Identifying techniques for comparative evaluation of time series used to detect brain activation regions by functional magnetic resonance imaging

• Grant number: 06/06432-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2007
• End date: December 31, 2007
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Biomedical Engineering - Medical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Joaquim Cezar Felipe
• Grantee: Juliano Jinzenji Duque
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The emerging of new neuroimage modalities, such as the functional magnetic ressonance images (fMRI), have revealed as being very useful to the study and definition of non-invasive specific patterns of brain functions and their localization. The determination of specific active regions can be done through the analysis of intensity of the images pixels, evaluating time series of these changes in function of the related stimulus. The comparison of these time series demands statistical techniques, which must be able to filter the desired features, and, thus, distinguish the regions related to the stimulus. The objective of this project is to investigate the effectiveness of different analysis techniques for time series, aiming the comparison of changes in the intensity values of the voxels that compose the fMRI, in order to determine the most efficient techniques to the task of detection of brain active regions related to specific stimulus.