Most functional MRI studies of monkey brains have been performed under anesthesia, which alters functional state of the brain itself and makes comparison with awake human data difficult. The research group developed a 24-channel receive coil for high-sensitivity and high-speed imaging of the awake macaque brain. Combined with ferumoxytol-weighted functional MRI and a spatiotemporal analysis to remove noise from MRI signal, this approach yielded functional connectivity maps for reliable circuit measurement in individual animals. Comparing these maps with human functional MRI under matched conditions is expected to advance research on higher-order brain function, disease and evolution. The paper was published in Imaging Neuroscience.