Patent ID: 6370416
Filing Date: 2002-04-09
Classification: G01R,Y10S

Abstract:
A method for functional MRI (fMRI) signal analysis of an area of the brain comprising:a) invoking neuronal activity in an area of the brain of a subject; b) acquiring sequential magnetic resonance images, at least during a portion of time in which said are of the brain of a subject is activated, of said area and of at least a portion of the brain in a vicinity of the area; c) constructing, responsive to at least one pixel-related parameter value of said images, a pixel parameter space; and d) applying non-linear filtering to said pixel parameter space, wherein said nonlinear filtering separates said pixel parameter space into at least two subspaces, comprising a signal subspace and a noise subspace, the method further comprising deriving a plurality of detection functions from image portions of a region of the brain in the vicinity of the area in said sequential images; and synchronously detecting temporal variations in said area, over a sequence of images, using synchronous detection.