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

磁共振成像(MRI)是一项强大的技术，为研究大脑提供了前所未有的机会。特别是，功能磁共振成像(FMRI)主要基于血氧水平的变化(血氧水平依赖(BOLD))，使测量大脑活动的相关性成为可能，并自那以来在医学和法医学的广泛领域得到了应用。最近，人们发现BOLD fMRI信号的自发波动可以用来衡量大脑区域之间的同步性(或连通性)。这项被称为功能连接(FcMRI)的技术在研究健康和疾病中的大脑方面显示出巨大的潜力。然而，尽管fcMRI被广泛认为反映了神经元的过程，但BOLD信号波动背后的实际机制仍然不完全清楚，这留下了误解fcMRI测量的巨大可能性。

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.