• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.136-141
• /
• 2012

Purpose : To investigate the pharmacologic modulation of motor task-dependent physiologic responses by antiplatelet agent, clopidogrel, during hand motor tasks in healthy subjects. Materials and Methods: Ten healthy, right-handed subjects underwent three functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) sessions: one before drug administration, one after high dose drug administration and one after reaching drug steady state. For the motor task fMRI, finger flexion-extension movements were performed. Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast was collected for each subject using a 3.0 T VHi (GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, USA) scanner. $T2^*$-weighted echo planar imaging was used for fMRI acquisition. The fMRI data processing and statistical analyses were carried out using SPM2. Results: Second-level analysis revealed significant increases in the extent of activation in the contralateral motor cortex including primary motor area (M1) after drug administration. The number of activated voxels in motor cortex was 173 without drug administration and the number increased to 1049 for high dose condition and 673 for steady-state condition respectively. However, there was no significant difference in the magnitude of BOLD signal change in terms of peak T value. Conclusion: The current results suggest that cerebral motor activity can be modulated by clopidogrel in healthy subjects and that fMRI is highly senstive to evidence such changes.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.114-118
• /
• 1997

Purpose: Functional MR imaging is the method of demonstrating changes in regional cerebral blood flow produced by sensory, motor, and any other tasks. Functional MR of visual cortex is performed as a patient stares a photic stimulation, so adaptable photic stimulation is necessary. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the size of photic stimulator can affect the degree of visual cortex activation. Materials and Methods: Functional MR imaging was performed in 5 volunteers with normal visual acuity. Photic stimulator was made by 39 light-emitting diodes on a plate, operating at 8Hz. The sizes of photic stimulator were full field, half field and focal central field. The MR imager was Siemens 1.5-T Magnetom Vision system, using standard head coil. Functional MRI utilized EPI sequence (TR/TE= 1.0/51. Omsec, matrix $No.=98{\times}128$, slice thickness=8mm) with 3sets of 6 imaging during stimulation and 6 imaging during rest, all 36 scannings were obtained. Activation images were obtained using postprocessing software(statistical analysis by Z-score), and these images were combined with T-1 weighted anatomical images. The activated signals were quantified by numbering the activated pixels, and activation a index was obtained by dividing the pixel number of each stimulator size with the sum of the pixel number of 3 study using 3 kinds of stimulators. The correlation between the activation index and the stimulator size was analysed. Results: Mean increase of signal intensities on the activation area using full field photic stimulator was about 9.6%. The activation index was greatest on full field, second on half field and smallest on focal central field in 4. The index of half field was greater than that of full field in 1. The ranges of activation index were full field 43-73%(mean 55%), half field 22-40 %(mean 32%), and focal central field 5-24%(mean 13%). Conclusion: The degree of visual cortex activation increases with the size of photic stimulator.