ELSC Seminar Series

Ultra–high-field (≥7T) MRI enables sub-millimeter human brain imaging, opening new opportunities to study brain–behavior relationships at the level of individual participants. My lab develops advanced MRI pulse sequences and applies them to fundamental neuroscience questions. In this talk, I will highlight how fast functional MRI acquisition strategies can substantially improve signal quality in challenging subcortical regions such as the basal ganglia—areas rich in iron and prone to rapid signal decay. Our approach enabled the detection of robust correlations between activity in striatal subregions and individual differences in motor performance, offering new insights into learning processes. We also investigate the limits of achievable temporal resolution, demonstrating that advanced fMRI methods can reach sampling rates below 150 milliseconds. Building on these techniques, we are developing auditory and visual paradigms to probe the temporal dynamics of neural processes across the brain.