SORDINO: silent, sensitive, specific and artifact-resistant fMRI in awake, behaving mice.

SORDINO achieves silent, highly sensitive, and artifact-resistant fMRI in awake mice, outperforming traditional methods with superior metrics at 9.4 T.

• Why it matters: Current fMRI techniques face significant challenges like noise, motion artifacts, and limited sensitivity, especially in awake animal studies, hindering accurate brain mapping.
• What they did: The team developed SORDINO, a zero echo time (ZTE)-based fMRI method that acquires data during gradient changes, enhancing sensitivity and resistance to artifacts, tested at 9.4 T.
• The result: SORDINO enables brain-wide activity and connectivity mapping in awake, behaving mice, overcoming stress and motion barriers, and revealing new contrast mechanisms applicable across ZTE-based fMRI.