Investigating the Neuronal and Vascular Contributions to the Spontaneous BOLD fMRI Signal Fluctuations Underlying Functional Connectivity

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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful technology offering unprecedented opportunities for studying the brain. In particular, functional MRI (fMRI), largely based on changes in blood oxygenation (blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD)), has enabled the measurement of correlates of brain activity, and has since found applications in a wide range of areas spanning medicine and forensics. Recently, it was found that spontaneous fluctuations in the BOLD fMRI signal could be used to measure the synchrony (or connectivity) between brain regions. This technique, termed functional connectivity (fcMRI), has shown tremendous potential for studying the brain in health and disease. However, although fcMRI is widely assumed to reflect neuronal processes, the actual mechanisms underlying the BOLD signal fluctuations remain incompletely understood, leaving great potential for misinterpretation of fcMRI measurements.