3.0 tesla mr system

A 3.0-Tesla MR system (Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany) equipped with a 32-channel head coil for signal reception was used to acquire MRI images. High-resolution 3D T1-weighted structural images were obtained by a magnetization-prepared rapid gradient echo (MPRAGE) sequence on the basis of the following settings: repetition time (TR)/echo time (TE) = 7.3/2.4 ms; flip angle = 9°; field of view (FOV) = 240 mm² × 240 mm²; matrix size = 256 × 256; slice thickness = 1 mm; 192 slices; and slice thickness = 0.9 mm with no gap. The rs-fMRI images were obtained using a gradient echo-echo-planar imaging (GE-EPI) sequence with the following index: TR/TE = 1,500/30 ms; FOV = 240 mm² × 240 mm²; matrix size = 64 × 64; slice thickness = 3 mm; slice gap = 1 mm; 50 axial slices; 200 volumes and 50 axial slices.

MRI data were acquired by a Siemens 3.0 Tesla MR system. Routine brain axial fluid-attenuated inverse recovery (FLAIR) sequence scanning was first performed to rule out other cerebral abnormalities. Sagittal three-dimensional T1-weighted images were acquired by the following scan parameters: repetition time (TR) = 1800 ms; echo time (TE) = 2.13 ms; inversion time (TI) = 1100 ms; flip angle (FA) = 9°; field of view (FOV) = 256 mm × 256 mm; matrix = 256 × 256; slice thickness = 1 mm, no gap; and 192 sagittal slices. The resting-state functional data were acquired using a gradient-echo-planer imaging (EPI) sequence with the following parameters: TR = 2000 ms, TE = 30 ms, slice thickness = 3 mm, number of slices = 35, FOV = 220 mm × 220 mm, matrix size = 64 × 64, interslice gap = 0.8 mm, FA = 9°. As for this section, we followed the methods of Chen et al. [33 (link)].