The MRI Centre, in collaboration with the INT’s S-PrIME team and the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, has developed an original device for diffusing regulated air flows in the MRI environment. This system is fully flow regulated and can control 4 independent channels. It is composed of 3 stages:
- Instrumental stage: control bench including electropneumatic components, power supply and control board
- Peripheral stage: support and ergonomic and articulated device allowing the positioning of the stimulation nozzles towards the subject
- Software stage: driver and control software for the device.
This new stimulation device allows and has already allowed the implementation of fMRI studies on monomodal (tactile) or multimodal (tactile/visual for example) sensory perceptions.
Technical specs :
- Maximum pressure supported: 4 bar
- USB control
- Driver and program written in LabVIEW
This development was the subject of a methodological publication whose reference is :
B. Nazarian, J. Caron-Guyon, J.L. Anton, J. Sein, J. Baurberg, N. Catz, A. Kavounoudias,
A new patterned air-flow device to reveal the network for tactile motion coding using fMRI,
Journal of Neuroscience Methods,
Volume 365, 2022, 109397,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2021.109397.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165027021003320)
Keywords: Air stimulation; Pneumatic device; Motion perception; Cerebral network; MVPA
