Measurement of neuronal activity with combined multifunctional micro NMR probes and micro electrodes

Conventional fMRI experiments are based on the BOLD effect, a local neuronal activity induced change in blood oxygenation, which allows for the detection of neuronal stimulation through the corresponding local susceptibility changes. This change in local susceptibility is usually measured with T2* sensitive EPI sequences with a temporal resolution in the range of seconds and spatial resolutions of several microliters. The proposed research projects aims to overcome these limitations in spatial and temporal resolution with the goal of assessing finer details of the basic neurovascular coupling cascade.