Pilot Study on Functional Activity Mapping during Intraoral Thermal Sensory Stimulation Using fMRI

Objective:To primarily evaluate the feasibility of functional magnetic resonance imaging on the location of brain regions related to intraoral thermal stimuli with water.Methods:A volunteer was selected to perform the fMRI study.A self-made water injection device was employed to induce intraoral thermosensory,and block designed BOLD functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI scan covering the whole brain was carried out.The fMRI data were analyzed by SPM99 software to generate the activation map.Results:The warm,hot and cold stimulations on healthy subject were found to have different activation sites of cerebral cortex.Conclusion:fMRI may be used in exploring human cortical activation induced by intraoral thermal stimuli with water if proper stimulation methods were practiced.The exact brain regions for thermal stimuli need to be made clear by further study.