Abstract: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed on a low magnetic field strength (0.35 T) MRI system using a protondensity weighted turbo spin-echo (TSE) imaging sequence. Healthy human volunteers performed a finger taping task, and the brain activations during the task were monitored. The results demonstrated that task-induced signal intensity changes in the motor area of the brain can be detected at 0.35 T with the contrast mechanism of signal enhancement by extravascular water protons (SEEP). It was also shown that the fMRI experiments at low field strength could be further improved by optimizing TSE parameters during data acquisition and adding a mask image during data processing.

Key words: MRI, fMRI, SEEP, Low field MRI