Below you see a standard human brain movie acquired with echo planar imaging (EPI) at full speed on a 3 tesla system. Three transversal, parallel slices are located so they pass though the eyes. In the movie you see periods of rest and periods of eye motion. As always, when you acquire 10-20 MR images per second (which is typical for fMRI), the image quality is limited. The interesting feature is the four electrophysiological recordings shown underneath the MR images. These recordings made with electrodes on the forehead were extracted from the MR raw data. As expected they show large oscillations in synchrony with the eye motion (and smaller regular pulse contributions).

EPI movie and extracted electrophysiological signals. If you cant view this MPEG movie, try the Flash version.

It is worth noting that the MR images look completely normal, and that the measured electrophysiological signals are free of gradient artifacts that would normally dominate measurements made under such conditions. Three reasons: (1) The gradient artifacts are largely avoided when the scanner is doing the recording (the Anami trick), (2) a detector coil (gradient trigger) near the opening of the scanner holds the signal whenever there is gradient noise (twice per millisecond), and (3) residual gradient artifacts can be filtered very easily (the Cohen trick).  The technique has been shown to work nicely for EEG alpha-detection also. Real-time viewing of nearly gradient artifact-free EEGs are provided through a fiber-optic interface connected to the modulator.