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Characterization Of Mismatch Between Behavioral Stimuli And Frmi Data Using The Kalman Filter, Jason Steffener

Dissertations

The advance of blood oxygen level dependent function magnetic resonance imaging, (BOLD fMRI), allows researchers to non-invasively investigate the functioning human brain. The BOLD fMRI response to brief stimuli is called the hemodynamic response function (HRF), which can vary across brain regions and across subjects.

Models of the HRF are used to increase sensitivity of statistical maps; however, they often don't account for spatial and temporal variance. Physiological effects, such as learning, fatigue or habituation, introduce mismatch between statistical models and the data. Methods that use minimal a priori information and track time varying signals are able to show the …