BOLD sensitivity and SNR characteristics of parallel imaging-accelerated single-shot multi-echo EPI for fMRI

Echo-planar imaging (EPI) is a standard procedure in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for measuring changes in the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal associated with neuronal activity. The images obtained from fMRI with EPI, however, exhibit signal dropouts and geometric distortions. Parallel imaging (PI), due to its short readout, accelerates image acquisition and might reduce dephasing in phase-encoding direction. The concomitant loss of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) might be compensated through single-shot multi-echo EPI (mEPI). We systematically compared the temporal SNR and BOLD sensitivity of single echoes (TE = 15, 45, and 75 ms) and contrast-optimized mEPI with and without PI and mEPI-based denoising. Audio-visual stimulation under natural viewing conditions activated distributed neural networks. Heterogeneous SNR, noise gain, and sensitivity maps emerged. In single echoes, SNR and BOLD sensitivity followed the predicted dependency on echo time (TE) and were reduced under PI. However, the combination of echoes with mEPI recovered the quality parameters and increased BOLD signal changes at circumscribed fronto-polar and deep brain structures. We suggest applying PI only in combination with mEPI to reduce imaging artifacts and conserve BOLD sensitivity.