A Model of the Coupling Between Brain Electrical Activity, Metabolism, and Hemodynamics: Application to the Interpretation of Functional Neuroimaging

In order to improve the interpretation of functional neuroimaging data, we implemented a mathematical model of the coupling between membrane ionic currents, energy metabolism (i.e., ATP regeneration via phosphocreatine buffer effect, glycolysis, and mitochondrial respiration), blood-brain barrier exchanges, and hemodynamics. Various hypotheses were tested for the variation of the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO(2)): (H1) the CMRO(2) remains at its baseline level; (H2) the CMRO(2) is enhanced as soon as the cerebral blood flow (CBF) increases; (H3) the CMRO(2) increase depends on intracellular oxygen and pyruvate concentrations, and intracellular ATP/ADP ratio; (H4) in addition to hypothesis H3, the CMRO(2) progressively increases, due to the action of a second messenger. A good agreement with experimental data from magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy (MRI and MRS) was obtained when we simulated sustained and repetitive activation protocols using hypotheses (H3) or (H4), rather than hypotheses (H1) or (H2). Furthermore, by studying the effect of the variation of some physiologically important parameters on the time course of the modeled blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) signal, we were able to formulate hypotheses about the physiological or biochemical significance of functional magnetic resonance data, especially the poststimulus undershoot and the baseline drift.