A non-fiber optical set up for the measurement of patient response time in functional magnetic resonance imaging

Functional imaging is imaging which relates body function or mental activity to specific locations in the brain. It has become a powerful instrument to study local neuronal activity involved in motor, sensory and/or cognitive tasks. Extension of this technique to the spinal cord shows great promise for research and clinical applications. The current knowledge of neuroanatomy is mainly based upon invasive anatomical and pathological research. fMRI is a promising technique to demonstrate neuronal activity as it is performed in a noninvasive way. Thus the technique may have important clinical uses.The main advantages to fMRI as a technique to image brain activity related to a specific task or sensory process include 1) the signal does not require injections of radioactive isotopes, 2) the total scan time required can be very short, i.e., on the order of 1.5 to 2.0 min per run (depending on the paradigm).Although most fMRI examinations in routine practice employ simple patient response methods such as finger tapping, in modified fMRI examinations where the correspondence between performance and brain activation is studied, some additional instrumentation, like ?patient response switch (PRS), interface and recorder? is required. PRS based instrumentation makes patient reaction times to be measured. A Fiber Optic Button Response System (FO-PRS) mainly consists of fMRI Button Response unit (e.g., Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh, PA) with MR Projection System. The Fiber Optic Button Response System is an fMRI ready subject response collection system which has been engineered to gather subject responses and verify signals.The Fiber Optic Button Response Units attach to the subject's wrists and can be adjusted during scanning. These units are completely fiber optic and connect to a fiber Optic Interface Console located in the control room through an available wave guide. The interface console provides real-time feedback of subject responses via LED indicators and includes a set of switches which can be used to make responses for the subject as needed. The system provides TTL output signals that can be used to interface with other data collection devices and software. The interface console comes with a RF Pulse that the computer interprets as another button press, allowing the user to synchronize their experiments with the MR scanner.Such a commercially available standard unit comes with some (14-meter long) cables, and provides serial port and USB connection to the data collection computer. However, an additional waveguide is required between the patient room and the operating room. On the other hand, existing wave-guide channel may not be employed, since it may already be crowded with the earlier installed cables or the length of the supplied cables can be too short to provide the required connection. These difficulties prevent the practical use of such a technique, or require hiring of expensive skilled labor for extra cable installation, isolation and RF shielding.At present optical means of fMRI instrumentation is preferred, because, there exist intensive electromagnetic signals generated by gradient and RF coils (during an fMRI examination, in particular). In addition, there is a strong constant magnetic field (as high as 3 Tesla) within the patient room, and optical signal processing may seem to be reasonable to avoid distortions in such an environment.In this study, we show that relatively expensive fiber optical unit and fiber optical interface can be replaced by simple electronics without any disturbance to stimulus measuring unit as well as to the MRI. The cost of the measuring and interface unit whose performance has been reported in this work is very low as compared to commercially available equipment.