Virtual Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Pain Study System

A virtual fMRI facility was needed to habituate Persian Gulf War Veteran subjects, participating in a painperception study, to a real fMRI environment similar to a 3 Teslafacility located in the Advanced Imaging Center at UMDNJ. Toaccomplish this, an automated hardware and software systemwas developed using a decommissioned MRI unit, ergonomicmouse, Finapres- Continuous Blood Pressure (BP) Monitor, Dinamap- Automatic BP Monitor, audiovisual feedback system, Medoc- Thermal Sensory Analyzer (TSA), and LabVIEW- 7.0 software. After the creation of the system, tests were conductedto determine if an individual would be more comfortable and lessnervous after repeated trials in the virtual fMRI.