Comparison of hemodynamic response nonlinearity across primary cortical areas

Hemodynamic responses to auditory and visual stimuli and motor tasks were assessed for the nonlinearity of response in each of the respective primary cortices. Five stimulus or task durations were used (1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 s), and five male subjects (aged 19 ± 1.9 years) were imaged. Two tests of linearity were conducted. The first test consisted of using BOLD responses to short stimuli to predict responses to longer stimuli. The second test consisted of fitting ideal impulse response functions to the observed responses for each event duration. Both methods show that the extent of the nonlinearity varies across cortices. Results for the second method indicate that the hemodynamic response is nonlinear for stimuli less than 10 s in the primary auditory cortex, nonlinear for tasks less than 7 s in the primary motor cortex, and nonlinear for stimuli less than 3 s in the primary visual cortex. In addition, neural adaptation functions were characterized that could model the observed nonlinearities.