Motivation: Multi-Echo (ME) fMRI technique during task has shown to enhance BOLD sensitivity when compared with single-echo data derived from ME itself (Echo-2). Goal(s): Investigate the perks of a ME protocol with a comprehensive comparison with an Optimized Single-Echo (OSE) acquisition (i.e. not with data derived from ME itself). Approach: We characterized 3 datasets (ME, OSE, Echo-2) computing single-subject and group-level analyses, performance metrics and fMRI reliability. Results: ME and OSE showed better results than Echo-2 confirming previous studies, but in a comparison of optimized sequences, the superior performance of ME is not confirmed. Impact: A comprehensive comparison of Multi-Echo fMRI with an Optimized Single-Echo (OSE) acquisition (i.e. not with data derived from ME itself) enables a direct evaluation of two different acquisition approaches at their best performances.
Giubergia et al. (2025) studied this question.