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Zusammenfassung:
Despite intense research on the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal underlying fMRI, our understanding of its physiological basis is far from complete. In this study, it was investigated whether the so-called post-stimulus BOLD signal undershoot is solely a passive vascular effect or actively induced by neural responses. Prolonged static and flickering black-white checkerboard stimulation with isoluminant grey screen as baseline condition were employed on eight human subjects. Within the same region of interest, the positive BOLD time courses for static and flickering stimuli were identical over the entire stimulus duration. In contrast, the static stimuli exhibited no post-stimulus BOLD signal undershoot whereas the flickering stimuli caused a strong BOLD post-stimulus undershoot. To ease the interpretation, we performed an additional study measuring both BOLD signal and cerebral blood flow (CBF) using arterial spin labeling (ASL). Also for CBF a difference in the post-stimulus period was found f
or the two stimuli. Thus, a passive blood volume effect as the only contributor to the post-stimulus undershoot comes short in explaining the BOLD post-stimulus undershoot phenomenon for this particular experiment. Rather, an additional active neuronal activation or deactivation can strongly modulate the BOLD post-stimulus behavior. In summary, the post-stimulus time course of BOLD signal could potentially be used to differentiate neuronal activity patterns that are otherwise indistinguishable using the positive evoked response.
