multiband acquisition sequence testing: timecourses 2

In a previous post I showed timecourses from the same person, doing the HCP MOTOR task, collected with a multiband 4 and a multiband 8 sequence (see previous posts for details). We ran another test person ("999010") through the same task, with the same two sequences (but not the MB0 control).

This plot shows the average activation (post-preprocessing) in the same SMmouthL Gordon parcel as before, but with the respiration recording as background (light blue), instead of the motion regressors. As before, since this is a mouth parcel, the activation should be strongest to the green "tongue" movement blocks. The respiration recording, events, and average activation are temporally aligned to the actual TR (x-axis), not shifted to account for the hemodynamic delay.

It is clear in both the MB8 and MB4 recordings that task activation is present, but it is perhaps a bit clearer with MB4. The little "jiggles" in the timecourse are present in all four runs, and look to be related to respiration, though not perfectly aligned with respiration. We're switching our ongoing MB8 imaging study to MB4 in the hopes of improving signal-to-noise, but respiration-related effects still look to be prominent in the MB4 BOLD, so dealing with them is an ongoing project.