Stimulus tracking in functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI)

Abstract

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagery (fMRI) is a new medical imaging technology providing functional, as opposed to anatomical, mapping of the human brain. The promise of this non-invasive technique has opened new challenges for multimedia researchers. As the field of human functional neuroimaging explodes and the technology of fMRI advances, computational techniques for experiment control, subject stimuli generation, and joint stimuli-activation tracking are lacking. Most computational work has focused on improving the analysis of the brain scans. This paper describes computational mechanisms for the delivery and tracking of multimedia stimuli and a correlation framework for stimuli and brain responses. MediaStim, a new integrated data collection framework for stimulus tracking that is currently under development. MediaStim extends the stimuli paradigm to composite multimedia presentations. To simulate a real-life situation as realistically as possible, it is important to study the brain response using "immersive" stimuli, and have tools that record this interaction over time in an environment that is totally quantified and reproducible. © 1998 ACM.