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Abstract

The combination of fMRI with electrophysiology, histology, and
neurochemistry promises great insights into a level of neural organization
that could have never been studied with either technique alone. My
talk will focus on (a) spatially resolved fMRI and MRSI (spectroscopic
imaging); (b) the study of in vivo connectivity using fMRI and electrical
microstimulation, or manganese-enhanced MRI; (c) combined physiology
and MRI for examining the electrical activity occurring during increases and
decreases of BOLD activation, and (d) molecular imaging based on smart
agents. MRSI optimization enabled sufficiently high spectral dispersion and
spatiotemporal resolution to obtain isolated glutamate maps in the primate
brain. Ongoing research attempts the differentiation of brain structures in
the millimeter range and/or detection of small concentration differences in
the same structure (activated vs. non-activated cortex). Finally, I will report
our first attempt (a) to develop chelates for Gd and endow them with the
appropriate coordinating groups that reversibly block some of the Gd’s free
coordination sites with changes in pH or [Ca++].