Parallel real-time fMRI with two connected high-field scanners (3T, 7T)

Introduction Compared to typical fMRI experiments where data acquisition and data analysis are separated, real-time fMRI (rtfMRI) provides new and unique experimental setups. Most important is the feedback of the own activation to the volunteers which enables training of the tasks, and therefore developing and optimizing own strategies to increase the BOLD response [1, 2]. Another exciting setup is the real-time interaction with the presented environment, which may change depending on localization and strength of the activation. However, many real world actions involve communication between several partners (such as in economics), where highly non-linear interactions can usually not been foreseen, and therefore not be planed in advance in static environments. We therefore developed a new software-system that connects two (or more) MR scanners in real-time, feeds back the activation of both volunteers to each of them while additionally providing the capability to change virtual reality paradigms depending on the activation patterns of both volunteers. We tested the setup with a competition paradigm thereby connecting a 3T and a 7T scanner. This new setup will enable completely new applications involving mutually depending activation patterns and behaviour strategies. Compared to other approaches such as NEMO [3] our system integrates the control of the scanners as well as the presentation and data analysis, enabling to adapt the paradigm according to the activation patterns e.g. to increase attention or to modify a virtual reality environment.