Pressure Pain Activation Revealed in Simultaneous Brain, High-Res Brainstem, and High-Res Spinal Cord fMRI.

We present a novel fMRI acquisition that mitigates susceptibility-induced off-resonance and simultaneously captures brainstem, spinal cord, and brain. Brainstem and spinal cord are imaged in high spatial resolution whereas brain resolution is standard. This fMRI acquisition is applied in a noxious pressure-pain experiment from which we observe activation in brain, spinal cord, and brainstem pons & medulla.