Brain function can be mapped with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging sens
itized to regional changes in blood oxygenation due to cortical activa
tion. Several MR imaging methods, including conventional imaging and e
cho-planar imaging, have been successfully used for this purpose, The
authors investigated spiral k-space MR imaging, implemented with an un
modified 1.5-T clinical imager, for imaging of cortical activation, A
gradient-echo, spiral k-space imaging method was used to measure activ
ation in the primary visual cortex (number sequence task), primary mot
or cortex (fist-clenching task), and prefrontal cortex (verbal fluency
task), Comparison of conventional and spiral k-space imaging in the v
isual and motor cortex, in which signal-to-noise ratio, voxel size, an
d imaging time were matched, showed that artifacts were reduced with t
he spiral k-space method, while the area and degree of activation were
similar, The number of sections that could be imaged in a fixed time
interval was increased by a factor of four with this implementation of
spiral k-space imaging compared with conventional imaging.