Detection of brain activation using oxygenation sensitive functional spectroscopy

A nonwater-suppressed localized spectroscopy experiment using the PRESS-sequence has been used to study the signal changes of the water resonance during cortical activation. Significant effects with an effect-to-noise ratio up to 50:1 for a single shot experiment have been observed upon photic stimulation. The exceedingly high signal-to-noise ratio of the experiment was used to demonstrate signal changes as low as 0.1% after electrical stimulation of the median nerve.