fMRI Paradigms

This “Functional Imaging Paradigm” section contains brief fMRI paradigm descriptions that were requested from presenters in the fMRI portion of this meeting. The authors have all had experience and success using these specific paradigms for presurgical mapping and other clinical scenarios. Not all ASFNR speakers submitted a paradigm or all of the paradigms used at their respective institutions. There are undoubtedly successful paradigms at other institutions not represented here. Also, specific paradigm timing parameters are influenced by field strength, coil design, delivery systems, other environmental factors, and post-processing strategies. Consequently, differences in paradigm parameters described here are less pertinent to the educational effort than the overall paradigm designs.

The section contains a variety of paradigms for mapping motor, premotor, speech and language, vision, and memory functions that are intended to promote the translation of clinical presurgical mapping services among the institutions of meeting attendees. However, the standardization of presurgical mapping paradigms is an evolving process, and the contents herein do not represent an official recommendation or endorsement by the ASFNR. Full paradigm document available for members on the members homepage.

  • Sentence Completion Task Parameters*

    Gradient Echo EPI sequence Field
    Strength: 3T
    TR: 2000
    TE: 30
    Matrix: 64×64
    FOV: 24 cm
    Slice Thickness: 4 mm
    Parallel Factor: 2
    Scan Length: 4 min

    Font: 42 point Times New Roman font (on a standard PowerPoint slide) in white with a black background.

    Stimuli: The patient is shown incomplete sentences and is instructed to sub-vocally think of words/words to complete the sentence. If there is time the patient should continue to think of alternate words that complete the sentence prior to the next incomplete sentence being presented. Four sentences per 20 seconds. This stimulus time frame is repeated 6 times.

    Control: Patient views non-sense sentences. Four non-sense sentences per 20 seconds.

    *from Faro et al multi-center trial

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  • Silent Word Generation Task Parameters*

    Gradient Echo EPI sequence Field
    Strength: 3T
    TR: 2000
    TE: 30
    Matrix: 64×64
    FOV: 24 cm
    Slice Thickness: 4 mm
    Parallel Factor: 2
    Scan Length: 4 min

    Font: Times New Roman Font size 117 (on a standard PowerPoint slide), white font on black background.

    Stimuli: A test of phonemic fluency wherein a patient is shown a single letter and asked to sub-vocally think as many words that start with that letter as they possibly can before the image changes to either the control or the next letter. 10 seconds per letter. The patient can be instructed to press a button with each word they think of as a means of monitoring their active engagement with the task.

    Control: Patient views nonsense symbols (10 seconds per nonsense symbol). 6 cycles = 4 min.

    *from Faro et al multi-center trial

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  • Rhyming Task Parameters

    Gradient Echo EPI sequence Field
    Strength: 3T
    TR: 2000
    TE: 30
    Matrix: 64×64
    FOV: 24 cm
    Slice Thickness: 4 mm
    Parallel Factor: 2
    Scan Length: 4 min

    Font: Times New Roman Font size 200 (on a standard PowerPoint slide), white font on black background.

    Stimuli: The patient is shown two words, one on top of the other, and asked to respond with a button press if the two words rhyme. If the words do not rhyme, no button press should occur. Five word pairs per 20 seconds.

    Control: Two sets of 5 differently oriented lines (one set on top of the other) are shown to the patient who is asked to respond with a button press if the two sets are oriented in an identical fashion. If not, no button press is needed.

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  • Antonym Generation Task Parameters

    Gradient Echo EPI sequence Field
    Strength: 3T
    TR: 2000
    TE: 30
    Matrix: 64×64
    FOV: 24 cm
    Slice Thickness: 4 mm
    Parallel Factor: 2
    Scan Length: 2 min 40 sec

    Font: Times New Roman Font size 44 (on a standard PowerPoint slide), white font on black background.

    Stimuli: The patient is shown a word and asked to generate the opposite meaning word in their mind. 10 words / block and total of 4 blocks. Each word remains on the screen for 2 sec.

    Control: Simple cross hair in the center of the screen lasts for 20 seconds for each block.

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  • Passive Story Listening Task Parameters

    Gradient Echo EPI sequence Field
    Strength: 3T
    TR: 2000
    TE: 30
    Matrix: 64×64
    FOV: 24 cm
    Slice Thickness: 4 mm
    Parallel Factor: 2
    Scan Length: 4 min

    Font: This is an aurally presented paradigm.

    Stimuli: The patient listens to 20 seconds of a story (selected passages from The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter). Alternates with control for a total of 4 minutes.

    Control: The patient listens to 20 seconds of the same story played backwards. (Reading performed by Ann Marie Rydberg)

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  • Object Naming Task Parameters

    Gradient Echo EPI sequence Field Strength: 3T
    TR: 2000
    TE: 30
    Matrix: 64×64
    FOV: 24 cm
    Slice Thickness: 4 mm
    Parallel Factor: 2
    Scan Length: 4 min

    Font: Similar sized images and symbols will be shown (no text).

    Stimuli: White outline images of objects on a black background will be shown to the patient who will be asked to covertly/silently name the object. One object is presented approximately every 3 seconds.

    Control: Nonsense symbols are shown to the patient and they do nothing other than attend to what is being shown. One symbol is presented approximately every 3 seconds.

    Stimuli images obtained from
    Citation: Brodeur MB, Dionne-Dostie E, Montreuil T, Lepage M (2010) The Bank of Standardized Stimuli (BOSS), a New Set of 480 Normative Photos of Objects to Be Used as Visual Stimuli in Cognitive Research. PLoS ONE 5(5): e10773. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0010773

    Copyright: © 2010 Brodeur et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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