Functional MR elastography measures visual cortex stiffening proportional to visual contrast intensity in regions of activation

Abstract Functional MRI (fMRI) is widely used to spatially localize neural activity in the brain associated with functional stimuli. Functional MR Elastography (fMRE) has recently been introduced as a complementary approach that measures the mechanical response to functional stimulus. The hypothesis of the current study is that the stiffness change in fMRE is proportional to the underlying neural activity. This hypothesis is tested by measuring the median stiffness change in the visual cortex as a function of luminance-matched contrast intensity of a checkerboard visual stimulus in 16 healthy subjects. The fMRE signal in the visual cortex was observed to be proportional to the contrast intensity of the visual stimulus. In regions of activation, fMRE signal increased in the range of 2±1% to 5.8±1% and fMRI signal increased by the expected 0.4±0.2% to 0.9±0.2%, for contrast levels of 5% to 100%, respectively. In conclusion, this study shows that the fMRE signal in the visual cortex can be directly modulated by the contrast-intensity of a visual stimulus. The presence of some overlap between fMRI and fMRE regions of activation may suggest two distinct mechanisms governing the fMRI and fMRE signals, which will be investigated in future studies.