Browsing by Author "Salminen, Annu"

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become an important tool in measuring the connectivity of the brain. Based on the connectivity maps acquired from scanning, research is being done for example on how to improve fMRI-guided targeting of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). One of the means is to improve the quality of the imaging. There are some challenges in producing high quality images due to technical limitations and due to patient behavior, most important of which are movement and state of alertness. The aim of this thesis was to find out, if natural viewing during scanning would reduce movement, increase alertness and increase comfortableness of the patients compared to resting state scanning. We had 19 (N=19) patients suffering from treatment resistant MDD (major depressive disorder) scanned to receive fMRIguided TMS -treatment. We divided the fMRI into four sessions: two movie and two resting state sessions. After each session we asked the patients to rate their level of alertness and comfortableness on a visual analogue scale from 0 to 100. We also computed two different movement measures (mean FD [= framewise displacement] Jenkinson and number of FD Power >0.5) of the scanning. We could see a significant difference (p=0.014) in mean FD Jenkinson between movie vs rest indicating that natural viewing reduced movement during scanning. We also could see a significant difference in alertness (p=0.002) between sessions indicating that longer duration of scanning diminishes the state of alertness of the patients. In other parameters we did not see a significant difference between movie and resting state. Our research supports and adds to previous findings that showing a movie during fMRI could reduce movement and that state of alertness could decrease during longer scanning times.