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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Mar 18.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Neurol. 2012 Nov 5;8(11):635–646. doi: 10.1038/nrneurol.2012.179

Table 1.

Potential confounding factors affecting BOLD signal generation in MS studies and strategies to overcome them.

Source of fMRI signal Confounding factors Strategy to control for confounding factors
Neural signalling Disease-related or intervention-related increases or decreases in brain activity Simultaneous or delayed electrophysiological recording
Neurovascular coupling Disease-related or intervention-related effect on vascular response to changes of neural activity Measure vascular reactivity (for example, with carbon dioxide challenge)
Vascular compartment Disease-related or intervention-related differences in baseline perfusion levels Measure baseline perfusion
Measure perfusion response to a task