Elimination of k-space spikes in fMRI data

The subtle signal changes in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) c an be easily overwhelmed by noise of various origins. Spikes in the collect ed fMRI raw data often arise from high-duty usage of the scanner hardware a nd can introduce significant noise in the image and thereby in the image ti me series. Consequently, the spikes will corrupt the functional data and de grade the result of functional mapping. In this work, a simple method based on processing the time course of the k-space data are introduced and imple mented to remove the spikes in the acquired data. Application of the method to experimental data shows that the methods are robust and effective for e liminating of spike-related noise in fMRI time series. (C) 2001 Elsevier Sc ience Inc. All rights reserved.