Spinal functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) on Human Studies: A Literature Review

Spinal functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a newly emerging non-invasive imaging technique that has been introduced to study the Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) changes in the spinal cord associated with a certain activity or even at rest. Spinal fMRI is also used to assess the treatment of many dysfunctions affect the spinal cord such as spinal cord injury (SCI) and Multiple sclerosis (MS). The purpose of this paper is to propose a literature review of spinal fMRI studies performed on healthy human volunteers. The studies reviewed are divided based on the paradigm being performed during image acquisition into (1) studies under activities and stimulus which are further classified according to the type of the stimuli, and (2) studies at resting state. Moreover, the limitations of spinal fMRI and how to tackle them are discussed.