The results presented illustrate that the imaging of single events is possible. As was mentioned earlier, such a study of movement decision making would be difficult to carry out using a traditional epoch based paradigm. From the electrophysiological measurements of such tasks, it is clear that the neural activity only lasts a few hundred milliseconds, however such short neural events can be detected using fMRI. This is important since many other interesting cognitive paradigms do not adapt easily to providing periods of sustained activity. Since similar techniques of stimulus presentation are used in brain studies using evoked potentials, the same experiments can be used with both modalities.
Single event paradigms require longer experiments than their epoch based counterparts, in order that the required signal to noise ratio is achieved. A delay of at least 10 seconds is required between each stimulus to enable the blood flow changes to return to the baseline.