scholarly journals A Novel 2D Standard Cartesian Representation for the Human Sensorimotor Cortex

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark L.C.M. Bruurmijn ◽  
Wouter Schellekens ◽  
Mathijs A.H. Raemaekers ◽  
Nick F. Ramsey
Keyword(s):  
Sensorimotor Cortex ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
Cortical Region ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Normalization Methods ◽  
Tongue Movements ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Similarity Scores

AbstractFor some experimental approaches in brain imaging, the existing normalization techniques are not always sufficient. This may be the case if the anatomical shape of the region of interest varies substantially across subjects, or if one needs to compare the left and right hemisphere in the same subject. Here we propose a new standard representation, building upon existing normalization methods: Cgrid (Cartesian geometric representation with isometric dimensions). Cgrid is based on imposing a Cartesian grid over a cortical region of interest that is bounded by anatomical (atlas-based) landmarks. We applied this new representation to the sensorimotor cortex and we evaluated its performance by studying the similarity of activation patterns for hand, foot and tongue movements between subjects, and similarity between hemispheres within subjects. The Cgrid similarities were benchmarked against the similarities of activation patterns when transformed into standard MNI space using SPM, and to similarities from FreeSurfer’s surface-based normalization. For both between-subject and between-hemisphere comparisons, similarity scores in Cgrid were high, similar to those from FreeSurfer normalization and higher than similarity scores from SPM’s MNI normalization. This indicates that Cgrid allows for a straightforward way of representing and comparing sensorimotor activity patterns across subjects and between hemispheres of the same subjects.

Measurement of Renal Parenchymal Transit Time of 99mTc-MAG3 Using Factor Analysis

1990 ◽  
Vol 29 (04) ◽  
pp. 170-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. V. Yester ◽  
Eva Dubovsky ◽  
C. D. Russell
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Transit Time ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
Initial Slope ◽  
Cortical Region ◽  
Time Activity ◽  
Appearance Time ◽  
Activity Curve ◽  
System Factor ◽  
Collecting System

Renal parenchymal transit time of the recently introduced radiopharmaceutical 99mTc-MAG3 (mercaptoacetylglycylglylcylglycinel) was measured in 37 kidneys, using factor analysis to separate parenchymal activity from that in the collecting system. A new factor algorithm was employed, based on prior interpolative background subtraction and use of the fact that the initial slope of the collecting system factor time-activity curve must be zero. The only operator intervention required was selection of a rectangular region enclosing the kidney (by identifying two points at opposite corners). Transit time was calculated from the factor time-activity curves both by deconvolution of the parenchymal factor curve and also by measuring the appearance time for collecting system activity from the collecting system factor curve. There was substantial agreement between the two methods. Factor analysis led to a narrower range of normal values than a conventional cortical region-of-interest method, presumably by decreasing crosstalk from the collecting system. In preliminary trials, the parenchymal transit time did not well separate four obstructed from seventeen unobstructed kidneys, but it successfully (p <0.05) separated six transplanted kidneys with acute rejection or acute tubular necrosis from 10 normal transplants.

scholarly journals Prefrontal High Gamma in ECoG tags periodicity of musical rhythms in perception and imagination

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Herff ◽  
C. Herff ◽  
A. J. Milne ◽  
G. D. Johnson ◽  
J. J. Shih ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Gamma Activity ◽  
Rhythm Perception ◽  
High Gamma ◽  
The Right ◽  
Musical Rhythms

AbstractRhythmic auditory stimuli are known to elicit matching activity patterns in neural populations. Furthermore, recent research has established the particular importance of high-gamma brain activity in auditory processing by showing its involvement in auditory phrase segmentation and envelope-tracking. Here, we use electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings from eight human listeners, to see whether periodicities in high-gamma activity track the periodicities in the envelope of musical rhythms during rhythm perception and imagination. Rhythm imagination was elicited by instructing participants to imagine the rhythm to continue during pauses of several repetitions. To identify electrodes whose periodicities in high-gamma activity track the periodicities in the musical rhythms, we compute the correlation between the autocorrelations (ACC) of both the musical rhythms and the neural signals. A condition in which participants listened to white noise was used to establish a baseline. High-gamma autocorrelations in auditory areas in the superior temporal gyrus and in frontal areas on both hemispheres significantly matched the autocorrelation of the musical rhythms. Overall, numerous significant electrodes are observed on the right hemisphere. Of particular interest is a large cluster of electrodes in the right prefrontal cortex that is active during both rhythm perception and imagination. This indicates conscious processing of the rhythms’ structure as opposed to mere auditory phenomena. The ACC approach clearly highlights that high-gamma activity measured from cortical electrodes tracks both attended and imagined rhythms.

scholarly journals Mapping the common and distinct neural correlates of visual, rule and motor conflict

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryony Goulding Mew ◽  
Darije Custovic ◽  
Eyal Soreq ◽  
Romy Lorenz ◽  
Ines Violante ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Region Of Interest ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
The Common ◽  
Full Factorial ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Categorical Scale ◽  
Conflict Types

AbstractFlexible behaviour requires cognitive-control mechanisms to efficiently resolve conflict between competing information and alternative actions. Whether a global neural resource mediates all forms of conflict or this is achieved within domainspecific systems remains debated. We use a novel fMRI paradigm to orthogonally manipulate rule, response and stimulus-based conflict within a full-factorial design. Whole-brain voxelwise analyses show that activation patterns associated with these conflict types are distinct but partially overlapping within Multiple Demand Cortex (MDC), the brain regions that are most commonly active during cognitive tasks. Region of interest analysis shows that most MDC sub-regions are activated for all conflict types, but to significantly varying levels. We propose that conflict resolution is an emergent property of distributed brain networks, the functional-anatomical components of which place on a continuous, not categorical, scale from domain-specialised to domain general. MDC brain regions place towards one end of that scale but display considerable functional heterogeneity.

scholarly journals Contribution of axonal orientation to pathway-dependent modulation of excitatory transmission by direct current stimulation in isolated rat hippocampus

2012 ◽  
Vol 107 (7) ◽  
pp. 1881-1889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anatoli Y. Kabakov ◽  
Paul A. Muller ◽  
Alvaro Pascual-Leone ◽  
Frances E. Jensen ◽  
Alexander Rotenberg
Keyword(s):  
Direct Current ◽  
Cortical Excitability ◽  
Mossy Fiber ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
Electrical Current ◽  
Signal Propagation ◽  
Field Vector ◽  
Cortical Region ◽  
Direct Current Stimulation

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a method for modulating cortical excitability by weak constant electrical current that is applied through scalp electrodes. Although often described in terms of anodal or cathodal stimulation, depending on which scalp electrode pole is proximal to the cortical region of interest, it is the orientation of neuronal structures relative to the direct current (DC) vector that determines the effect of tDCS. To investigate the contribution of neural pathway orientation, we studied DCS-mediated neuromodulation in an in vitro rat hippocampal slice preparation. We examined the contribution of dendritic orientation to the direct current stimulation (DCS) neuromodulatory effect by recording field excitatory postsynaptic potentials (fEPSPs) in apical and basal dendrites of CA1 neurons within a constant DC field. In addition, we assessed the contribution of axonal orientation by recording CA1 and CA3 apical fEPSPs generated by stimulation of oppositely oriented Schaffer collateral and mossy fiber axons, respectively, during DCS. Finally, nonsynaptic excitatory signal propagation was measured along antidromically stimulated CA1 axons at different DCS amplitudes and polarity. We find that modulation of both the fEPSP and population spike depends on axonal orientation relative to the electric field vector. Axonal orientation determines whether the DC field is excitatory or inhibitory and dendritic orientation affects the magnitude, but not the overall direction, of the DC effect. These data suggest that tDCS may oppositely affect neurons in a stimulated cortical volume if these neurons are excited by oppositely orientated axons in a constant electrical field.

Electrophysiological Measures of Language Processing in Bilinguals

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 994-1017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Mado Proverbio ◽  
Barbara Čok ◽  
Alberto Zani
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Left Hemisphere ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Functional Organization ◽  
Brain Plasticity ◽  
Brain Activation ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
The Right

The aim of the present study was to investigate how multiple languages are represented in the human brain. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from right-handed polyglots and monolinguals during a task involving silent reading. The participants in the experiment were nine Italian monolinguals and nine Italian/Slovenian bilinguals of a Slovenian minority in Trieste; the bilinguals, highly fluent in both languages, had spoken both languages since birth. The stimuli were terminal words that would correctly complete a short, meaningful, previously shown sentence, or else were semantically or syntactically incorrect. The task consisted in deciding whether the sentences were well formed or not, giving the response by pressing a button. Both groups read the same set of 200 Italian sentences to compare the linguistic processing, while the bilinguals also received a set of 200 Slovenian sentences, comparable in complexity and length, to compare the processing of the two languages within the group. For the bilinguals, the ERP results revealed a strong, left-sided activation, reflected by the N1 component, of the occipito-temporal regions dedicated to orthographic processing, with a latency of about 150 msec for Slovenian words, but bilateral activation of the same areas for Italian words, which was also displayed by topographical mapping. In monolinguals, semantic error produced a long-lasting negative response (N2 and N4) that was greater over the right hemisphere, whereas syntactic error activated mostly the left hemisphere. Conversely, in the bilinguals, semantic incongruence resulted in greater response over the left hemisphere than over the right. In this group, the P615 syntactical error responses were of equal amplitude on both hemispheres for Italian words and greater on the right side for Slovenian words. The present findings support the view that there are inter- and intrahemispheric brain activation asymmetries when monolingual and bilingual speakers comprehend written language. The fact that the bilingual speakers in the present study were highly fluent and had acquired both languages in early infancy suggests that the brain activation patterns do not depend on the age of acquisition or the fluency level, as in the case of late, not-so-proficient L2 language learners, but on the functional organization of the bilinguals' brain due to polyglotism and based on brain plasticity.

scholarly journals Intact finger representation within primary sensorimotor cortex of Musicians Dystonia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Sadnicka ◽  
Tobias Wiestler ◽  
Katherine Butler ◽  
Eckart Altenmueller ◽  
Mark John Edwards ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensorimotor Cortex ◽  
Specific Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Therapeutic Interventions ◽  
Reliable Technique ◽  
Spatial Shift ◽  
Spatial Measures ◽  
Primary Sensorimotor Cortex ◽  
Spatial Geometry

Musicians dystonia presents with a persistent deterioration of motor control during musical performance. A predominant hypothesis has been that this is underpinned by maladaptive neural changes to the somatotopic organisation of finger representations within primary somatosensory cortex. Here, we tested this hypothesis by investigating the finger-specific activity patterns in the primary somatosensory and motor cortex using functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) in nine musicians with dystonia and nine healthy musicians. A purpose-built keyboard device allowed fMRI characterisation of activity patterns elicited during passive extension and active finger presses of individual fingers. We analysed the data using both traditional spatial analysis and state-of-the art multivariate analyses. Our analysis reveals that digit representations in musicians were poorly captured by spatial measures. An optimised spatial metric found clear somatotopy but no difference in the spatial geometry between fingers. Representational similarity analysis was confirmed as a highly reliable technique and more consistent than all spatial metrics evaluated. Significantly, the dissimilarity architecture was equivalent for musicians with and without dystonia and no expansion or spatial shift of digit representation maps were found in the symptomatic group. Our results therefore suggest that the neural representation of generic finger maps in primary sensorimotor cortex is intact in Musicians dystonia. These results are against the idea that task-specific dystonia is associated with a distorted hand somatotopy and suggests that task-specific dystonia is due to a higher order disruption of skill encoding. Such a formulation can better explain the task-specific deficit and offers mechanistic insight for therapeutic interventions.

scholarly journals Conserved structures of neural activity in sensorimotor cortex of freely moving rats allow cross-subject decoding

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svenja Melbaum ◽  
David Eriksson ◽  
Thomas Brox ◽  
Ilka Diester
Keyword(s):  
Sensorimotor Cortex ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Population Activity ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
Behavioral Paradigm ◽  
Structure Of Population ◽  
Freely Moving ◽  
Low Dimensional ◽  
Neuronal Code

Our knowledge about neuronal activity in the sensorimotor cortex relies primarily on stereotyped movements which are strictly controlled via the experimental settings. It remains unclear how results can be carried over to less constrained behavior, i.e. freely moving subjects. Towards this goal, we developed a self-paced behavioral paradigm which encouraged rats to conduct different types of movements. Via bilateral electrophysiological recordings across the entire sensorimotor cortex and simultaneous paw tracking, we identified behavioral coupling of neurons with lateralization and an anterior-posterior gradient from premotor to primary sensory cortex. The structure of population activity patterns was conserved across animals, in spite of severe undersampling of the total number of neurons and variations of electrode positions across individuals. Via alignments of low-dimensional neural manifolds, we demonstrate cross-subject and cross-session generalization in a decoding task arguing for a conserved neuronal code.

Neuronal Activity Patterns in Primate Primary Motor Cortex Related to Trained or Semiautomatic Jaw and Tongue Movements

2002 ◽  
Vol 87 (5) ◽  
pp. 2531-2541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongyuan Yao ◽  
Kensuke Yamamura ◽  
Noriyuki Narita ◽  
Ruth E. Martin ◽  
Gregory M. Murray ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Primary Motor Cortex ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Rhythmic Activity ◽  
Firing Frequency ◽  
Orofacial Movements ◽  
Jaw Opening ◽  
The Face ◽  
Tongue Movements ◽  
Opening Phase

The present study was undertaken to determine the firing patterns and the mechanoreceptive field (RF) properties of neurons within the face primary motor cortex (face-MI) in relation to chewing and other orofacial movements in the awake monkey. Of a total of 107 face-MI neurons recorded, 73 of 74 tested had activity related to chewing and 47 of 66 neurons tested showed activity related to a trained tongue task. Of the 73 chewing-related neurons, 52 (71.2%) showed clear rhythmic activity during rhythmic chewing. A total of 32 (43.8%) also showed significant alterations in activity in relation to the swallowing of a solid food (apple) bolus. Many of the chewing-related neurons (81.8% of 55 tested) had an orofacial RF, which for most was on the tongue dorsum. Tongue protrusion was evoked by intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) at most (63.6%) of the recording sites where neurons fired during the rhythmic jaw-opening phase, whereas tongue retraction was evoked by ICMS at most (66.7%) sites at which the neurons firing during the rhythmic jaw-closing phase were recorded. Of the 47 task-related neurons, 21 of 22 (95.5%) examined also showed chewing-related activity and 29 (61.7%) demonstrated significant alteration in activity in relation to the swallowing of a juice reward. There were no significant differences in the peak firing frequency among neuronal activities related to chewing, swallowing, or the task. These findings provide further evidence that face-MI may play an important role not only in trained orofacial movements but also in chewing as well as swallowing, including the control of tongue and jaw movements that occur during the masticatory sequence.

scholarly journals Brain Tissue Evaluation Based on Skeleton Shape and Similarity Analysis between Hemispheres

Computation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Lenuta Pana ◽  
Simona Moldovanu ◽  
Nilanjan Dey ◽  
Amira S. Ashour ◽  
Luminita Moraru
Keyword(s):  
Brain Tissue ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Similarity Index ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
Structural Similarity ◽  
Noise Removal ◽  
Mirror Reflection ◽  
Proton Density ◽  
Rician Noise ◽  
Evaluation Tool

Background: The purpose of this article is to provide a new evaluation tool based on skeleton maps to assess the tumoral and non-tumoral regions of the 2D MRI in PD-weighted (proton density) and T2w (T2-weighted type) brain images. Methods: The proposed method investigated inter-hemisphere brain tissue similarity using a mask in the right hemisphere and its mirror reflection in the left one. At the hemisphere level and for each ROI (region of interest), a morphological skeleton algorithm was used to efficiently investigate the similarity between hemispheres. Two datasets with 88 T2w and PD images belonging to healthy patients and patients diagnosed with glioma were investigated: D1 contains the original raw images affected by Rician noise and D2 consists of the same images pre-processed for noise removal. Results: The investigation was based on structural similarity assessment by using the Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and a modified Jaccard metrics. A novel S-Jaccard (Skeleton Jaccard) metric was proposed. Cluster accuracy was estimated based on the Silhouette method (SV). The Silhouette coefficient (SC) indicates the quality of the clustering process for the SSIM and S-Jaccard. To assess the overall classification accuracy an ROC curve implementation was carried out. Conclusions: Consistent results were obtained for healthy patients and for PD images of glioma. We demonstrated that the S-Jaccard metric based on skeletal similarity is an efficient tool for an inter-hemisphere brain similarity evaluation. The accuracy of the proposed skeletonization method was smaller for the original images affected by Rician noise (AUC = 0.883 (T2w) and 0.904 (PD)) but increased for denoised images (AUC = 0.951 (T2w) and 0.969 (PD)).

scholarly journals Bilateral versus ipsilesional cortico-subcortical activity patterns in stroke show hemispheric dependence

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Cristina Vidal ◽  
Paula Banca ◽  
Augusto G Pascoal ◽  
Gustavo C Santo ◽  
João Sargento-Freitas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Block Design ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Prognostic Indicator ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Stroke Patients ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Hemispheric Stroke ◽  
Constraint Induced Movement Therapy ◽  
Motor Outcomes

Background Understanding of interhemispheric interactions in stroke patients during motor control is an important clinical neuroscience quest that may provide important clues for neurorehabilitation. In stroke patients, bilateral overactivation in both hemispheres has been interpreted as a poor prognostic indicator of functional recovery. In contrast, ipsilesional patterns have been linked with better motor outcomes. Aim We investigated the pathophysiology of hemispheric interactions during limb movement without and with contralateral restraint, to mimic the effects of constraint-induced movement therapy. We used neuroimaging to probe brain activity with such a movement-dependent interhemispheric modulation paradigm. Methods We used an fMRI block design during which the plegic/paretic upper limb was recruited/mobilized to perform unilateral arm elevation, as a function of presence versus absence of contralateral limb restriction ( n = 20, with balanced left/right lesion sites). Results Analysis of 10 right-hemispheric stroke participants yielded bilateral sensorimotor cortex activation in all movement phases in contrast with the unilateral dominance seen in the 10 left-hemispheric stroke participants. Superimposition of contralateral restriction led to a prominent shift from activation to deactivation response patterns, in particular in cortical and basal ganglia motor areas in right-hemispheric stroke. Left-hemispheric stroke was in general characterized by reduced activation patterns, even in the absence of restriction, which induced additional cortical silencing. Conclusion The observed hemispheric-dependent activation/deactivation shifts are novel and these pathophysiological observations suggest short-term neuroplasticity that may be useful for hemisphere-tailored neurorehabilitation.

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