Reproducibility of visual activation during checkerboard stimulation in functional magnetic resonance imaging at 4 Tesla.

PURPOSE: To investigate the reproducibility of visual activation by checkerboard stimulation, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 4 Tesla (T). METHODS: Four subjects were studied with fMRI at 4 T during checkerboard visual stimulation. The functional images were realigned and spatially normalized to the standard brain. For each subject, statistical parametric maps were made for each study, and the reproducibility was determined based on the number of supra-threshold voxels (Z > 3.5, 4.5, and 5.5). RESULTS: The mean ratio for the number of supra-threshold (Z > 4.5) voxels was 0.75, and the mean ratio for the overlapping voxels was 0.61. Restricting the region of interest within the posterior half of the brain improved reproducibility values at the low threshold (Z > 3.5), but did not improve the values at the higher thresholds. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the fact that more than half of the supra-threshold voxels were found to be active for the repeated scans, visual activation with checkerboard stimulation seems to be less reproducible than that by flash stimulation.