Cocaine Decreases Cortical Cerebral Blood Flow but Does Not Obscure Regional Activation in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Human Subjects

The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine whether acute intravenous (IV) cocaine use would change global cerebral blood flow (CBF) or visual stimulation-induced functional activation. They used flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) scan sequences to measure CBF and blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) sensitive T 2 * scan sequences during visual stimulation to measure neuronal activation before and...