Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42306264›Full record

ArticleAperture neuro2026

A vendor-neutral functional MRI acquisition protocol for multi-site studies.

Jon-Fredrik Nielsen, Maximillian K Egan, Qingping Chen, Mojtaba Shafiekhani, James H Wang, Samuel A Hurley, Jeffrey S Soldate, Jonathan Lisinksi, Stephen M LaConte, Bradley P Sutton and 7 more

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Aperture neuro, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

17 authors.

Jon-Fredrik NielsenFunctional MRI Laboratory, Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Maximillian K EganFunctional MRI Laboratory, Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Qingping ChenDivision of Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Mojtaba ShafiekhaniDivision of Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
James H WangDepartment of Radiology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, USA.
Samuel A HurleyDepartment of Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, USA.
Jeffrey S SoldateFralin Biomedical Research institute at VTC, Roanoke, USA.
Jonathan LisinksiFralin Biomedical Research institute at VTC, Roanoke, USA.
Stephen M LaConteFralin Biomedical Research institute at VTC, Roanoke, USA.
Bradley P SuttonGrainger College of Engineering, Bioengineering Department and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL USA.
R Allen WaggonerRIKEN Center for Brain Science, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan.
Rüdiger StirnbergGerman Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany.
Tony StöckerGerman Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany.
Jeffrey A FesslerDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Douglas C NollFunctional MRI Laboratory, Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Maxim ZaitsevDivision of Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Scott J PeltierFunctional MRI Laboratory, Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

Funding

A harmonized vendor-agnostic environment for multi-site functional MRI studiesU24NS120056 · NINDS · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · PI Jon-Fredrik Nielsen, Maxim Zaitsev · 2021 to 2026
$3.3M
Harmonizing data acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis for reproducible, cross-vendor, open source MRIR01EB032378 · NIBIB · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · PI BILGIC, BERKIN, RATHI, YOGESH · 2022 to 2025
$2.7M
NIBIB NIH HHS R01 EB032378NINDS NIH HHS U24 NS120056
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

We present an open, vendor-neutral BOLD SMS-EPI protocol tailored for multi-site fMRI studies, intended as a drop-in replacement for conventional vendor-specific acquisition and reconstruction pipelines. Built on Pulseq-an emerging standard for cross-platform MRI pulse sequence development-our protocol ensures identical SMS-EPI pulse sequences and image reconstruction across scanner vendors. This provides, for the first time, known and consistent experimental conditions across sites and scanner software versions. We begin by reviewing the current capabilities of the Pulseq framework, including vendor support and safety considerations. We then detail our SMS-EPI implementation and demonstrate its performance using resting-state fMRI pilot data from healthy volunteers, showing reduced site variance compared to corresponding vendor protocols on Siemens and GE scanners. To support adoption, we provide practical resources to help researchers integrate Pulseq fMRI into their studies, including example text for grant proposals and IRB submissions. These resources are freely available at https://github.com/HarmonizedMRI/Functional. Our vision is for Pulseq fMRI to become the standard for multi-site research, enabling more reproducible science and serving as a reference for the development of novel acquisition and reconstruction methods.

Identifiers

PMID42306264
PMCPMC13268408

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.