Technical Note: An anthropomorphic phantom with implanted neurostimulator for investigation of MRI safety.

Purpose: The objective of this work was to design and construct an improved anthropomorphic phantom for use in studying magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) radiofrequency (RF) safety at 3 T related to deep brain stimulation (DBS), and especially the role of DBS lead trajectories.

Method: Based on a computer-aided design including reasonable representation of human features, the phantom was fabricated by three-dimensional (3D) printing and then fully assembled with a human skull, a commercial DBS device implanted using the surgical standard at our institution, and fiber-optic temperature sensors embedded in two tissue mimicking solutions (e.g.

Inflow effects on hemodynamic responses characterized by event-related fMRI using gradient-echo EPI sequences.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether blood inflow impacts the temporal behavior of BOLD-contrast fMRI signal changes in a typical event-related paradigm. The inflow contributions in the hemodynamic response to repeated single trials of short visual stimulation were assessed with a gradient-echo EPI sequence by altering the flip angle (FA) from 30 degrees to 90 degrees at a repetition time of 1 s. For each FA condition (30 degrees, 60 degrees, and 90 degrees), 30 trials were performed on 15 healthy volunteers on a 3T MRI scanner.