscillations in the cerebral vasculature, with a spatial correlation length of ∼2 mm for arterioles. In complementary data from awake human subjects, the BOLD signal is spatially correlated among sulcus veins and specified intracortical veins of the visual cortex at similar ultra-slow rhythms. These data support the use of fMRI to resolve functional connectivity at the level of single vessels.

PMID: 29398359 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]